"It had been many months in the forest but we had not been not able to trap and tag a single Great Hornbill. It was one such morning in the forest of Pakke. We had almost lost all hopes of getting a hornbill trapped. That day, we had put up our trap between two fig trees. While we were waiting in the hide, we suddenly heard the loud flapping sounds of a Great Hornbill approaching..."

My background is in chemistry, and until graduation, I never formally studied biology. However, I've always been passionate about wildlife and nature, thanks to my childhood spent along the banks of the Ganga River, surrounded by its rich biodiversity and interactions.

That morning, we were monitoring eight nests of five different woodpecker species in the forests of Pawalgarh and were desperately trying to find the nest of a particular family of the Great Slaty Woodpecker. This particular family was very elusive and always flew away when it sensed us. While we were busy looking for this family, we unexpectedly came across a nest of the Greater Yellownape Woodpecker. The nest had two chicks that were taking turns peeping out of the nest. Soon, the hungry chicks were fed a beakful of termites by their parents. It was truly a visual treat!

We decided to climb and rest at a sunny spot overlooking the valley offering a good view of the riparian forest. As we were sitting and idly chatting, there was a sudden flurry of bird activity in the distance and we saw a small swarm of black specks hopping from the canopy of one tree to another, along the course of the rivulet—a mixed species flock! My first conscious experience of encountering one.

"I like the fact that when studying birds, I also get to understand the ecological and social underpinnings of the wonderful avian biodiversity. In places like Assam and Arunachal Pradesh where I work, the diversity of birds is not supported just by the diversity in habitat, but also by the years of protection accorded by local communities, for whom biodiversity is also an identity."

"As I took the next turn, I was surprised to see dust clouds ahead of me, obscuring some kind of vigorous activity. Eventually the dust settled down, revealing a Bonelli’s eagle struggling to hold a female bustard in his talons! They became still as soon as they saw the vehicle. I was very confused about my next step. On the one hand it was a rare natural history moment which was happening in front of me; and on the other hand, a female bustard (an important individual of just a few remaining GIBs) was dying before my eyes."

"What amazes me the most is that every new place I visit, I hear some new aspect of the story and it appears like the more I learn, the less I know which keeps me going even further. It seems like Barn Swallows know their humans and humans know their swallows. For instance, in a small vegetable and fruit shop in Nainital, which is invariably always packed with customers, I regularly see two pairs of swallows busy feeding their hungry chicks, by flying past and sometimes cutting across the humans standing in the shop."

“We had been anxiously sitting on treetops at the grassland edge, camouflaged and (hopefully) away from the bird’s view. Our hopes of trapping the bird to safely put a satellite transmitter on its back to track its hitherto unknown movements were fast dimming. The setting Sun had by now painted the sky with a light orange hue mixed with purple streaks, signalling time to remove traps to try another day. But then, against all odds, we saw the male Bengal Florican uncharacteristically trying but failing to take off. We had managed to capture the bird!”

"On one of the nights, we went for a night trail to experience the forest after dark. We stopped by the lake and were quietly listening to all of the forest sounds around us. All of a sudden, we heard this really loud scream, almost identical to a woman screaming. We all were terrified! Later, we were told that it was a Brown Fish Owl which had a nest on a tree right next to the lake. The whole experience, with the dark forest, its sounds and this sudden scream, was absolutely surreal!"

"Even a tiny drop of water contains a diversity of organisms which are often ignored, but they play a vital role in shaping our world. Most of the oxygen we breathe comes from the microscopic cyanobacteria and algae living in water. It will make anyone wonder how a microorganism is able to support a large bird like a flamingo which weighs about 2 - 3 kg. The answer lies in the fact that cyanobacteria (Arthrospira) which is just 10 microns in size, contains 50-60% protein by mass."