Hello, Sparky here.
Ø This week the rains eased. The clouds seem to have moved
on, on their journey back to the ocean. The wheels of change are in constant
motion, if we keep pace, we live and prosper. If we don’t, we either get
crushed or cast aside.
Ø Many of us are now carrying out minor repairs to our
houses, some like the Otters are engaged in major restoration but some like the
Bee-eaters are literally starting from scratch, digging their nests again. No
matter the degree of repairs being undertaken none of us have the time to
grieve over what was and what it has become, we simply focus our energies in
the present at the task at hand.
Ø Talking of ‘task at hand’, the one of utmost importance
now is preparing for the coming winter. We take our cue from Mother Nature who
tells us when to get ready for the change in season. As winter approaches many
of us eat well and stock up reserves in form of body fat to see us through the
cold season. Each of us does things differently depending on where we live, how
cold it gets, how scare the food gets and so on. Banyan Island is in a tropical
place so winter does not make a lot of demand on us but in the places where the
winters are bitter and biting cold, animals choose from one of these 3 options:
o
Migrate – that’s what many of the birds who
join us on the Banyan Island have done / are doing.
o
Hibernate – where animals seclude themselves
and go into a state of deep sleep, slowing down their body’s metabolism and
heart rate, thus conserving energy and literally sleeping through the cold
months.
o
Adapt – by building up extra fat reserves in
the body, by growing a thick fur or collecting and storing food before winter
sets in.
·
Given the fact that many of us have been restrained
to our homes for a while now due to the rains, Mrs. Ulukah, the leader of birds
suggested to Mr. Goldback, the leader of monkeys that all the residents of
Banyan Island come together next week for a fete – competitions, stalls, lucky
draws, some fun games and so on – a bit of fun in the sun to shake off the
gloom of the rains before the chill sets in.
·
Gumphu and her team of young monkeys were the
first ones to get onto the bandwagon. As soon as Mr. Goldback shared the news
of the fair to be held next week with the residents of the banyan tree, Gumphu
and her team started drawing posters to announce the fair. Soon, the posters
were stuck at many conspicuous places across the island and within no time the
fair became the ‘talk of the island’.
·
Each animal was excited in his/her own way.
Some wanted to participate in competitions, some hoped they would win the
raffle; some got ambitious and made plans to have stalls. As for me, am
excited to be reporting the preparations and the celebration – of togetherness,
of peace and of life being lived in joy. This is what a real leader does –
brings everyone together.
·
In other news, humans have this week made a
couple of more ‘discoveries’.
o
They have discovered a coral reef in
Australia that’s about 500 metres tall and 1.5 km wide at its base. To give you
an idea of how tall it really is, Eiffle tower in Paris about the height of an
81-storey building is only 324 metres tall. It’s a coral reef that’s about 6
Kms from the Great Barrier Reef which has in recent times been in the news for
mass bleaching of coral (its lost more than half of its coral in last 3
decades) and resulting loss of marine life that depends on the reef. Icing on
the cake is that this newly discovered ‘waterscraper’ reef is healthy and
thriving. The reef, especially at the base is millions of years old and
indicate how the corals survived and recovered from periods of adverse climate
in the past and thus give us a glimpse of how likely and how the corals will
ride out the present threat caused by climate change.
o
3 species of black corals have been
discovered on the seabed of the mineral-rich waters of Northern Pacific Ocean where
countries like China, Japan, Russia and South Korea plan to conduct deep-sea
mining for metals like cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese. Going ahead with deep-sea
mining here could wipe out these important habitats and as yet undiscovered species
that have been around for millions of years. For all we know (or don’t know) these
species could be performing activities of importance and consequence to us all. Even if they are not performing any service to anyone else, what right do humans have in wiping them off the face of the planet. Let’s hope humans look to their future when making life-altering decisions.
I hope better sense prevails, where is the wisdom is poisoning the very water that
nurtures us?
Here are a few activities for this week. Am sure
you will learn something new from these activities, just like humans learn something
new of themselves and the world around them as they set out to solve many of nature’s
puzzles.
·
Here’s
a photo of a Coucal peeking into a hollow in a tree. Coucals are birds that belong
to the cuckoo family.
- Here’s a Crossword puzzle. All the words end with the word, ‘position’.
·
From
these photos can you identify the objects?
See you all next week with more news,
activities and answers to this week’s puzzles.
In the meanwhile, if you would like to write to me, email me at Sparkyatbanyan@gmail.com
Answers to last week’s puzzles:
·
Here’s
a photo that was clicked very close to the sea, though the sea is not visible
in the photo.
Can you use that
as a clue and guess what exactly is it that you are seeing in the photo?
Once having
guessed that it would be easy for you to get started with finding the ‘words’
starting with the letter ‘S’.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of
answers. What has got exhausted is my ‘imagination’ and ‘inclination’.
o
Salt
o
Salt pan
o
Sea
o
Sea water
o
Stored (sea water)
o
Sun
o
Scorching
o
Sweat (of the labouring workers)
o
Slog
o
Snow (the salt looks like snow)
o
Shine/sheen
o
Shadow (There is shadow as well, not
just the reflection which does not qualify to be in this list of S only words)
o
Shade (the lack of it – in fact)
o
Shallow (water – for making the salt)
· Analogical reasoning questions. Fill in the blanks by understanding the relation between the first 2 words and then extending the logic to the third word in the first column. Choose from options in columns 2, 3 and 4.
|
1 |
Myna – A Bank Myna |
6 |
Kingfisher – A Stork-billed Kingfisher |
|
2 |
Crows – Indian Jungle Crows |
7 |
Eagle – A Crested Serpent Eagle |
|
3 |
Peacock – Indian Peafowl |
8 |
Bee-eater – A Green Bee-eater |
|
4 |
Bulbul – A Red-whiskered Bulbul |
9 |
Sparrow – A House Sparrow |
|
5 |
Owl – A Brown Fish-Owl |
10 |
Parakeet – A Ring-necked Parakeet |
·
Animals
have different legs and feet based on what they need to do – some need to jump,
some need to run, some need to dig, some need to ‘hold on’, some need to carry
the weight of a big body – that’s the reason why there are so many different
looking legs/feet.
Here are some
legs. Can you identify who these legs belong to?
