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A good day at Tippagondanahalli and the closing of 2004
The end of a good year always gives one a sense of satisfaction, a sense of well being,
and a little pride too. I am experiencing all this as 2004 draws to a close.
As the year comes to an end, and for the last weekend in the field before Christmas
and New Year, I spent this Sunday at Tippagondanahalli, a good reservoir outside
Bangalore which in each winter is visited by several species of winter migrant birds.
I had some opportunities to photograph larks, plovers, sandpipers, a group of pratincoles
and egrets. I was quite fortunate to also witness a pair of Little Ringed Plovers mating.
2004 was a year of events for me. I was blessed with new photographic equipment so I
can pursue my interests in wildlife and birds more seriously. I had an opportunity to see
foreign land and people. I spent a lot of my time in the field. I also got to learn a little
more about our wildlife and birds. For all this and more, I remain thankful. Good bye, 2004, you
made us glad, as did the years before you.
Let us, at the same time, be thankful that our wildlife has seen another year through,
in an ever shrinking world where the human hand continues to plunder and destroy.
Let us remember the mighty tigers that fell to a cowardly poacher's snare and gun, the brave leopards who -
finding their habitat shrunk to a bare minimum - confronted a civilised man and met a gory death, the
graceful tuskers that faced the ivory-poacher's gun and saw, and other wildlife that met their end
under the wheels of our vehicles.
Nevertheless, let our hopes remain, that 2005 would be a more blessed year, that our wildlife will thrive
and multiply, and make our hearts glad. Not for the benefit of you or me, but for the whole
mankind.
Let us be thankful for all that we have been given.
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