SO FAR 2021
The year is about to reach its end, no doubt 2021 for many was the year of survival. The disease that many thought will become as yesteryear’s nightmare in the beginning of 2021 unleashed itself in a modified horrific form taking many along with it. The visuals and news were clearly scary and depressing. It happened so suddenly when people were slowly taking a sigh of relief from lockdowns that put a stop to almost every economic activity happening in the World in 2020. This time pandemic took many lives that were thought fit enough to get through this. This also put an indelible scar in many minds. Hope time may lessen the dilemma that we go through. It is not sure after vaccinations and countless counter measures to celebrate and say that we have passed the test. I hope we don’t repeat the same mistakes that we did during 2020 that boomeranged on us as a second covid wave.
More than just being a year of survival it is also the year of adapting to the crisis. Many may not agree, they want the old ‘normal’ back. As Charles Darwin postulated ‘ it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.’
I too tried to adapt to the changing circumstances and I guess it showed some success which I am grateful for and happy to share with you.
Thanks to Kate on Conservation, I was featured in her blog about 100 Wildlife Bloggers Who are Bettering the World just in the beginning of 2021. That was really inspiring to see so many creative minds working for conservation and biodiversity awareness… Then after I am grateful to ASIAN ADVENTURES who gave me an opportunity to share my experience in writing about wildlife along with other leading experts. First time I was taking webinars and that was a new learning for me. I am glad this helped to open a new venue to share my passion towards nature.
Thanks to the Children, Art and Nature website to share my experience in Desert National Park, a blog named SEARCHING FOR THE ENDANGERED GREAT INDIAN BUSTARDS.
Thanks again to Kate on Conservation for sharing my travel experience in Ranthambore, In search of the Tiger , the message here I liked to share was about how to observe nature and there is more to see than the charismatic species.
Then I came to know about the searching by Wildlife Trust of India for The White Winged Ducks and their habitats. Thanks to EastMojo website for sharing this article
World Wetlands Day: The state bird of Assam is crying for attention
My observation of barn owls near my area was published on Project Prithvi website as
LIFE AND LEARNING WITH NATURE was published on Spillwords.com in March, this poem shares my experience on being a nature enthusiast,
My observation of barn owls near my area was published on Project Prithvi website as ‘An Owl’s Distress Call’
April brought a new collaboration, thanks to Science Next Door for sharing my poems as Featured poems every week, starting with the poem on butterflies Behold the Butterflies. Now they have a separate page as Featured Poems in their website.
40 poems published after that which shares thoughts on various topics like animals, birds, insects, reptiles, nature awareness, citizen science, mental health, covid, conservation etc.
Dragons and Damsels from the insect world
Viral Covid and the spiral Mind
Tales of the Dedicated Dads from the Bird World…
Dropping Thoughts: Pigeons and Man-made Crisis
Race is on…but time is running out…
Final Thoughts from an Earthworm…
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spiders…
A Nature Enthusiast’s Guide to Citizen Science…
Vultures: Nature’s Winged Avengers
Questions from the Great Indian Bustards…
Parrots, Pandemonium and Parakeets…
A Hungry Caterpillar’s Interlude…
Lives of Black Kites in Urban Sites
Pecking, Chiselling and Drumming- Woodpecker Tales
Victims of Tourists: Tricks and Treats – The Himalayan Marmots
Another important milestone for me in 2021 was that I was able to be the guest editor for UN Biodiversity instagram for a week.
Sharing my message with Roots & Shoots India was also an important accomplishment for me.
It was great to be associated with The False Trail and sharing some of my stories and poems like one of the bats(Inside a Bat’s mind: a poem by Nishand Venugopal), another of the owls (Life of an Owl). There was a story of rescuing a squirrel (A squirrel story) and releasing it back and about the revisit of migratory rosy starlings (My Encounters: Some rosy memories with the rosy starlings). My experience about watching the jackals (Smokescreen: A black future for the Golden jackal) near the national capital region was also published by them. Even recently they have published my poem on Our Friendly Neighbourhood Spiders.
Regarding talks, I was able to share my experience with NIT Trichy and Msc Biodiversity in Bhuvan’s Collage , Mumbai. It was about the journey of a nature enthusiast.
Then in CITSci 2021 I made a presentation on Prose and Poetry to Citizen Science.
The Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS) – Bengaluru
was an opportunity to meet and share thoughts with like-minded researchers and nature lovers. Hope to see more such opportunities next year.
My essay on ‘ My Conservation Footprint’ was selected as runner up essay and I got mentioned by the Centre for Wildlife Studies this year
It was great to see that Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) shared my poem on ants during their Mryme Carnival event.
Spillwords.com shared my poem TAT TVAM ASI,
apart from the poem on Dragonflies and Damselflies,
Hope you will read these poems and share your thoughts.
By the end of this year, great news came that my story that I shared with the lonely conservationist group got published in their book ‘ The Secret Life of Conservationists’
The link to know more about the book is here…
Somehow, I managed to keep the connection with nature through reading, writing and observing the biodiversity around me. So from a wildlife photographer to volunteer then a writer and a communicator the journey of the nature enthusiast in me has been fruitful in many ways. I am grateful to 2021 for all these opportunities. Hope to see more in the next year…
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