Wildbytes.tv

I have uploaded over 100 videos relating to nature and wildlife in wildbytes Youtube channel.  These videos are drawn from my experiences in various National Parks in India nad abroad plus videos of experts talking on related subjects wherever I could manage hearing and recording them. 

The channel is aimed at all nature lovers who care about the environment we live in. 

It will be good if you can watch and write in your comments about the content of the videos.  Many of you will have comments to add which will enrich the content in each video. 

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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCng_XfXfguqI-mX1x1xXdWA

Education for Sustainability

The talk given by Mr.Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for HRD on 29th July
2009 at Teen Murti house, was really `Manna' to an
environmentalist's ear. The crux of his talk was that
`Environment Education' should be at the center of education,
all other knowledge can follow. All scientific data and processes are
available with nature.

"Bring science into education; all aspects of science can be learnt
from nature. Science taught in correlation with nature is understood
best.

"Education for sustainable development in an era of climate change,
calls for a change in mindsets. The need is to reach out to communities
and have a dialogue. Teachers within the community will have knowledge
at ground level".

" Teaching of a subject must be holistic. Environmental issues can
be effectively linked to say, automobile engineering. Teaching of music
can take off from nature…."

" Communicating with nature creates a sense of preservation of
nature at the heart of education…"

"The government's aim is to connect all villages of India in the
next three years. This can lead to leapfrog in education. We must be
ready with relevant content in the meantime."

Heart of all content is nature.

No space for gardening?

Many of us shy away from growing plants with the excuse that we do not have a backyard/front yard, we live in small flats etc. But gardening is all about having the will to grow a plant and having the patience to watch the plant grow. This is the message which came to me strongly when I noticed the Public Art installation near the Chandni Chowk Metro station by Prayas Abhinav of Bangalore.

The installation is on top of a tea stall and shows plants like ghobi, tulsi, palak etc which can be grown on top of the stall to meet the daily needs of the stall owner. The volunteer at the site explained to us proudly " Ma'm this is how we can all contribute to reduce global warming". I was touched.

Honey Bees

I found this honeycomb buzzing with bees, snug under the creeper on my wall-the flaming glory.

I wondered where the honey came from. Then I saw the bees collecting honey
from the Madhu Malti flowers every day morning.




Social bees use waxy secretions from their bodies to build large nests and
containers in which to store food and raise young.

About a year later I found the nest abandoned. Probably the bees were bumble bees and not honey bees as I had assumed. They produce honey too, but in lesser quantities compared to honey bees.



Where did the bees go? Not far but onto the silk cotton tree branch right outside our house.


In India, beekeeping has been mainly forest based. Several natural plant species provide nectar and pollen to honey bees. Thus, the raw material for production of honey is available free from nature.

Tribal populations and forest dwellers in several parts of India have honey collection from wild honey bee nests as their traditional profession. The methods of collection of honey and beeswax from these nests have changed only slightly over the millennia.

The major regions for production of this honey are the forests and farms along the sub-Himalayan tracts and adjacent foothills, tropical forest and cultivated vegetation in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Eastern Ghats in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

Forest honey, mostly from rock bee hives, is usually collected by tribals in forests and is procured by forest or tribal corporations as a minor forest produce. Quite a large quantity is also collected by groups or individuals on their own.

Forest honey is usually thin, contains large quantity of pollen, bee juices and parts, wax and soil particles. The honey collector gets between Rs.10 and Rs.25 per kilogram of the forest honey.

Forest honeys are mostly multifloral. Wayanad district, which accounts for the bulk of wild honey in extracted from Kerala, yielded a total of 27,000 kg in 2006-07.

Wild honey is mostly purchased by ayurvedic drug makers, whose demand for natural, unadulterated honey has been on the rise.

Gardening for butterflies

Gardening for butterflies slide show

Gardening for wildlife

Flaming glory is a creeper common in the North of India, attractive with red bunches of flowers. I believe it is an exotic creeper but it is a popular one seen in many houses in Gurgaon. Here is a slide show on the wildlife it harbours!

http://www.wildbytes.in/backyard-wildlife/index.html#2.0

Urban wildlife- survival instincts of lapwings

The red wattled lapwing is a regular visitor to our neighbourhood park. So I was thrilled to see three spotted eggs on the ground on 5th June. The eggs were laid in the centre of the Park which sees morning walkers doing their rounds every day (who would not notice the eggs anyway) and young children playing football and cricket in the evenings. To protect the eggs the bird had laid the eggs underneath a tree-guard.

Today morning (9th June), I went to check on the eggs. There was no one in the Park. But I was delighted to see two small chicks with their mother. The mother noticed me as I was still at the gate and started alarm calls. The pitch went higher and higher as I tried to go close. The chicks scampered in one direction while the mother went in another. Soon the father lapwing appeared on the scene and started shrieking. Then, an amazing thing happened. The chicks suddenly disappeared in the grass and made themselves invisible. Almost simultaneously, sparrows and Indian robins started flying around the area even as the parent lapwings held on to their spots. I was mesmerised by this amazing act of community feeling!

Needless to say I had to return without a photo. I could not help but feel moved enough to write this blog!

Weapons of mass destruction

"Such is the lack of information about the biodiversity of Arunachal Pradesh that the Arunachal Macaque (Macaca munzala) - a species of monkey already known to the native people of Arunachal (especially to the Monpas of Tawang and the tribes of the West Kameng District) as Munzala or the “monkey of the deep forest”, remained unknown to scientists and biologists till it was “discovered” in 2004. The so called “discovery” was waiting to happen and it was after more than a hundred years that a new species of macaque was discovered (the last recent discovery being the Indonesian Pagai Island Macaque in 1903)."

Read an interesting article by Govind Singh at the link


Source: http://www.indianwildlifeclub.com/ezine/index.asp?m=5&y=2008