Field Girl: Gap Year Week 45

"I realized, as my parents and I drove to Mysore for the meet, that I had never quite answered the question for myself. Somehow, I’d always assumed I’d end up in science."

On Top of the World: Gap Year Week 40

"In a landscape characterized by its tight-knit isolation, where things change, literally, glacially if at all, the transient population of tourists are the ones with the impacts that linger far beyond their ephemeral visits."

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.

Forest of Spirits: Gap Year Week 30

"I was here because these birds were special. Because I could see them nowhere else. Because, by seeing them here, I held another piece of wild in my hands."

Andamans Again: Gap Year Week 25

If the last time in the Andamans was for the sea, this time was for the land, and its inhabitants.

Castles in the Air: Gap Year Week 22

My aunt and uncle and I are eight hours away from the heavy gray blotch where Delhi hides. We’re one thousand and three hundred meters up, high enough to see through the plains, the silver river winding like a question mark through, low enough that thick forests surround our upward drive. I’ve spent three days…

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Diving Deep: Gap Year Week 19

"This is why I’m taking a gap year—to come to things, new or old, and dive in headfirst without needing anything from it. For these firsts that let me see the world in fresh ways, over and over, from beneath the surface."

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.