This is the monsoon season in the state of Kerala. But the monsoon has receded and the day time temperature is like that of early summer months. With only 35 percent of rain fall during this season, and the water reservoirs not even half full, there are are alarm signals about drought in the coming months.
I have a suspicion that birds too suffer during such a time. I noticed that birds seek shelter in foliage of tall trees to protect themselves. It is an infrequent bird call that alerted me of the presence of this bird in the above pictures.
A keen bird watcher told me that the birds have an adaptive bird coat during summer, which help them to tolerate high temperature ranges. With the winter intervening between the monsoon and summer, the usual adaptations of bird coats would get interrupted now, because of premature day time temperature level. There are some stray news items of birds found dead on land areas, which have no protection of trees or access to water!
I feel that our environment is changing and we do not have immediate answers to overcome this challenge.
One promising sign for future is more people in the village, where we live, changing to electric vehicles. I am told that the village had no electric four wheelers six months back, but now we have four wheelers, two wheelers, auto-rikshaws, motorised cycles often noticeable on the roads.
The emission levels are high due to vehicles on the road and people burning fallen leaves instead of composting them.
The climate change related to unchecked used of fossil fuel, I hope would get addressed more actively in a short time!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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