Into the Cuckoo Cathedral | A Soulful Morning at Thattekad 💚

Dawn at Thattekad | An April Birding Surprise

26th April 2026

#intothewildwithrufus #birding

Today, our bird walk started exactly at dawn, and we all were right on time to step into Kerala’s very first bird sanctuary - the legendary Thattekad.

Now for a few words on the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary –

The name “Thattekkad” literally translates to “flat forest” in Malayalam. Unlike many other hill sanctuaries in the Western Ghats, this is a lowland forest!

Moreover, Thattekad owes its fame and existence to Dr. Salim Ali, India’s most renowned ornithologist (often called the “Birdman of India”). After surveying the area in the 1930s, he famously described Thattekad as the “richest bird habitat in Peninsular India”.

Largely due to his efforts, it was established as Kerala’s very first bird sanctuary in 1983 and is officially named the Dr. Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary.

It is a haven for a host of endemic species - birds that are found nowhere else on Earth – including the brilliantly coloured Malabar Trogon, the Malabar Grey Hornbill, the vibrant Flame-throated Bulbul, and the White-bellied Treepie.

One specific section of the sanctuary is so heavily populated by different varieties of cuckoos that it has earned the nickname “Cuckoo Cathedral”.

Coming back to our day today -

Every seasoned birder knows the unwritten “rules” of birding! 😊

April isn’t exactly the time for birding! The heat begins to set in, and many of the winter migrants have by now already made their journeys back home!

However, Nature sprang a surprise on us today in the lovely Thattekad canopy.

Almost as soon as we stepped into the sanctuary, the forest started coming alive to us!

All the endemic species were out in full force to say ‘hi’ to us. 😊

We caught sight of the Malabar Gray Hornbill, the vibrant Flame-throated Bulbul, the Racket-tailed Drongo and the Hill Mynah, the Pied Kingfisher, the White-throated Kingfisher, the Malabar Parakeet and the Plum-headed Parakeet!

We were lucky enough to spot both the Treepies – the striking White-bellied Treepie and my namesake – the Rufous Treepie as well.

Alongside the flame-throated Bulbul, we were treated to sightings of the bright Yellow-browed Bulbul and the classic Red-whiskered Bulbul. We also heard the familiar rustle of Jungle Babblers and a Jungle Fowl navigating the undergrowth. Higher up, a White-cheeked Barbet and a Yellow-nape Woodpecker were busy at work, while a stunning little Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher and a lovely Magpie Robin posed beautifully for us.

We spent some quiet moments observing the sleek Darter, alongside the ever-patient Pond Heron, a bright white Cattle Egret, and a drying Cormorant.

Of course, no trip to the forests of the Western Ghats is complete without running into a few non-avian friends. Today, the show was effortlessly stolen by a magnificent Malabar Giant Squirrel. With its deep maroon and black coat, it bounded through the high branches, earning its spot on our checklist as an honorary bird friend for the day.

After a soulful birding delight into the forests, we were treated for coffee and lovely local snacks.

A memorable “birding day” in every way!

Right after a Rewarding Birding Comes a Well-deserved Cup of Coffee!  😊

The End of "Marks Rajya" and Rote Learning | Why Your Portfolio Matters More Than Ever ❤️

City Colleges to Give Weightage to Portfolios in Admissions This Year

#newspaperinlearning

26th April 2026

Today’s Times of India Chennai Edition, sports a news article featuring the new admission criteria in City Colleges for their 2026-27 admissions. 

The most significant aspect of this news is the paradigm shift in traditional college admission criteria - moving from a strictly marks-based system to one that evaluates and rewards practical, demonstrable skills, based on the student’s portfolio.

Bespeaks to the fact that, for the first time, traditional Arts and Science colleges in Chennai have officially started recognising digital portfolios on platforms like GitHub (for coding and computer science applicants) and Behance (for design and visual communication applicants).

Madras Christian College (MCC) is planning to give a 10% weightage over and above the cut-off marks for students who possess such impressive portfolios.

The principal of MCC Dr. Paul Wilson has acknowledged that fact that students with high practical aptitudes (in coding or performing arts) might not always secure the highest marks in board exams. This new rule attempts to level the playing field by recognising real-world skills, leading to a holistic evaluation of the candidate during admissions.

So what, pray, is the takeaway?

Colleges are finally catching up to the realities of the modern job market. The job market has long cared more about a candidate’s GitHub repository than their GPA, industries the world over hire based on Behance or Dribbble profiles. Academia is now waking up to cater to this standard!

This signals the end of rote learning’s monopoly, wherein the student just writes down reams and reams of rote-memorised content on the answer sheets.

In short, we are rapidly moving from a world that asks, “What do you know?” to a world that asks, “What have you done?”

Where’s the Flame? A Tale of Two Bulbuls 💚💚

Seeing Red and Yellow! 😊

Spotting the Uniquely Endemic Flame-throated Bulbul

#intothewildwithrufus #birding

Birding in and around the Western Ghats is real thrill especially when it comes to watching out for some of the rare, endemic birds that are unique to the Western Ghats!

Presenting the Flame-throated Bulbul, ladies and gentlemen!

Although it is quite common in the bird kingdom for females to be duller in colour than their male counterparts, Flame-throated Bulbuls beg to differ! They are - what ornithologists would call - sexually monomorphic!

That means the males and females look strikingly similar – with those fiery orange-red throats and the bright white eyes!

These photos that we captured today, are the adult and their juvenile of the exact same species!

And well, nature has a clever reason for this striking change in appearance between the adult and the juvenile!

Young Flame-throated Bulbuls lack the fire, oops the flame that’s part of their parents’ identity! 😊

This duller plumage helps camouflage the inexperienced young birds from predators while they are growing up!

Quite interestingly, you won’t find these birds anywhere else in the world. They are completely endemic to the lovely, evergreen forests of the Western Ghats in southern India.

A Tale of Two Dragonflies | The Striking Pied Paddy Skimmer 💚

Nature’s Polar Opposites | The Pied Paddy Skimmer

#intothewildwithrufus #birding

This is the Male Pied Paddy Skimmer - that we spotted today - and one of the most easily recognisable dragonflies in India!

It is striking with its black body and beautiful wings – wherein the base half is completely black, followed by a white band, and transparent tips.

The difference is kinda night and day! 😊 Yes, both male and female are completely polar opposites as far as their appearance is concerned.

And this is the female counterpart to the black-and-white male we spotted today!

The female has a pale, yellowish-green body and transparent wings marked with distinct dark brown bands and patches with darkened wingtips.

PS: You may want to watch a video of the Pied Paddy Skimmer that we had taken two years ago, on our vlog HERE

Crimson Males & Un-Crimson Females | Meet the Marsh Gliders! 💚💚💚

The “Uncrinsomly” Female “Crimson” Marsh Glider

& Her Male Counterpart! 😊

#intothewildwithrufus #birding

Today we were lucky enough to have captured some wonderful photos that showcase sexual dimorphism in all its grandeur among dragonflies!

Well, sexual dimorphism connotes the difference in form, size, colour, or structure between males and females of the same species - where males and females of the exact same species look completely different from one another.

Dragonflies are often classified under a few sub-categories depending on what they ‘do’ – and how they ‘do’ it – skimmers, gliders or perchers!

In this blogpost, let’s have a look at the Male and Female Crimson Marsh Glider!

The name Female “Crimson” Marsh Glider (first & second pic) is in fact so “uncrimson”ly for the Female of this Marsh Glider species.

That’s again because of sexual dimorphism!

It is the males which are famous for their luminous, vibrant crimson (purplish-red) bodies. However, the females look like an entirely different species to beautifully blend into their marshy environments.

Instead of red, the female’s thorax and abdomen are an earthy olive-green, and this lack of bright crimson is an advantage for the female! While the males need their bright colours to establish territory and attract mates, the female’s olive green tones provide excellent camouflage among dry twigs, reeds, and marsh grasses, keeping her safe from predators while she rests or lays eggs.

Now, let’s come to the Male Crimson Marsh Glider! (third & fourth pic)

We spotted the male frequently performing a unique behaviour again and again! When we googled it, we learnt the name for this behaviour – It’s called the “obelisk posture.”

It seems on very hot days, (like we had today) 😊 they regularly point their abdomen straight up into the air toward the sun. This minimises the surface area of their body exposed to direct sunlight, helping them to cool down, it seems!

Secondly, unlike females who hide in the reeds, males are highly territorial and want to be seen. They reliably return to the exact same exposed, prominent perches (usually the very tip of a dry twig or grass stem like the one over here) over and over again to survey their territory!

Nature’s ways (God’s ways) are so beautiful, ain’t it?

Can You Pass the "Kitchen Table" Test? 💜

The “Kitchen Table” Test! 😊

#newspaperinlearning

The New Indian Express

24 April 2026

This morning I was reading this particular article in today’s The New Indian Express!

It’s about Anthropic’s “Claude Mythos” model and hence I was curious to know more about it!

On an aside, as most of us regularly following the English dailies this past one month would have known, Claude Mythos has been making it to the news for all the wrong reasons!

For some background information on the subject for us all –

Well, unlike our regular AI models like Gemini or ChatGPT or even the previous versions of Claude, Claude Mythos has not been released to the general public. The reason is that, the model has unprecedented, highly advanced cybersecurity capabilities, and hence it has the potential to autonomously write code, and completely hijack systems of literally anybody in any part of the world!

Hence, Anthropic gave the world at large a subtle warning that, releasing Claude Mythos publicly would be too dangerous, as it would literally give anyone in the world the power to launch cyberattacks. Instead, they said they are restricting it only for a closed programme called “Project Glasswing,” allowing only select partners (like tech giants and banks) to use it to patch their systems before hackers can hack into them.

However, as irony or ‘unluck’ would have it, there was a huge security lapse that had happened here.

Anthropic’s heavily guarded cybersecurity model was leaked by some unauthorised hackers - users who managed to gain access to the restricted Mythos preview! Anthropic has also confirmed the breach. This has caused great panic among the cybersecurity community, raising serious questions about whether AI companies are actually capable of keeping high-risk AI Models from the hands of the illegal, dangerous hackers!

It is in this context that I wanted to read this article with all curiosity!

However, one cursory look at the article, and I could feel that, the writing is highly unreadable! ☹

This kind of writing style is usually dubbed in academic circles, as the result of a “curse of knowledge,” where the author assumes that the reader already possesses a deep understanding of all the complex concepts in cybersecurity that he has ‘discussed’ in this article.

So what exactly is wrong with the writing style here?

The author – an engineering graduate - has used a lot of highly technical terms without taking time to explain them in plain English, or providing any contextual clues or definitions whatsoever!

Sample some of the phrases like “autonomous exploit chaining”, “semantic mapping”, and “privilege escalation paths” – terms that read like they are meant for security engineers, and NOT for a news article that would cater to a general audience!

A layperson reading this article might become thoroughly confused and perplexed by all means! Most of the points in this article are likely to fly completely over their heads! 😊

Secondly, the article does not paint a visual picture for the lay reader, which makes it sound so abstract and twice removed from the lay!

Sample this: “A model can sustain analysis across large software environments without losing continuity” or “The first ramification is visible in reconnaissance, and this creates a distinct threat vector for cyber security”.

These sentences sound quite scholastic, bombastic and impressive! 😊 However, they lack the readerly-connect in that, they do not aim at painting a visual picture for the lay person!

As such, the article fails miserably in the proverbial “kitchen table test”.

So what pray, is the Kitchen-Table Test?

The “kitchen table test” has been a universal benchmark of sorts, in academic writing, journalism, and in politics to check whether a concept, or a news story is relatable and easily understood by the average person!

To pass the test, the subject matter must be quite simple in style – so that one could easily explain it to a friend or family member during a casual conversation over dinner at the kitchen table, without relying on the highly jargonised vocabulary! It simply means that, if ordinary people wouldn’t talk about it at their kitchen table, it definitely needs to be rewritten!

As the legendary Albert Einstein so beautifully puts it -

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough! 😊

So yes, beware of the “kitchen table test” when you speak or write! 😊

PS: You may want to read a humorous take by one of my favourite writers – P. Sainath - on one such jargonised vocabulary used by NGOs and the Insurance / Banking / Health Sectors, HERE on our blog, written well over 15 years ago!

From Screen Time to Self-Esteem | How Social Media is Shaping Teen Body Image ❤️

Junk Food or Social Media? 

#newspaperinlearning

The Times of India #DigitalLiteracy

I came across a highly insightful article in The Times of India titled, “Is social media addiction leading to eating disorder among teens?”

An article that stopped me right on my tracks and made me ponder over this issue in all seriousness for quite sometime!

The article delves into the huge psychological impact that our increasingly digital world is having on our adolescents - specifically regarding their body image and their eating habits.

As parents and educators, this article deserves to be highlighted and given its due visibility amongst us all. And hence, this post!

The reality of being a teenager today is vastly different from that of past generations. Today, social media isn’t just a place to connect; for many teens, it dictates the standard of what is acceptable, beautiful, and worthy.

The constant exposure to unrealistic beauty standards creates a persistent feeling of inadequacy, which has the power to tragically manifest itself in the form of disordered eating even as they attempt to gain control over their bodies.

Citing two specific research studies - one from Turkey on high schoolers and one from Italy on 9-to-10-year-old girls – the writer goes on to say that, heavy social media use, particularly on visual platforms like Instagram, is directly linked to body dissatisfaction, emotional instability, and a rising eating disorder called orthorexia nervosa (an unhealthy obsession with eating “perfectly”).

What starts as viewing a nutrition-related video reel can slowly turn into shame, and inferiority!

A second study from Italy examined 232 girls aged just 9 to 10 years old. The researchers found that even at this pre-adolescent age, those showing signs of Instagram addiction were already more likely to feel unhappy with their bodies resulting in social withdrawal. Social media is shaping self-image long before the teenage years even begin, he says!

The article underscores the idea that, a better, healthier body image is naturally linked to lower social media addiction.

Well, simply banning screens isn’t a realistic long-term solution in a digital world. Digital platforms have become an indispensable part of our everyday life and living!

So instead of confiscating the phone, parents and educators must teach young people the importance of media literacy aka digital literacy!

Added, in the offline world, as parents and teachers, it is our onerous responsibility not to use sexist remarks and microaggressions that can harm the body image of our kids.

Educators always hold a position of power! And when that power is used to demean or stereotype a student, it fractures the trust required for true mentorship. A student cannot view a professor as a guide or a mentor or as a second parent if that professor is simultaneously mocking or invalidating their identity on a regular basis.

In this regard, it is important to create safe, judgment-free spaces - whether in the classroom or at the coffee table, to discuss their anxieties and insecurities.

In a world ruled by filters and likes, it is important for us to help them build confidence – a confidence that does not depend on their bodily appearance or internet approval!

Because, as the saying goes –

A tree is easily straightened while it is still young!