So Far 2020 For a Nature Enthusiast

Various reasons kept me at home, travel was not an option in 2020, but there was a silver lining

In the beginning of 2020,  it seemed like the option left for me was to focus more on home biodiversity and keep reading on topics regarding nature. It was time to keep the writing about nature without hindrance and thankfully there were opportunities to share those with others through websites.

First one to get published in the year 2020 was my poem about Great Indian Bustards and the issues they face in their fight against the danger of being extinct from the face of Earth. The Great Indian Bustards’ Plea was published on spillwords.com and was one of the few contributions that I shared with this website in the year 2020.

In March I was selected as Gallery Member of the Month for Saevus Wildlife for that month. This gave me an opportunity to showcase my images and share my experiences in the Saevus Wildlife social media handles in their Tete-a-tete with Gallery Members and also my interview was published in their magazine June-Nov edition.

As the lockdown in India due to Covid 19 was announced and we had to stay indoors I decided to look after the Common Mormon caterpillars in my curry leaf plant. It was at this time I published a poem on my mother. Mother You’re Not Here came in spillwords.com in the beginning of April which was tribute to my mother who passed away in the end of 2019 after which my life has never been the same. 

The growth of caterpillar and the lessons that I learned in the course of observing it was published on Conservation Optimism Website as Nature’s Lesson During Lockdown. Also the sudden appearance of a bunch of migrant rosy starlings in our compound led to the article which was published in Planet Untamed as The Visitors with Wings. It was now sure that travelling was not an option for a while, the focus shifted to home biodiversity and sharing my travel experience.

In May I was grateful to Delhi Greens website for sharing my short story on the human animal conflicts and also on death of mother and calf elephants in one of the conflict areas due to electrocution, The Sacrifice of Mother is also my attempt to show the strong family bonds that appear to exist in these elephants. I heard a lot of stories about the bond of mother and child in these gentle giants and tried to weave a story around a real event which happened in 2015

In June another poem that shares the irony that Covid situation which brought as if now after a sudden brake in the activities everywhere, people slow started picking up but the establishments were trying to assault nature more in order to gain the financial loss due to worldwide lockdowns. Such activities without foresight were said to be one of the reasons for pandemic situation. The life from here should be with nature and it must be a sustainable progress which I tried to explain this Covid Conundrum in my poem. Also shared my experiences in the Bhitarkanika mangroves in Odisha as my article on Journey through the Mangroves in Planet Untamed.

In September my poem on spiders got published in spillwords.com. A Spider’s Saga spoke on the abilities and benefits of spiders.  Another achievement was sharing the follow up of my journey as a wildlife enthusiast in lonely conservationist website as The Missing Path. This was about the how year 2020 has been for a nature enthusiast who couldn’t travel and the ways I used to adapt to the new ‘normal’.

My intention to promote citizen science initiatives through social media got a new lease of life during the Dragonfly Festival and Big Butterfly Month. I was keen to contribute images of home biodiversity in the citizen science portals. My article on my Journey with Jackals was published on the citizen science portal the Wild Canid India Project, mainly on my observations regarding jackals in Delhi. My poem on butterflies ‘Behold the Butterflies’ got second prize in the Journaling Contest by Big Butterfly Month India which was generally about the benefits of butterflies and anthropogenic pressures that they are facing now.

I am grateful to East Mojo website sharing my view on The Not So ‘Cute’ Truth about wildlife viral videos especially of the wild animals in unnatural settings and showing habits that are not their regular behaviour.  Another interesting poem published in December on the Bats and Their Thoughts came again in spillwords.com. This is mainly on the misconceptions and myths that bats face and how much they are useful to environment.

Hope this creative journey with nature so far in 2020 was productive and informative for me… For more you can check @nishandvenugopal on Instagram, @nvgpal79 on Twitter , Nishand’s Photo Ark in Facebook and also as Nishand Venugopal on LinkedIn