Brown-backed Red Marsh Hawk Dragonfly

This is the first dragonfly to be featured on Nature magnified, and it appears to deserve the honour! The Brown-backed Red Marsh Hawk (Orthetrum chrysis) is a medium sized dragonfly with a blood red tail and brown thorax.

Its eyes are coffee brown above and bluish grey below.

The wing bases are an amber colour and the wing spots are a dark reddish brown.

The images shown here are of the male. the female is bright ochreous with black markings

These dragonflies are widely distributed throughout India and are commonly seen around marshes, ponds, paddy fields and stagnant parts of rivers and streams.

Dragonflies of India- A Field Guide – Free ebook Download

I haven’t been into Dragonflies at all and as a result haven’t been featuring many dragonflies on this site in spite of there being a great variety of them around Karimannoor. However, when I did try and identify some, there was very little information on Indian Dragonflies on the net…. That was until I found a most excellent field guide on the web, and believe it or not, its free too!

 

This Book entitled Dragonflies of India- A Field Guide, is written by K.A.Subramanian, and published by Vigyan Prasar (Department of Science and Technology).

I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded it from HERE (you will need to register for a free password and username). The book is a complete field guide, with some excellent full colour photographs  and a full identification key of both Dragonflies as well as Dameselflies of India (and their Larvae).

Below are examples of pages dedicated to each species:

I`m really impressed by this guide and I hope to Identify and feature a few dragonflies of Kerala / Karimannoor in the coming days.

Note: The file available on the Vigyan Prasar site is an 80 MB file which opens with Acrobat Reader. However, it is not a .pdf file. For those of you who have trouble accessing the file, do contact me (thomas.vee(at)gmail(dot)com) and I will try and send you a PDF version.

Red-whiskered Bulbul

The Red-whiskered Bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus) is a common bird around Karimannoor. It gets its name from the red patch below its eyes.

The bird is native to South Asia but it has been introduced into parts of North America, such as Florida and Hawaii through unauthorised cage releases.

The Bulbuls are mostly frugivorous, feeding on fruits, but they also take nectar and insect prey. Although they have been reported to feed in flocks, I`ve not seen more than a couple of them at any one time in Karimannoor.

Dussumier’s Skink (s)

Having posted about the Garden Lizard earlier, I thought it was time to get some images of another common reptile that frequents our neighbourhood – the Dussumeir’s skinks.

Skinks are a group of reptiles which resemble the snakes more than lizards. They are the most diverse group of lizards.

Although most skinks, like the one featured here, have two pairs of limbs, some species have either reduced limbs, reduced hind limbs or no limbs at all.

When a skink is attacked, it may shed its tail, which continues to twitch without the body. This distracts the predator while the skink makes its escape. The tail is regenerated later.

The skinks are carnivorous and feed mainly on insects, earthworms and slugs.

These skinks prefer to live under logs and stones or amidst leaves and twigs. They are active by day and frequent water sources and other areas frequented by insects.

Skinks include , egg laying, live bearing and a mix of the two (ovoviviparous) types of birth. As far as I am aware this species are oviparous (egg laying).

The skinks are often kept as pets and they may get used to a more vegetarian diet. However in nature they are voracious predators and on hot days can be very active stalking and munching on their insect prey or fighting among themselves.

To get these images of the Dussumier’s skinks I waited for and hot and humid morning when the sun was shining enough to warm the blood of these cold blooded creatures and make them active. There were more than enough candidates on view and it was just a matter of picking and choosing which ones to photograph, however most of the lizards were small, immature ones (above and below) of around 10 cm long and I had to wait a while before finding a big one (4th image) which was about a foot long from head to tail (a forest skink). That fellow, however didn’t hang around for too long.

I used a 70-300mm Minolta lens with my Sony A500 camera. The lighting alternated between shady to bright sunlight and I employed a Minolta 3600D flash on the camera when needed. I had to get close enough to get smooth bokehs but these lizards were not as tolerant as the garden lizard and  that made things a little harder.

P.S:

The species featured here seem to include the Dussumier’s forest skink as well as the Dussumier’s litter skink. Thanks to Shawn from Creatures of the Wild for pointing that out for me.  The 3rd 4th and 5th images appear to be of the forest skink, while all the rest, sporting a red tail appear to be litter skinks. Thanks Shawn.

The Bloodsucker - Oriental Garden Lizard

The Oriental Garden lizard (Calotes versicolor) is commonly seen in many parts of the world. However it is the male in breeding season that makes this creature worth noting.

The garden lizard is commonly referred to as the “Bloodsucker”. This name is incorrectly pinned on this harmless creature due to the red throat that the breeding male displays during breeding season.

It is thought that the red throat was due to the lizard sucking blood. However this is not true. When I stepped out of the house today, I was greeted by one such displaying male.

I quickly grabbed my camera, switched to my 70-300mm and began shooting away.

The lizard is normally a dull brown to olive colour and can switch colours as needed.

The lizard didn’t seem to mind my presence but it slowly began to lose its colour as I got closer.

The garden lizard is also called as the crested lizard (or the changeable lizard) as both the male and female have crests along its back up to its tail. It preys on insects other lizards and even small vertebrates. They have teeth but it is used more for gripping than biting. When we were kids, I remember one bit our cat and just refused to let go! The cat not only survived but also had its attacker for lunch!

Rufous Tree-Pie

The Rufous Tree-pie (Dendrocitta vagabunda) is among the noisiest of the birds found in Karimannoor. It is a member of the crow family, and has a wide distribution across India.

It is an arboreal species, feeding mostly among the tree tops where it is very agile. It is commonly found in mixed hunting parties with Drongos, Orioles and Babblers. They are omnivorous and will feed on a wide variety of food ranging from fruit and seeds to insects, reptiles and even young birds.

In Kerala, these birds are called the “Olanjaali” refering to its common occurrence on coconut trees. They are beneficial to the trees as they feed on the grubs of the destructive weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus.

White-rumped Munia

Most of the birds of Karimannoor that I`ve featured here previously are insectivorous.  However there is one seed-eating species present – The White-rumped Munia (Lonchura striata).

This bird, which is also called as the White-rumped Mannikin or the Striated Finch, is a small bird belonging to the finch family.

The adults are brown above, until the breast and white below and the sexes are alike.

The bird is commonly seen in South and southeast Asia and is a resident breeder in most parts.

These birds are not very conspicuous and generally keep to the grasslands and undergrowth, thus are not easily noted even in their numbers. However, they may occasionally become pests of grains.

In many parts of the world, they are kept as pets.