Rosary: Gap Year Week 38

“In every direction something loomed; it was easy to think us pioneers, completely alone in a landscape nearly ethereal.” Life on the pasture.

Jacana’s Jaunt

A bronze-winged jacana makes its slow way across a flower-covered pond, its large feet allowing it to balance on the thin surface of green.

Lime

A Common Lime butterfly pauses on a flower. These urban denizens flourish with the lime plants around Chinese New Year, brilliant in black and cream.

Curlews of Stone

Great thick-knees are distinctly odd birds.

Revelations of the Night

We stop. The light goes off, and we stand still, breathing in the feeling of forest around.

Serpent Stars

A species of brittle sea star sprawls, indolent on a sun-bathed rock, one arm testing a crevice it can secret itself in. It spreads itself, comfortable in its long limbs that name them also serpent stars. They are quick and flexible; we find them hiding under rocks, jammed in impossible small cracks. They are slender…

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Grebe Among the Flowers

Little grebes tend to hide among vegetation; they are small, and despite the brilliant maroon of the male's neck, easily missed in a lake blanketed with lily pads; they nest among reeds, carefully covering eggs with grass to shelter them from predators' eyes when they leave. In the water, they dart quickly, nervously, under the…

Squirrel on the Scent

A Malabar Giant Squirrel, a distinctive two-toned mammal endemic to the Western Ghats, pauses on a tree branch. These wary and shy creatures are difficult to spot, preferring to flatten themselves against a trunk rather than give themselves away through sudden movement. They are capable, however, of jumping up to six meters - and still…

Vernal

Vernal hanging parrots streak across the forests in emerald shards.

Portrait of a Cockatoo

Tanimbar corellas come in screeching numbers.