Birding and the element of surprise

An update in my love story with Locustella warblers!

adidab

In keeping with my aim of getting back to unserious and light-hearted blogging, I detail a recent intriguing dream.

Walking the future with advanced Kenbunshoku Haki

I awakened my advanced Kenbunshoku Haki in the heat of a trying battle. I can now plan futures and walk out my desires across them.

Hello again!

I return after yet another hiatus.

Global Big Day 2021

Series: Czech Birding

My last Big Day in the Czech Republic was on 8 May 2021. Inspired by friends like Honza, I planned to spend as much time as possible outside in the field. Now this would naturally have meant being outside from midnight to midnight, but due to being caught up with some work throughout the day on 7th and then twitching for a Red-breasted Goose in the evening, this wouldn’t have been a good idea.

Pseudo-spring birding in Bohemia

Series: Czech Birding

A spring birding trip to Šumava had been set in stone long back, but the question was when exactly. In early March, I dove head first into my thesis work, for its submission in mid-April. Despite having a crude calendar on which I crossed off each day as I passed it, that whole month and a half honestly flew past, and all I can remember is my laptop. As I got deeper into my work, I only realised that it would take even longer, and I was worried and frustrated that I would miss much of the springtime bird wonder.

Winter birding in Bohemia

Series: Czech Birding

As I near the end of my stay in the Czech Republic, I have been feeling quite guilty about not having travelled enough and I’ve had enough of diligently waiting for the pandemic to pass. Luckily for me, this has been an unusually cold winter, so I won’t be missing out on that experience. And I still have a lot of birding to do here. I asked Jan (Honza) Grünwald, who was technically my first Czech friend and whom I had found through eBird and contacted even before getting admitted to the university, if he’d be interested in birding together sometime, because I sure was!

Darkness

Posting now this draft which I had left slightly incomplete in 2019. I have retained most of the original essence of the note, only making a few edits and filling in a couple of lines. About a year ago, on one of the rare occasions I travelled back to Bangalore from home by bus, I as usual decided to put on my earphones and look out the window instead of going to sleep.

At the turn of the year…

So. 2020 was a curious year. For me personally, it was a trial in many ways. An opportunity for deep learning and growth. Well, I suppose any year is, but 2020 was particularly so. And no, it is not due only to the pandemic. Even the content and style of this blog is going to change, so I thought it worthwhile to write up this post. It was a long (but short!

A Lidl signboard

The other day, I was sitting at my desk as usual and occasionally looking out from my seventh-storey window onto the midday cityscape, when something suddenly caught my eye. It was something located around two-thirds of the way between me and the horizon. I immediately recognised it to be some sort of a signboard, seemingly hoisted proudly above its neighbours and towered over only by a handful of nearby communist apartment buildings.