Looking down

 Fresh leaves, dried leaves, I do spy
light green, dark green, brown...
and even a Lemon Pansy butterfly. 

Green circles, pink stars
Brown sand and grey wall, and
Amaryllis lilies, from afar.

 

More on the sand wasp

May/June 2021

 

Covid quarantine

Morning coffee on the patio steps.

Watching the Quisqualis fallen blooms

Being disturbed by a buzzing.

A green and black digger

vanished into a hole

at great speed

in the blink of an eye.

Another one I spied

Hovering and humming

searching it seemed

for its secret entrance.

And then it vanished within.

I take a picture, 

ASK MNS

voila, an id emerges - sand wasp, Bembix species - 

even before the said insect did!

Anyways, the next few mornings

coffee and sand wasp gazing.

Sagarika sent me this link - Bug Eric had seen them in North America.

Which one was mine

Here in Chennai

I still have not figured.

Watched the way she shovels 

so powerfully

front legs flinging the sand

making tunnels

laying eggs

feeding larvae

catching flies.

And this link described the males

buzzing and wasping

patrolling the openings

laying wait for the female to emerge;

copulate.

One track minds

or instinct?

Quarantine ends

My observations come to a halt

generations of wasps

buzz in and out

unseen and unheralded. 

Lockdown again

25th May 2021

While we humans struggle with the pandemic, life goes on.

The sapotas are getting ready, and I eye them everyday with delight.

Technically, this is the neighbour's tree, the boughs nicely overhanging on to our garden, inviting us to reach out and pluck a few fruits.  So whats's the ethics of this I wonder - may I pluck or not?  Can I covet these fruits?

And the jasmine blooms every day, and I never get bored of watching them.

Two blooms and a bud.  Gundu mallis.  And see the leaves all washed with the rain.

Under the Rangoon Creeper, an insect buzzed around, and then alighted on the mud, kicking furiously with its front legs, as it burrowed inwards.  

I had not seen one of these earlier.  Lovely green and black markings.  It buzzed as it moved around, and I marvelled as to how far the sand it kicked went.  

My naturalist friends identified it as a sand wasp species - Bembix - but I am as yet unable to figure out which one.  This one's colouring quite different from the other Bembix specimens I found online.

Lockdown diaries - Home to see the 'baby', and a happy Mother's Day

The "mother" Kopsia in my mother's garden 

And I got home to finally see the "baby" in flower.

Strange, inexplicable joy and delight.

And the coppersmith barbets have returned in my absence, tonk-tonking on the neighbour's bare teak tree.  Ever since the Millingtonia fell, they have been absent.

And the koels are calling frantically.  All night long it feels like.

Lockdown Diaries - Changing colours, trading places

White blooms at dusk
Light pink the next day
And flaming red thereafter,

the Rangoon malli always fascinated me, from my childhood.
How could this plant have flowers of so many hues?

Upright buds
Drooping blooms

I admired them this morning

once again

as I sought refuge

in my mother's garden, 

following the tailor bird

that called to me from within.

Combretum indicum, aka Quisqualis indica aka Rangoon creeper aka Rangoon malli

Season Watch - Porana volubis again

A Photo essay.  Continued from here.  

And the brilliance of the mallow.

Peaceful exhilaration

Today, I visited my mother's garden for a special reason.  The Horse Tail creeper is in bloom and that is an annual event not to be missed, for it is brief, spectacular and never fails to delight me.

For 350 days in the year, the vine is like a dark green curtain, cocooning my parents from the squat cement wall of the neighbours.  And then for a couple of weeks every year, the vine blooms.  And how!

Usually, the two weeks are in January, sometimes even February, but here we are this year, in December, with a poor monsoon, and some clock in the plant has struck the blooming hour.

Porana volubilis, of the Convolvulaceae family - Horse tail creeper in bloom

Do the bees feel the awe and delight that I do, I wondered as I quietly watched them flit from flower to flower. Somewhere, a honeycomb was being filled with sweet nectar from my mother’s garden.

Exuberant bunches, swathes of white, sweet fragrance, the drama of it all.

The softly falling petals. So much beauty. So temporary. So mortal. In a few days, maybe even tomorrow, they will be a memory.

The wild mallow seemed to keep a watch.

Until next season then, I bade goodbye to the blooms.

The Allamanda

The vine draws my eye upwards

And my heart follows

Looking down at passers by

Allamanda blanchetii

Paved with gold

Does that chameleon feel like a king?
Do its eyes behold the beauty?

A visitor to my mother's garden

Actias selene - Indian moon moth.  (Picture taken by my mother)

Moments of magic that a little green and little calm bring into our lives.  My mother's garden is a little oasis for creatures in the neighbourhood.  A peacock rested here not so long ago, sunbirds are always busy in the creepers, babblers hop and babble as they shop for worms, and then today this beautiful moth emerged!

The wonders of Nature never cease to amaze me.  What beauty in a creature so ephemeral.  I learnt that these moths are silk spinners and they also have a life cycle that is evanescent and fleeting.

They emerge out of their silk cocoons without a mouth - their only job to mate.  It seems that they usually hatch mid morning, and wait for the sun to dry their wings, by nightfall they are ready to fly and find a mate, and in a week they are dead, having (hopefully) done their job of ensuring the survival of the species.

The pale green of its wings giving it a good camouflage, the wispy delicate tail, the little "moons" on its wings, pink legs, a white hairy body and the distinct red brown margin, all evident as it swayed in the light January breeze.

From descriptions, this particular one seems to be a female, less pink on the tail and antennae which are less stubby.  If so, she would be releasing pheromones tonight and attracting a male from as far away as four kms.

I will keep an eye on that hibiscus plant, for maybe just maybe there is a set of eggs that will be laid, and my mother's garden would have done its bit in helping this endangered species continue to thrive.

Indian moon moth videos, photos and facts

Basho and me

Wanderer, nature poet and philosopher. Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa aka Basho, Haiku Master.

I was reading his Haikus yesterday, and these ones particularly stuck in my head as so apt for the wanderers in our family.

Wake! The sky is light!

let us to the road

again . . .

Companion butterfly!

Copsia-petal

fell in silent dawn . . .

spilling

A water-jewel.

(The original Basho was with Camellia) 

Ah me! I am one

who spends his little

breakfast

Morning-glory gazing.

Long conversations 

beside blooming amarylses – 

joys of life on the road.

(The original Basho was with irises) 

In the twilight rain

these brilliant-hued

hibiscus . . .

A lovely sunset

Lady butterfly

perfumes her wings

by floating

Over the orchid.

Silent the old town . . .

the scent of flowers

floating . . .

And evening bell.

I'm a wanderer 

so let that be my name – 

the first winter rain 

My mother's garden

18th April

It is a sunny summers day in Madras.  I open the gate and stand for a minute.  It is always the same, I enter the garden and my mind is stilled, and life slows down.

This time, I am thankful for this refuge, this personal sanctuary and linger on outside.  I postpone seeing my mother's warm smile and walking in to my father's cheerful chatter as I quietly make my way around the house.

The gnarled trunk of the Bottlebrush tree has always been my favourite, and today, it looks magical with the Peltaforum flowers like little drops of sunshine on the ground

Along the wall, the Quisqualis flowers nod in bunches. 

I stand in their shade and look up at the bright blue sky and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" plays in my head.

The Copsia delights my Ikebana senses, with its graceful lines and delicate flowers

Those flowers, in shades of pink and white, so lovely yet so shortlived.

The lipstick red of the Hibiscus blazes in the sun, while in the shade the Amaralis lilies are more muted and elegant I thought.

I had not noticed this creamy bloom before in the garden, was it a new addition, I wondered.  Or has it been so long since I wandered around the back?

The mango flowers were precursors of the coming season

The crows seem to know too, as they hang around and caw.  The mynahs on the coconut tree seemed to be discussing my presence in a most disapproving fashion, while the sunbirds ignored me, too busy in their search for nectar.

A parakeet went screeching into the neighbour's garden, as I moved on further and came across these flowers.  The little white ones, (need to find out what they are called), I wonder if they belong to the grass family.

In the corner by the wall, the spider lilies grow in abundance, happy for the space, the sunshine and the water it seemed.

As I circled back to the front, the always blooming desert rose greeted me.  The seed from this plant has grown in a pot in my balcony, and I love the way it blooms in the hot Madras summer.

Back to the Peltaforum tree that had showered its flowers under the bottle brush, and I have come full circle.

My little "pilgrimage" done.

Alamanda beauty

From my mother's garden she came.  Now happily settled and blooming.
Lifts my heart from the mundane every morning.

My mother's garden

My mother wrote this to me - 

"25th July 2013 -

After my return from Bengaluru I have been hearing the call of a peacock periodically.  I alerted your father about this unusual sound, but did not get any attention.

Today,  he himself spotted a peahen on the rear lawn, it amazed him so much that he disturbed my yoga to call me to the sight.  She had moved to the front and we were careful not to disturb her.  She walked back to the rear lawn so fearlessly, majestically.

Such a perfect specimen, the colour, design and shape like in the books. Her neck moved in all  direction continuously, not afraid of our whispers;

It then occured to us that we should photograph her. My camera as usual the battery was discharged, but your father decided to use his cellphone.  He walked slowly to the open well for proximity, but she just flew to
our neighbour's wall, where we were successful in capturing a picture
of her.

Imagine our delight to boast of such a visitor! Such a surprise in the morning! And a stunning joy for us. The event has made your father tongue-tied and there is silence in Trishul."

The peahen was the talk of our family for a while, the grandchildren were blase, I was intrigued and my parents were really wonderstruck. 

It has not been seen since.

30th Oct 2013

This time my mother was well-prepared with her camera.  In her morning perambulations through the garden, she saw this fellow amidst the hibiscus flowers.  She hurried back to her room and got the camera out, and took this picture to show me.

All through this, he sat still, fixing my mother with his beady stare.

A short horned grasshopper, but which one?  There are some 10,000 types, and I wouldn't know which one this is.

But check out the camouflage.  My mother sure was alert to spot this chap.