Category: Urban Fauna
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The Little Bird Over My Window
Sonali Chauhan During mid-March 2020, academic institutions in Delhi were put under lockdown. A few days later, office work, general discussions, and conversations shifted to online mode. Apart from the pandemic, the conversations were centered around the topic of anxiety and mental stress that may increase due to our current sedentary lifestyle. People are devising…
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Animal Geographies I: A brief overview
Kartik Chugh “Coronavirus: Industrial animal farming has caused most new infectious diseases and risks more pandemics, experts warn.” – The Independent (May 2020) “From Hamsters to Baboons: The Animals Helping Scientists Understand the Coronavirus.” – Scientific American (May 2020) “The wild animals at risk in lockdown” BBC (May 2020) These three recent headlines show some…
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Avid Birding in Covid Times: Experience from Guwahati
Fizala Tayebulla This post is a personal account of birds that I have curated from my “Corona_Birding_Ghy” photo album. I understand that maybe not everyone is crazed about birding as an activity. It is tedious, often accompanied by neck strain from looking upwards through branches of tall trees for long periods (or until one is…
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Entangled Spaces: Lime Swallowtail in my Urban Garden
Kartik Chugh Spending almost all the time at home in the past month and a half, I’ve learned to appreciate my surroundings better. I’m finding little joys in watching birds landing on my terrace to quench their thirst, a troop of macaques negotiating the urban infrastructure, and occasional butterflies that stop by my urban garden.…
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Birding from my Balcony
Ajay Immanuel Gonji Growing up as a child, I loved animals and birds. One of my first experiences watching animals was when my dad would take me around our neighbourhood on the scooter showing me cows and buffaloes. At home, the pets I grew up with included fishes, ducks, chickens, rabbits, dogs, mynas, pigeons, parakeets…
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Flying High to Flying Feral
Vijaylakshmi It has been almost a month in lockdown, and while most of my time goes in procrastination, I also spend some time early mornings and evenings in a small balcony adjacent to my room. Having an interest in bird watching (ornithology), like a typical bird watcher, I keep an eye for new or not…
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Reclaiming Lost Ground
Divya Mehra On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 or Coronavirus Disease 2019 outbreak as a ‘Pandemic’. As the number of COVID-19 cases increased manifold outside China, where it first originated, soon the enormity and seriousness of the COVID-19 threat dawned on most human beings on the planet. According to…
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Animal Movement and Human Response Amidst the Lockdown
Shashank Bhardwaj As most people around the globe sit at home to fight the global pandemic (COVID-19), the hustle and bustle of most city streets are missing. To curb this pandemic, many countries have adopted social distancing measures, including partial and complete nationwide lockdowns. While such drastic measures may be important, there’s no denying the…
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Monkey Business: Gaining Access and Rights to the City
Rashmi Singh* & Ajay Immanuel Gonji Introduction In a previous blog article, we had talked about some of our daily interactions with the monkeys (Rhesus Macaque, Macaca mulatta) in Ambedkar University Delhi, Kashmere Gate (AUDKG). We also narrated an incident where we observed, for the first time, certain societal aspects of monkey life. In this…
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In Times of a Pandemic: (Re)thinking Relationships with Earth Others
Kartik Chugh It was the last week of 2019 when health authorities in China notified the world about a novel virus outbreak in their communities. An increasingly growing number of people were developing a dry cough and fever before getting pneumonia. Doctors named this disease COVID-19 (or Coronavirus Disease 2019) which was caused by a…