There is no mistaking it when a rose-ringed parakeet lands near you. Loud in both plumage and voice, their brilliant green color and loud squawking call demands attention and makes this character an active, and unmissable inhabitant of the ashram as well as most of India.

The adult male has a rose or black neck ring, from which the species gets its name. The females and immature birds of both sexes either show no or very pale neck rings. These are not the small budgies or parakeets that are sold in the USA as pets, but they are instead a rather robust and raucous bully of a parakeet, measuring a whopping 40 cm in length, including the tail feathers and with a wing span of about 48cm  

This noisy species is one of the few parrot species that have successfully adapted to living in disturbed habitats and has been able to has withstand the onslaught of urbanization and deforestation. As a popular pet species, escaped birds have become established in a number of cities around the world, including Northern and Western Europe.
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​In the wild, rose-ringed parakeets usually feed on buds, fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, and seeds. Large flocks often fly several miles to forage in farmlands and orchards, causing extensive damage, and making the species highly unpopular with farmers.I’ve included an amazeng picture ©Vivek rathod17 from Wikimedia to show you the threat they pose to farmers’s crops.

A group of Peafowl is poetically and appropriately, known as an “ascension”. To see the glory of a male peafowl in the wild with their long ostentatious iridescent tails, and sapphire feathered crest, neck, and breast, makes it clear peacocks have ascended to a glorified position in the animal world. It is not a surprise that throughout history the peacock has been associated with royalty, pride and immortality, and is the national bird of India.

The term peacock is properly reserved for the male; the female is known as a peahen, and the immature offspring are peachicks.
Females are as big as males but lack the magnificent long “tail” or “ train.” This "train," consists not of tail feathers at all, but highly elongated, upper tail covers that grow out from the lower back above the tail. 

Though awe inspiring and beautiful, they fly about like a cinderblock. Their heavy bodies, short wings, and the male’s massive tail conspirie to ruin their aerodynamics. Despite their aeronautical challenges they often fly high into the trees to roost in safety for the night.

Everyday I see them wandering the fields for food happily eating anything they can stuff in their mouth and digest; plant parts, flower petals, seed heads, insects and other arthropods, reptiles, and amphibians.

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"In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught.”

This often quoted line was spoken by Baba Dioum, a Senegalese forestry engineer during a presentation in New Delhi in 1968, at the General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

With his sound observations in mind, I am excited to announce full college scholarships for two students from Panchla Siddha, Rajasthan to any University in India in order to obtain a BS degree in Wildlife Biology or Environmental Education.

The two scholarships will be awarded to a boy and a girl, one in 2019 and one in 2020, These scholarships will provide two village student with funding necessary to pursue a career in the field of conservation. 

I believe that we must have reverence for the natural world, but we must also have the knowledge, training, and skills to turn a deep reverence into a conservation or land ethic. These trained scientists and environmental educators will help us continue our work to protect the beauty and diversity of the great wild places of our planet for the next generation.

One scholarship will be funded by the Shri Jasnath Asan Trust http://www.shrijasnathasan.org/shridev-jasnath-trust/. The second scholarship is half funded by the great generosity of Jessica Pociask, founder of WANT Expeditions https://wantexpeditions.com of Traverse City, MI with the remaining funding obtained through a GoFund crowd-sourced campaign. 

​If you are interested in donating - stay tuned. I will be sending out specific information, as soon as it is available.

I just wanted to share a few images from the opening Reception of the Two Deserts, One Sky Murals at Shri jasnath Asan in Rajasthan tonight. After two years of work and lots of support from a lot of people - together, we all made it happen.

For those not familiar with the Two Deserts, One Sky art-based environmental education project please visit the project summary at http://skydanceblog.weebly.com/2016-2017-project.html.

The biggest thanks goes out to the students photographers on two continents that did such an amazing job capturing the beauty of two deserts a world apart he Mojave Desert of the U.S.A. and the Thar Desert of Rajasthan.Your work is simply amazing.

Thanks also goes out to the dedicated environmental educators at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Red Rock Canyon NCA, and Desert National Wildlife Refuge as well as instructors from Adelson Educational Campus and Nevada Virtual Academy in the U.S.A. Also lets not forget the generosity of Artists for Conservation, Nevada Arts Council, National Endowments for the Arts, Want Expeditions, and Red Rock Audubon from the United States.

And above all lets recognize the amazing staff of the Nevada State Museum, U.S.A. where the show first premiered, or the wonderful inspiring people at Shri Jasnath Asan. A partial List of our partners can be found at http://skydanceblog.weebly.com/partners.html

The White -throated Kingfisher, with its back and wings of brilliant turquoise, brilliant white chest and throat, and a rich chestnut head, is one bird in India that does not allow itself to be ignored. 

This dangerously dapper bird is one of the more showy non-migratory residents at the Ashram. Large at 27 - 28 cm, the kingfisher is less reliant on aquatic habitats than many kingfishers. Our showy friend can often be seen in the late afternoons perched on a power line behind the main buildings surveying the fallow fields below for a large variety of prey.
Now and then he explodes in a flash of turquoise wings, drops to the ground and nabs some unsuspecting prey such as large insects, small reptiles, amphibians, small rodents or even an occasional bird.

This visit the kingship was less than cooperative and stayed a long ways away from my lens. I included a couple of images I took last time I was here, because you just have to see the kingfisher’s stunning wings out stretched.
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