A Kitchen with a View

To Scratch is a fundamental right!

I am lucky to have a kitchen with a view, where I spot quite a few rarely-seen birds in the mornings! Among the most unique photographs are those of a Barbet bird enjoying its early morning scratch! Its closed eyes suggest a great sense of relief, a pleasure in scratching itself! There have been times when I cleared the slab of all the accoutrements and sat on it photographing some of the unique birds that frequent the huge tree right next to my flat in Palam Vihar, Gurgaon. However, spotting a Honey-buzzard can be understandingly amazing, trust me!

A Crested Honey Buzzard looks Terrific!

For a self-acclaimed wildlife photographer, it is a joy to be able to photograph birds that are rarely seen. To spot a raptor, or even a Crested honey buzzard provides great happiness and satisfaction. Green Pigeons are frugivores and they feast on fruits that grow on trees. To spot a single Green Pigeon is amazing to spot a pair can be most rewarding! Green Pigeons are frugivores and they feed on fruits. 

A Pair of Green Pigeons warm up in the sun.

 

A Raptor, or a Shikra is a hunter; spotting it is a joy that speaks volumes! In the early times, Shikras were used to capture small rodents to be fed to the larger falcons.

A Shikra scans the sky for food.

Sometimes, it seems like nature has its own way, and when one looks at birds, one learns a lesson for life: Everything connects, in small ways and big ways! I would like to share a few more photographs that I could take from my kitchen window! The Green pigeons look so great. They afforded me some time to photograph them.

Barbets are amongst the most attractive birds I have photographed. To spot one, that too from one's kitchen window is so satisfying! The bird would have wanted a better image of it rather than one in which it is scratching itself. Thus I have shared a photograph that flatters its amazing beauty.

A Barbet Bird in all its colours

Photography Reveals a World of Beauty Rarely Seen Before!

Nothing can beat the joy of seeing a Yellow Wagtail sing its heart out celebrating the Autumn season, the end of rains and the ushering in of cooler times. Or, for that effect, it is a wonderful moment when you can capture a Mongoose running towards you even as you keep pressing the shutter-release button to know you have captured a unique moment! Sure, the Mongoose did not know you were there because you were perfectly still, and not greedy about getting closer to it. The moral? Let the animals and birds come close to you, not the other way round!

Apart from getting that perfect pose, it sometimes pays to be proactive! Walk an extra mile, and who knows you might get that perfect landing! Cormorants are ideal birds to photograph while taking off and lading. And so a short walk took me to a spot where Greater Cormorants were eagerly feeding on small fry and sure they were hungry! Photographing Animal or bird behaviour can sometimes be most satisfying.

Sometimes it is amazing to see how tolerant birds belonging to different species can be to each other, like a little Egret standing close to a Pond Heron, waiting patiently for breakfast! But then the little Egret can be as friendly with a greater Cormorant too!

When I am not looking for flying birds or landing birds, I love to photograph reflections and this Sandpiper makes for an amazing shot!

And with that, I'll take my leave, happy birdwatching!

My Encounter with Wild Boars in Gurugram

Yesterday, I almost came under attack from a female wild-boar in the Chandu-Budhera location! This happened while I was returning from the Najafgarh lake when I decided to make  look-see in the area where the reservoirs are located. I had just parked my motorcycle under the shade of a tree and was waking down a narrow trail when I spotted horizontally striped creatures. I froze on the spot and was shocked to spot a huge female wild boar, and then another two chaperoning their offspring. They were huge monsters, and I knew that they could tear apart. It was a big surprise to find wild boars in the area. Wild boars, incidentally, are ferocious beasts and they can provide a tough fight even to large predators.

Anyway, the three females and their offspring crossed over and I continued on my trek. A little later I came to an abrupt halt, having spotted the larger of the three female wild-boars. She was a menacing dark monster of a beast with a ferocious expression, part of one ear torn away, a testimony of one or more deadly duels! I froze to the spot once again, and even as I stood my ground, the huge beast took a couple of steps towards me! Somehow, I managed to stand still, knowing well that the moment I fled, she would be on my back! After a few moments of the standoff, she left the scene, however, I did not move from the spot as a sixth sense warned me not to move away. A little while later, the same wild boar returned to the spot. She glared at me for a couple of moments and then left.

I made haste to where my motorcycle was parked and made good my exit from the area. Later when I thought about the whole episode I reasoned that the wild boar would have attacked me had I turned my back on her. She would have sensed my fear and attacked me. This was an important lesson for me. Apparently, most animals would attack human beings once who fled the spot riven my fear and panic. The moral of the lesson is that one needs to stay calm, never to panic and if possible stay still. 

Are We Drifting Towards an AI Dystopia?

There are indications that we are indeed headed towards an AI Dystopia. Excited people extol the functionality of artificial intelligence without really understanding the fact that handing over important decisions to AI might not be ethical and morally correct! Allowing AI to make decisions on our behalf might not be ethical and morally correct in most circumstances. Take, for example, allowing AI to decide who is to be killed on the battlefield, or perhaps even allowing AI to make decisions about whom one should marry or what we should eat and what not to eat! Today's wars are fought through proxy. Drones are remote-controlled vehicles that fly more or less autonomously and, when they recognize the 'enemy', they dive into the enemy destroying the enemy with a shaped charge of explosives. This has been seen in the Russia-Ukraine war. Many drones are purportedly AI-controlled and they wreak havoc on the other side. The Gaza-Israel conflict has seen the large use of AI-controlled drones. Accidents happen and the human scapegoat is hunted, but then what if AI cannot make mistakes, whom will we blame? Well if the executive order is to eliminate a well-known 'pirate' and supposing the pirate is accompanied by innocent people, will the AI-controlled drone be able to disengage and return to base to fight another day? Does AI understand the meaning of collateral damage? Does it have sentience enough to understand that the executive command it has been given might lead to greater destruction than planned? 

Experience has shown how students copy-paste information given by AI into their project and research articles in toto. This has affected the creativity of students, and called into question the very purpose of doing research, or even submitting an original article. Whatever happened to the rules of plagiarism? Are we therefore so dependent on AI that we rely on it to create our thoughts for us? The reliance on AI research work, and the writing of articles and essays proves that we have abdicated our research skills to AI! Where, then, does human intelligence and creativity lie in the realm of a world governed by artificial intelligence?

We need to caution all those who use artificial intelligence to at least use their own rationality and common sense about how much artificial intelligence they should use in all the work they produce. On the battlefield, the question of eliminating targets is bound to be ruled by the concept of conscience. Would you target a person travelling in a car accompanied by innocent family members? Who takes the responsibility of targeting a person of military importance even though it would entail collateral damage? Would you like to abdicate the decision to AI? Where is the conscience of killing innocent people in an air strike at a military target? Does AI have the capability of understanding the rules of humanity? One of the major concerns of using AI on the battlefield is the lack of awareness of the loss of innocent lives, the so-called collateral damage incurred in an act of war.

Abdicating all responsibilities to AI for one’s actions can only result in an acceptance of a rule by AI that leads to a dystopia where human beings do not have the option of making important decisions. One cannot abdicate the moral responsibility of making important decisions by allowing AI to take-up the same. One should learn to use AI and not allow AI to use us! AI singularity assumes a hypothetical scenario where artificial intelligence is more intelligent than humans. If machines become more intelligent than humans then in that case, they will have achieved a level of intelligence that we humans can never hope to achieve. Imagine a scenario where artificial intelligence deems human beings to be detrimental to the continuing well-being of the planet and thus it decides to lobotomise all humanity.

Another important factor that might be a matter of concern is sentience. AI is not as yet sentient, though, perhaps it is a matter of time before we have a sentient AI! Sentience refers to the ability to process emotions and to perceive the world from a human being's point of view. This, is incidentally, an important quality that human beings have but AI does not have. Presently, AI does not have a conscience, and it can only do what it has been commanded to. This is a frightening scenario especially when dictators, depots and madmen decide to use AI to eliminate so-called opponents with the help of drones and missiles without considering the collateral damage that such a decision would result in! A non-sentient AI would not be able to question the ethics of an executive decision that would result in the loss of innocent lives - collateral damage as they would call it!

Control over human individuality, choices and decisions is already taking place. We are already dictated by algorithms on our choices in mobile phones, clothes, and even life partners! How much more can we allow AI to rule our lives? Several science fiction novels have been written and movies have been made on topics dealing with what might be an AI dystopia. Among these are George Orwell's Animal Farm, Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World and the Sci-Fi film The Matrix.

A chilling thought that comes to mind is that what if, AI decides that humans are not good for the health of the planet and thus need to be tamed? What If AI decides that humans need to be wiped off the face of the earth because they have done more harm than good to the planet? Could AI make executive decisions on its own? Scientists are confident that emergency kill switches, safety mechanisms and algorithms can prevent AI-based machines from going rogue. But then we all know, that accidents can happen and they do happen!

Humanness refers to individuality and each individual has a unique personality. One yardstick doesn't work on all humans. The advent of AI is slowly but surely robbing us of this humanness, we are all becoming bricks in a wall, nodes in a matrix, mere cogs in a huge wheel that is part of a machinery run by an alternative intelligence.

Exploring the World of Indian Mushrooms and Fungi

Ganoderma curtisii/lingzhi

Welcome to the world of mushrooms and fungi, the world's most underrated and ignored organisms!  Fungi play an important role in recycling organic waste, in most cases they thrive on leaves, dead trunks of trees and in some cases even on living trees. Some fungi, however, can cause great harm to living trees as they literally eat up a whole tree from root to stem causing the infected tree to crash to the earth in a storm revealing a completely hollow trunk!

The Ganoderma curtissi, Ganoderma Lingzhi, or the Golden Reishi mushroom is important in medicine. Its exudates contain mycotoxins, antimicrobials, insecticides, and antiviral, and anti-cancer agents. Some of the exudates might contain high levels of a heparin-like substance which if ingested might cause the person to die of haemorrhage since it inhibits coagulation of blood! Golden Reishi Mushrooms, also known as Ganoderma mushrooms can often cluster in large colonies around the trunk of a tree.

An interesting phenomenon noticed in Ganoderma mushrooms is the process of guttation. Guttation refers to the process whereby plants and mushrooms exude droplets of exudates and liquid matter from their bodies which can be seen on the mushroom's surface. These droplets could be clear in colour, or even dark in colour. In the photograph, I am sharing below, the exudate can be seen as dark droplets scattered all over the surface.

An example of guttation in mushrooms

Phallus Stinkhorns

Fruiting Phallus Stinkhorn

Stinkhorns are among the most complex of all fungi. They have a complex life cycle starting with oval-shaped white eggs popping out of the ground. These eggs grow in time cracking upon maturity to release phallus-shaped fruiting bodies which emit a typical stink that is overwhelming. The mushrooms in these photographs were feeding on the stump of the trunk of a dead tree.

Egg of the Phallus Stinkhorn

Wineglass Shaped Mushroom

Wine-glass-shaped yellow mushrooms

I was able to photograph these strange wine-glass-shaped mushrooms in the park today and was fascinated by their shape. At first, I ignored them, but then on my second jogging run realised that they were mushrooms. I have been trying to identify the species of this mushroom variety but have failed to do so! A stranger variety of mushrooms was spotted by me looking like fake corals, or even somewhat like a Cauliflower with larger fans.

Coral-shaped mushrooms


Coprinus comatus

And of course, you have the normal mushrooms that we see so often. These mushrooms can be spotted growing on the forest floor, often close to the trunk of a tree. These mushrooms might be poisonous and thus inedible.