White-breasted Kingfisher

n the 1800s these birds were hunted for their bright feathers that were used to adorn hats.It is the State bird of West Bengal.  .. .. easy, King Fisher -  a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes.

 

The white-throated kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis) also known as the white-breasted kingfisher is a tree kingfisher, widely distributed in Asia from the Sinai east through the Indian subcontinent to China and Indonesia.  It can often be found well away from water where it feeds on a wide range of prey that includes small reptiles, amphibians, crabs, small rodents and even birds. During the breeding season they call loudly in the mornings from prominent perches including the tops of buildings in urban areas or on wires.  

Elsewhere, DIY chain Kingfisher (LSE: KGF) is best known in the UK as the owner of B&Q and Screwfix. The group’s share price has fallen by 35% from its pandemic peak in 2021.  Kingfisher also owns similar DIY groups in France and Poland. The stock did well during the pandemic as lockdown living left homeowners with spare cash and a desire to update their homes. Obviously that picture has reversed over the last year, as markets have priced in the risk of a recession. Surging cost inflation has put pressure on many household budgets.  Kingfisher’s stock slump was a logical response to this changing outlook, says market experts.  

Some of you may still be looking for - Kingfisher Calendar that featured  models in swimsuits published by the Indian conglomerate United Breweries Group for 19 years from 2003 to 2021.    Atul Kasbekarr was the photographer behind these Kingfisher Calendar shoots.  He was also the honorary chairman of the Photographer's Guild of India.  

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
14.12.2022 

Peter Taylor, Taylor Swift law suit and .. Tailor Bird

I stay out too late

Got nothing in my brain  .. ..

Heart-breakers gonna break, break, break, break, break

And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake

Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

Shake it off, I shake it off

Possibly one of the first English words that we (Tamil medium folks)  started using was Tailor .. .. .. there were so many tailor shops – on the compound of Sri Parthasarathi swami temple at Peyalwar koil street run by Subramani, a small 10 x 12 shop – there was– Jupiter Tailors at Big Street / Alangatha pillai St was much bigger ! – VIP tailors was a famous name – and in 1980s a well dressed bearded Cheenu stitched his pant for Rs.100/- - we spoke about that !! 

After learning the English word for the person who stitches clothes as Tailor, we developed doubt on whether it is ‘Taylor’ or ‘Tailor’ and one Prof told me that Taylor is a name; Tailor is a profession !  .. .. ?!? – perhaps some Spanish/ Latin  connection.  "Taylor" is a proper noun which is often translated as "Taylor", and "tailor" is a noun which is often translated as "el sastre".  A tailor helps make your clothes fit you better. The word tailor comes from the Latin taliare, meaning "to cut." A tailor is someone who cuts and adjusts your clothing to better fit. When you tailor a jacket, you have it taken in to better suit your physique. 

Read that  letter Y was at one time far more commonly used where we nowadays would use the letter I. The reason we now use I is because, in the course of the Nineteenth Century, scholarship about words improved dramatically, and scholars discovered that lots of these words they had been spelling with a Y came originally from Latin, which had really used an I; and which had only used Y for words of Greek origin. 

Down under, when India played Aussie in finals of ODI championship, Krish Srikkanth was brilliantly caught by a jumping Peter Taylor – Taylor who ? .. .. had read that the man  answered the car-phone, he  had just begun a 650km drive to visit family in Sydney. Their 18-year-old son Charlie was making his way in grade cricket as an offspinner for Northern District, where Peter had played. Peter grew up in Sydney. His family owned a car dealership, but, uninterested in selling cars, he studied agricultural science at the University of Sydney. He hoped one day to become a farmer. He had been an outstanding junior cricketer, at the same time as Allan Border, and when the new of his selection was made known to him – he expected it to be  Mark Taylor and asked ‘Taylor-who ?’. 

His final Test was against India, at the MCG in 1991. He was replaced by Shane Warne for the Sydney Test.  Taylor later  bought a wheat and cotton property outside Moree, which he still farms, and has since developed a cattle property at Inverell. For a while in the late 1990s he was an Australian selector.  This Taylor is not the subject matter of the post – but someother Tailor, a bird ! 

In serene atmosphere, you hear them loud .. . chirpy and in a trice, they fly away ! flirting between trees and shrubs … found hard to capture them on lens.   They make an intriguing quirk   Understand them to be ‘common tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius)’,  a songbird found across tropical Asia. Popular for its nest made of leaves "sewn" together and immortalized by Rudyard Kipling as Darzee in his Jungle Book.  The common tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius) is a songbird found across tropical Asia.   Although shy birds that are usually hidden within vegetation, their loud calls are familiar and give away their presence. They are distinctive in having a long upright tail, greenish upper body plumage and rust coloured forehead and crown.  

This morning was able to capture some clicks of this chirpy bird !!  

Away from Mark Taylor, Ross Taylor, little known Peter Taylor, Sarah Taylor [the wicketkeeper batswoman, played for Sussex alongside men too]………….the local Tailor was the person who made and altered clothing for men and women…. while ‘women’s tailor’ still exist – the men’s tailors are fast vanishing in city.  

The lines at the start are from the album ‘Shake it off’  from the famous Taylor Alison Swift - an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and media coverage.  She is in news, as two  songwriters have dropped their lawsuit claiming that Taylor Swift copied their lyrics in her 2014 No 1 hit Shake It Off, according to court documents filed. Sean Hall and Nathan Butler told a Los Angeles federal judge they will dismiss their 2017 case with prejudice, which means it cannot be refiled. A trial in the case had been scheduled to begin in January 2023.  In Shake It Off, Swift sings: “The players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”

More than the law suit, its dismissal or the  stunning catch I saw Peter Taylor take, I am happy with the catch of Tailorbird featured here. . 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
13^th Dec 2022 

fruit bats ! swarm Triplicane !!

Imp Pre-script :  Read / see the photos at your own risk .. don’t blame me ! –they are hideous and scary too !! – and much much bigger than what I had seen earlier – somewhat resembling monkeys, face looking like a dog or a fox even !! 

At Multan today,  England’s weaponry against Paki bat was raw pace in a raw match situation.  A weapon that had failed most tourists    on unforgiving subcontinent wickets - that point of difference to unlock well-set batters and deliver the moments that make victory possible. On a nerve-shredding fourth and final day in Multan, Mark Wood was that man, as Pakistan's gutsy pursuit of 355 was thwarted with just 26 runs left to defend.  Today it clearly was the ball over the bat !! 

For more than 120 years of existence in International cricket, the bat  has undergone lots of changes – perhaps there has not been significant change in the grip, the quality of willow but the weight, perceived quality and weight have.  Present day bats held by star batsmen display not manufacturers’ names but mostly the sponsors.  There are many and varied manufacturers such as : Symonds, Slazenger, Gunn & Moore, Gray Nichols, Puma, BDM, MRF and more….. those days – there were oil and non-oil bats -there were stories of seasoning and oiling the oil bats. At one point time, there were reports that Sunil Gavaskar’s bat had some small pint holes on the back side of the bat which aided him when he drove the ball. The bats of English willow were expertly pressed and there would be procedures of oiling with linseed oil and knocking them over.   Those days Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Sandip Patil used heavier bats – now there are many who wield the willow like a bludgeon – resultantly, even a shot not hit in the sweet spot disappears into the crowd, making the life of spinners miserable.  This is not about Cricket but about bats !! 

We have seen them on some old temples, I have seen them at Thavana uthsava bungalow gori !!  - the  Egmore Museum houses priceless artifacts; also houses colonies of fruit bats in the trees outside.  Last year, I saw them arrive  with a buzz around 615 – 630 pm – close to hundred – flying with unerring precision from nowhere and hanging  on the Arasa maram [peepal tree] at Vasavi Parthas, Venkatrangam Street, Triplicane, Chennai 600005.  Though have been seeing them encircling in recent times, today was different – as I saw them close, with some fear and photographed them. 

When we think of bats, an unfavorable image often comes to mind. Whether it's the scary portrayal of them in vampire films and literature or a general fear of how their real-life counterparts might transmit viruses, bats have gotten a bad rap that's actually more fiction than fact.  Understand that there are more than 1,400 bat species in the world ! Bats can be as large as a small dog or as small as a bee. The ones that come nearer home resemble crows !! The largest bats are the flying foxes with wingspans of up to 2 metres and a body weights of up to 1.5 kilograms. 

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera. With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more manoeuvrable than birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium.  The second largest order of mammals after rodents, bats comprise about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide.   For centuries, bats have been called sinister and spooky, likely because of their beady eyes and razor-sharp fangs. But there’s more to these nocturnal creatures than meets the eyes.  The scientific name for bats Chiroptera,  is Greek for “hand wing.” That’s because bats have four long fingers and a thumb, each connected to the next by a thin layer of skin.  To navigate dark caves and hunt after dark, microbats rely on echolocation, a system that allows them to locate objects using sound waves. They echolocate by making a high-pitched sound that travels until it hits an object and bounces back to them. This echo tells them an object’s size and how far away it is. 

The age-old question of upside down bats. Yes, it is awfully weird that there is an animal—a mammal even—that hangs upside down. Sure, some monkeys do it when they're just monkeying around. Bats are the only animals that actually spend most of their time hanging upside down: feeding this way, raising their young this way, and, yes, sleeping or roosting this way. Bats are not birds, nor are they insects.   The difference between bat flight and bird or insect flight is weight—specifically, the ratio of weight to lift-capacity of the wings.  Birds have hollow bones; bats don’t.  To compensate for the extra weight that mammals must have, to compensate for the problem of getting off the ground, evolution found another way for bats to transition from being motionless to immediately being able to fly when necessary.  

Though they reportedly  are harmless, they scare us and in the twilight – crows do appear agitated, when these bats start homing in to the peepal tree. 

Any comments !!! 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
12.12.2022 

the iconic Red Building of Hindu High School, Triplicane

Those who have been in and have  seen Triplicane,  would  never miss that imposing [Red / Saffron] structure at 149 Big Street, Triplicane, Chennai 600 005.

 

        A landmark by itself – an imposing structure - bricks and saffron coloured walls with Indo-sarsenic architecture has inspired many and created many worthy students.  Hindu High School founded as Dravida Patasala for Tamil boys which later amalgamated with The Hindu Andhra Balura Patasala for Telegu boys that were in existence in 1852.  In 1897, the school moved into the rpesent premises, which red coloured and 3 storeyed building.   

 

The façade of iconic Red building is most appealing, but would be partially covered by trees all the time – with Cyclone Mandous felling an old tree, the building is now seen in full view.  (first pic taken in 2017) 

A proud (old) student – S. Sampathkumar 

11.12.2022