| |
|
|
|
Red Sanders
What is Red Sanders?
Red Sanders is a tree or timber obtained from a tree which belongs to the species Pterocarpus santalinus. Red Sanders is also known as red sandalwood but it is not related to true sandalwood.
|
|
|
Read
More>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Moth Find a New Home
IN 1869, the French astronomer, Leopold Trouvelot, then teaching at Harvard University in the USA, was conducting experiments on butterflies and gypsy moths he had brought from Europe.
|
|
|
Read
More>>
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
The March of the Red Crab
CHRISTMAS Island is situated in the Indian Ocean about 360 kilometres south of Java in the Indonesian archipelago.
Around 1875 the British naturalist, Sir John Murray, stopped here while on an oceanographic expedition.
|
|
|
Read
More>>
|
|
|
|
|
|
Suicidal Birds
JATINGA is a small village in Assam. One moonless night in 1905 some of the villagers were searching for a lost buffalo when suddenly birds of various species began to drop down on them.
The birds seemed to be attracted by the lighted torches the men were carrying.
|
|
|
Read
More>>
|
|
|
Learn to make a whistle from a broken earthern pot or would you like to make a bird feeder so that you can watch birds on your window sill everyday. Our Activity Section teaches you to make simple things from easily available materials.
JATINGA is a small village in Assam. One moonless night in 1905 some of the villagers were searching for a lost buffalo when suddenly birds of various species began to drop down on them.
The birds seemed to be attracted by the lighted torches the men were carrying.
On landing, the birds appeared to be dazed and made no attempt to escape capture.
The villagers were the first to witness the strange behaviour of the birds of Jatinga. But not the last. Birds continue to fly down suicidally there on some moonless and foggy nights in the months of September - October, wherever lights are showing.
Scientists who have studied the phenomenon say the birds become hypnotised on landing and that is why they make no attempt to escape. The birds refuse all food offered to them and die (sometimes after several days) without coming out of the hypnotic state.
Curiously, three species of birds seem immune to the strange, unexplained madness that seizes the other birds. The three are the sparrow, the common myna and the red-vented bulbul.
