Unrelenting Humidity

Recently, we travelled to our in law's place and believably, nature is mercurial. After days of pestering locals, my village is finally receiving bountiful rains thanks to never relenting humidity. But the scene is not similar 60kms away from village due north. This place which has exactly same demography as my village, is craving for pre-monsoon showers. Only during couple of instances we had significant rains but limited for 10 mins. That is not enough to replenish water sources like wells and lakes. The humidity is perfect but not drawing enough rains. The neighbouring regions though are enjoying healthy regions. Sometimes I feel why the rains skip the region over my head. Even though such a fallacy was broken during my stay in village by thumping rains, the doubt crept up once more after moving to in law's house. It's almost time for outset of monsoon season but the conditions are still not favouring it's advancement.

The adjoining seas are abuzz with clouds. Thanks to cyclone Amphan, we have good cloud build-up along seas of coastal Karnataka. The rains though are yet to reach mainland. The humidity is intact, the body profusely perspiring, the clouds are visible. The evenings see distant rumbling stratosphere triggering hopes of rains but we are yet to witness one. We read news of heavy rains nearby except over head. Hopefully, the cyclone lures those stranded clouds over seas towards mainland.

Here are few clear skies with palm for completion. The thick clouds from Arabian sea dissolved in a jiffy clearing the skies, accentuating humidity, needless to say without any precipitation. Hope you enjoy the skies from digital screen even though it's raining sweat physically.

This is view from highway on our way back from Milk Diary. The lock-down is still not fully relaxed and hence the wide highway posts a deserted look. Also the distant clouds are precipitating far away, thus leaving just moisture-less clouds over the head.

A great hope to end day. We had cloud cover during twilight hours triggering hopes of rains. Needless to say, it did not rain even a drop

Co-existence with Social Distancing

With pandemic stretching its arms throughout the globe, social distancing is the only norm to put breaks to the virus. Everywhere around globe, this has been mandatory. In our village shops also, such scenes are normal nowadays. Our village fields now are abuzz with bird activity and I am desperately missing my telephoto. The birds while maintaining social distancing are also co-existing for their share of food. Even though peacocks can be photographed relatively within reach, the egrets are not so friendly. They are sensitive to even tiny movements of humans. The only friendliness is with cattle for picking their food :-). Meanwhile, I get these opportunity during my evening cycling time. It is impossible to hold my camera for long due to intense humid weather. There is bigger chance of equipment malfunctioning if sweat enters the DSLR interiors.

During my casual cycling along village road, I spotted the togetherness with social distancing from a distance. I grabbed how much ever closer I could go but a slight misstep, the subject would fly away. The pictures are not so crisp enough to entice bird photographer. The scenes were shot to portray beauty of nature beyond the beauty of photograph. Hope you like them too! I hope to get their clear picture someday either by concealing or with a real telephoto lens.

Not only birdies, we have cute pets also in harmony and maintaining social distancing :-D. May be they belong to same owner and hence so much cordiality! This too was captured from distance. The problem is not the dog but cat. Cats run away if they don't recognise you.

The egrets though are quite agile to egress. I am tired of spotting them. You definitely need a good telephoto capture them

More pre-monsoon rains

May 03, 2020

Lock-down is slowly being released in our country. Co-incidentally, the rains have also released their lock on our region. The rains continued for the second day and there were two mighty showers to cool down the ground further and replenish the ground water. The heavy clouds which gathered at 5PM did not disappoint us. The joy was two fold both in form of heavy shower during evening hour and capturing the beautiful dark clouds at eastern horizon. As the clouds approached the region with mighty thunder, the velocity of winds also picked up. We were confident of good rain since the clouds did not disperse :-). The rains started with high intensity from the start and continued to pour for nearly 20 minutes. What a wonder it was!

I was jubilant while beholding the rains which matched the velocity of monsoon rains. The intense humidity which lasted throughout the day though did not show any sign of receding. This hinted at one more spell of rain since the skies were still filled with heavy clouds. Expectedly, yet another spell of ear shattering rains post 7:30 and again lasting for nearly 20 minutes. It was memorable day and finally night cooled down. We had cooler weather and slept with blankets ON. Eventually, superstition has been wiped away by the back to back rains. My presence is no longer jinx for missing rains. Rather my impatience was the root cause for it :-).

The moisture laden clouds rolling up

Here is wide angle view of the activity which we are eagerly waiting to happen above our head.

A huge band of dark clouds has emerged and storming towards our village

And they almost arrived waiting for the right moment to precipitate

And here goes the beautiful rains. A great video at the end to enjoy the scenic rains

Thumping rains

03 May 2020

Finally we have it. A thumping overnight rain coupled with lightning and thunder. Real feel of pre-monsoon rains was witnessed yesterday night from 8 to 9 PM with gusty winds and heavy showers. The rains were little surprise though. The day was hot and humid as usual but there were no pounding rains till date. Yesterday, the winds started with high velocity at 8 PM along with lightning and thunder. The intense activity triggered hope of long lasting rain but we were still not optimistic.

In hindsight, the rain clouds were swept away by gusty winds and thus dampening our expectations. Today we predicted the same. The rains started though with high intensity but later receded. Few minutes later, the rains reappeared and struck the region for nearly an hour with high intensity. Even though, I could not behold those mighty rains, we were happy to have healthy rains. As I mentioned in last post, the hopes were getting amplified during every spell of rain and it turned to be the best last night.

These were some of the victims of gusty winds which ended their stay in tree tops :-D

The morning weather though was still humid and surface appeared as though we had minuscule or no rain. Such is the gravity of extreme dryness in region.

 

Finally.. Significant rains

April 30th 2020

Sigh... we finally had significant rains today. Surprisingly without biling sky. There was no lightning neither thunder. Just pinch of gust of wind and a healthy rains for 15 minutes. The wicked clouds which were flying over the atmosphere of village without any moisture, finally cooled off and drenched the region for considerable time.

On many occasions, the united clouds at eastern horizon, disoriented as they approached the region over our village and thus dampening the expectations of villagers. The arid vegetation was desperately waiting for rains to moisten them and prevent from bush-fires caused by ill maintained electric poles.

It started late in evening. The dark clouds hovered over village skies but again dispersed as they neared paving way for yet another disappointment. Luckily, the moisture filled clouds, soon entered the region and poured for nearly 15 minutes, creating artificial streams and murkier puddles beneath coconut plantation.

This rain was just a hope that the intensity would increase gradually. Needless to mention, the rains were still not enough to quench the tropical surface to hold moisture. The baked ground morphed into dry land soon giving a feel of no rain. Here is short clip of pre-monsoon rain I was bragging about :-D.

Saviours of Summer

The humidity is on raise here in coast. Probably the redundant statement in my blog and its primarily due to unbearable humidity. The temporary relief is none other the strong onshore winds that blow from West for couple of hours during evening hours. But that's not enough to quench the summer heat. Other saviours are none other than the home grown summer fruits

The dominating one is our single gulp JAVA APPLE. They are found in abundance during summer. The juicy fruit not only tasty but relieves the thirst. The fruits proliferate at the right time which is summer. Very few love the juice made out of the fruits but majority of people prefer eating raw.

The Java Apple Tree

The ready to eat java apples

The emerging ones

The nascent ones

Next is our favourite GUAVA enriched with vitamin c. They not only satisfy thirst but adds more immunity to system. We get it almost alternate day from our dear neighbours.

The PINEAPPLES are unforgettable but unfortunately they are not large in numbers. A cool glass of their juice one escape for summer

Not to forget the tasty PAPAYA too. They are healthy too. They are rich in taste. The availability is subjected to consumption by stealers which are none other than monkeys

How can we forget the yummy and tasty tropical queen which is our BANANAS. They are found in abundance and also great for health.

The eternal saviours of tropical zones is unparalleled. The healthy, tasty TENDER COCONUT drink. Nothing can beat them in terms of nutrients and taste. Except for ever increasing price, they are good at every angle.

Some people love this CASHEW FRUIT as well. Even though it feels coarse after eating, their juiciness tempts some people to savour it.

Last but not least, how can we forget the king of fruits, the most longed fruit, MANGOES. They spring up only during summer and favourite of all.

Apart from the natural eateries, there are also natural saviours of village during lock-down. They break the boredom with exciting display of colours. These are also saviours for me and my idle DSLR nowadays to unwind the lock-down . They are pleasant things to behold and capture despite the hot weather. Here are few of them from my collection.

And she is savouring her supper too :-)