Mind Blogging. Mind Boggling.

Notes on the above comic:
On the trek up Nag tibba, spotted a few Himalayan vultures soaring effortlessly. They are pretty massive. They ventured close to us- enabling the DSLR holder in the group to capture a few shots, and I could also see the body- all furry. I was seeing them second time- saw them first soaring NYC-skyscraper-high above me at Mcleodganj. They have this distinctive black and white underside of the wing which can enable you to clearly distinguish them - I've tried to capture that in the picture above. Also, for a full 5-10 minutes, I could not see them flap their wings at all! Wikipedia later told me- "They soar in thermals and are not capable of sustained flapping flight" . Also, apparently, this is the "largest and heaviest bird found in the himalayas"

During the Nag tibba trek, the highlight national geographic moments were the spotting of a black and white woodpecker and witnessing the "starry starry night" (all right, Alt tabbed and played it). P had chosen to hum Coldplay's "sky full of stars" that evening, equally apt.

Infusion of energy by the spotting of the black and white woodpecker
On an arduous trek, when my energy is draining and spirit is fading, or during times when the plodding steps seem like boring rigmarole, all it takes is a piercing bird call  from a seemingly viewable range, to perk up the spirits a notch, and when the spotting happens, vigour levels are shooting through the roof. This happened ~1 km downhill in the 9 km downward journey, with this episode becoming all the more interesting because I saw it coming from much before. A couple of hours ago, 1 km before reaching the peak, I saw a few holes in the tree trunks and asked our guide if there might be some friendly woodpeckers around, knock knock knocking on tree's barks. He shrugged and said indeed, there might be, and we let that pass. Now, a couple of hours later on the way back, I heard the shrill repeat bursts which would be either from a kingfisher or from a woodpecker. Drifted off the path, chased the sound down, and there it was. Black and white as a zebra, knocking away on the bark of a tree, hopping straight up vertically in characteristic woodpecker style. Excitedly pulled N and a fellow trekker in the group off the trail and showed them Mr B&W. I got pretty energized and after this subjected our our Trek leader to much chatter. Including one very fun activity of setting up an abandoned Bacardi rum bottle on a ledge and taking stone pot shots at it. While i scored many pebble hits, the TL scored a rock hit which dramatically shattered the bottle to pieces.

"Sky full of stars" or "Starry Starry night"- play one of them now as you read this
That evening was the starriest I've seen in my life. An arm of the Milky Way was like a white stain of star dust across the black sky, and I realized the aptness of the name. Trek leader Jude pointed out Pleides- a bright cluster. We saw many shooting stars. Another shining object slowly trailed across the sky, and J told us that that's a satellite. We also observed Princess Cassiopea posing for her beach calendar shoot. Orion, usually right over head in the city sky, we saw rising from the horizon at 7 PM odd and reaching by 10 odd the point were we are used to seeing him. The sky was truly marvelous. Made me later wonder, interest among kids in astronomy would be so much more in places where kids can just see the stars at night. Reminds me of the line from Interstellar- "We used to look up at the sky and wonder about our place in the stars. Now we look down and worry about our place in the dirt".

Same nature momentum propelled me next weekend
Next weekend happened to be in the beaches of Andaman- this is probably the most exciting three weekends I've had in recent memory. Imagine a game of football between the teams "Happening  weekend" and "Sedate weekend". Commentary- "Hills with the ball but face to face with the defender Rainy-weekend, Hills passes to Beach, OOO bad tackle by Fever-weekend but Hills gets the ball to to Sports-weekend.....GOOAAAL- Sedateweekends has been thrashed!!". Anyhow, I learnt at Andaman from V that you can see the international space station at night, so what i saw at nag tibba was perhaps the ISS. When faced with the starry night in the beach at Havelock, I could coolly pull out my fresh gyaan (from just the week before) and enlighten my "starry eyed" teammates. Then, i saw on a nature trail a black and white woodpecker yet again. It made such a din with its pecking- it was very loud especially given the silence of the evergreen forest. A smart Woodpecker can be hired by a rock band for playing the drums.