Crow-pheasant or Coucal is a clumsy(uppan)



Called uppan in malayalam and in Hindi ‘Mahoka’ , Crow Pheasant or Coucal sis a beautiful terrestrial bird, and although it resembles pheasants, it belongs to Cuculidae family, but it is not a brood parasite. It is also known as Crow Pheasant or Coucal.  It’s a clumsy, glossy black bird with conspicuous wings and long, broad, black, graduated tail. One can easily identify it by its deep, resonant coop-coop-coop in the series of six, seven or even twenty.
Sometimes two birds synchronize their call and the entire jungle lightens up with their orchestrated performance. When (probably) not in ‘mood’ the bird also utters a variety of harsh croaks and gurgling chuckles. It affects open forests, grassland interspersed with shrubs where its possible for it to stalk and hide. It can also be seen in villages. It loves to eat caterpillars, large insects, snails, lizards, young mice and eggs of birds. Both the sexes are alike and can be seen singly or in pairs.
The bird is found all over the Indian Union, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. In the Himalayas it can be found upto the height of 2000 meters. Nesting season is from February to September and may vary locally. Its nest is an untidy collection of twigs and branches where three or four glossless eggs are laid.

Wild Beauty

Some times beauty lies hidden, somebody  should explore it and should have an eye and a heart to realize it. Beauty lies in the eyes

Pappus (appopan thadi)


The pappus is the modified calyx, the part of an individual floret, that surrounds the base of the corolla tube in flower heads of the plant family Asteraceae. The term is sometimes used in other plant families such as Asclepiadaceae (milkweeds), whose seeds have a similar structure attached, although it has not related to the calyx of the flower.
The Asteraceae pappus may be composed of bristles (sometimes feathery), awns, scales, or may be absent. In some species, the pappus is too small to see without magnification. In some species, such as Dandelion or Eupatorium, feathery bristles of the pappus function as a "parachute" which enables the seed to be carried by the wind.[1] The name derives from the Ancient Greek word pappos, Latin pappus, meaning "old man", so used for a plant (assumed to be an Erigeron species) having bristles and also for the woolly, hairy seed of certain plants ( information from wiki pedia)