Jiboner Akibuki - The Strokes of life

I have on my recent visit to Digha collected a small snake from the villagers who was about to kill it. I have kept it in a small glass jar but do not know what type of snake is it. If some one recognises it please let me know. Also indicate if you know anything about its care and maintainance.

Udaipur sea beach a small coastal fishing village near Digha in West Bengal, India. Grazing at the emptiness.....

I visited Digha recently and found that the Marine aquarium and research centre there is one of the best in India , With the one in Mumbai keeping only local fishes in comparrison with the great number of species from all over India and some from abroad , here. I really am pleased to see such beautiful aquarium in Digha. ZSI is supposed to be running this centre and indipets.com is in charge of maintaining the fishes. Some fishes I saw there are as below. Common Name :- Groupers Scientific name:-Epinephelus spp They can be very colorful to almost monochrome according to their species. All Epinephelus are protogynous hermaphrodites .Mostly predatory feeding on live and artificial feeds, likes to stay alone and reproduction is not known to have taken place in captivity can be kept with larger fishes. Common Name :- Red Squirrelfish Scientific name:-Holocentrus ruber Crepuscular lurkers , and not yet known to be breeding in captivity . Feeds on live food but accepts artificial food . Comm...

Digha sea beach is a popular weekend retreat to thousands of tourists thronging the place almost every time of the year. There are in excess of 1000 small, big and medium sized hotels and there is DSDA ( Digha shankarpur development authority) who collects a fee from each tourist visiting the town in the name of betterment of the place and to make it more pleasant and safe. Sounds good but reality contradicts the theory. DSDA has failed miserably to make Digha a better tourist attraction . The main problem that one faces as a tourist in this other wise lovely place is a dirty sea beach. The sand of the beach as can be seen from the picture is so polluted from the debris originating from a varied number of sources like sewerage , littering by public and of course cremation of dead bodies on the guard wall of the . Though such a large scale of pollution is continuing daily there seems to be no effort on the part of the DSDA to arrest ot tackle the menace. The DSDA should relocate the cre...

Catching fishes for a living is common in Digha. There are many fishermen family living in this coastal tourist town in Purba Medinipur in Westbengal. In the picture we can see the preparation of the fishermen to bring in their catch of fishes of the day to the shore.

The true crabs (Cancer, carcinus, Portumis, etc.) reach the highest degree of specializa­tion among Crustacca. The cephalothorax is baroader than longer. Both the pairs of feelers are small. The antennules and the eye stalks are contained in sockets of the carapace. The third maxillipedes are flat and plate-like and cover the other mouth parts. The five pairs of thoracic legs are well-developed and clawed. The first legs are chelate, forming the large pinching claws, the remaining legs are non-chelate.The abdomen is very short with an uncalcified, soft sternal region. It is permanently bent under the cephalo­thorax, fitting into a groove in the thoracic sterna, thus remaining almost invisible in the dorsal view of the animal. The abdomen is narrower in male but somewhat broader in female. The pleopods are greatly reduced, the male retaining only two pairs of them, which serve as copulatory organs ; the female has four pairs for carrying the eggs. The uropods are usually absent. The you...

View of Bus stand taken from the Air conditioned Sleeper Bus that ferries between Digha and Kolkata.

I cant stop getting amused, seeing people buy loads of sea shell products from the shore side shops in Digha, thinking they are buying some local products from digha as a momento of their visit and also for gift purposes. Do they know that these shells are not from the sea near Digha? but are brought from places far off in the south India like from the beaches of Trivandrum,Rameshwaram and other beaches in the region.

The Silver harvest... Fisherwomen stack and sorting their prized catch of day. Soon it will be auctioned on the beach itself, where it is unloaded by the fishermen returning early in the morning on a beach near Digha. The fish that is in abundance today is a fish locally called as Chanda and is auctioned generally between Rs. 20-30 per Kg.

Picture taken by me at Digha. Grasshoppers live all over the world in open grasslands, feeding on grass or any other available leafy vegetation, and sometimes causing serious damage to crops. They are essentially solitary and residential species, often abundant as individuals, but which may occasionally migrate. Poecilocerus pictus lives on Ak plant in India. The short-winged, lubber grasshopper, Romalea microptera or Brachystola magna, is commonly used for class study in U.S.A. Certain kinds are known as locusts, particularly the gregarious and migratory forms, which are highly destructive. There are several species of locusts in the world. Locusta migratoria of the Old World occurs from eastern Europe to the Philippines. The desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) extends from North Africa to north India. The Bombay locust (Cyrtacanthacris succinta) is confined to India. The chief North American species are the American locust (Schistocerca americana), the Carolina locust (Dissosteira ...

I keep going back to Digha to de-stress myself. I see a different look of the sea on each of my visits and this constant change of nature does impress me and compels me to keep visiting this lovely place.

A popular activity in Digha is savoring fry fish from the numerous fish stalls along the sea beach.

A popular weekend among Bengalis is a trip to the lovely and sandy beaches of Digha in East Midnapore.

Shankarpur is a place around two kilometers from the traditional Digha beach area which is now over crowded with tourists and hotels, now is the latest craze amongst people for its boulder less beautiful beaches and its fishermen village.