Showing posts with label Chennai Bird Race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chennai Bird Race. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

My new discovery


Thanks to the bird race last Sunday, we visited the Karikili tank for the first time. Next to Vedanthangal, its more popular cousin ensures that there are no crowds here. 

It appears that the pintails also preferred the peace and quiet of this lake, and were sunning and snoozing in large numbers, far away from the noisy pelicans of Vedanthangal. 

We sat for a while on the bund and watched them now and then going bottoms-up as something in the water grabbed their attention.

A pied kingfisher did its helicopter act before divebombing in, only to come up empty-beaked.

As I sauntered along the walkway, a long wispy brown tail fluttered in the trees, attached to a rufous paradise flycatcher busy chomping on some hapless insect.  He stared at me indignantly before taking off to the next tree.

A flock of Red-wattled Lapwings announced our presence with some frantic did-you-do-it calling, but the Cormorant which was preening and sunning couldn't care less.

A lonely Lttle Grebe and a Common Coot looking most uncommon swum around as if in search of friends.

A Coppersmith Barbet and a Brainfever bird called from the trees, well hidden from our view.

We soon moved on to Pallikaranai, but the lake was the highlight of a day well spent, as we enjoyed the oh-so-short Madras  winter, with good company to boot.  Thank you Sekar, Raji and Sheila!

PS - our tally of 70 odd (72 I think) was the highest we've achieved on a bird race, so not bad for a birding day that finished at 2pm!  Of course GK's idying and Sheila's camera added a good handful to our tally at the end of the day.

Monday, January 23, 2012

The Beach Birders at the Fifth Chennai Bird Race

This was the way it was.  No colour filter!  Photo by Rags.  See the entire set of pictures here.


Our Beach Birders team from the coast
decided to bird for half a day, at the most.

With binos and books we took to the Bird Race.
It was the refreshments that set the leisurely pace!

A gorgeous sunrise, such as I had never seen before
but wait, Pallikaranai had much more  in store!

Swamp hens, egrets and stilts galore
the cormorants and ducks creating a furore.

Stints in aerial ballet, it seemed, just for fun.

Bobbing sandpipers, the prinias chirping
meditative herons and jacanas preening.

Unmindful of the garbage and stench were they
"A poor sense of smell", the experts say.

A news crew arrived in the meantime from afar
and before we knew it, Rags was a TV star!

Watched the spot bills and pintails and teals flypast.
We decided to move on after a coffee-and-sandwich repast.

To Sholinganallur wetlands, past the toll,  we drove
and Fulvous Whistling Ducks we saw, by jove!

Kelambakkam backwaters by midday we did drop by.
Blue waters, a breeze, the sun high in the sky.

It was time for the biggies the thermals to ride
Painted storks and Pelicans, side by side.

A few Terns winged without intent
their low numbers, to me, a disappointment.

But a family of curlews did give us a sneak peek
as they fished in the mud with their overlong beaks.

Happy and hot and tired were we
as we headed home, Sheila, Rags, Ammu and me!

Our bird of the day was the Grey-headed Lapwing
but for the Emerald Doves, an Orphean Warbler did sing!

Bridled Terns logged 121, our tally 59
but with the fun and company, that suited me fine!
************************
The fifth Chennai Bird Race held on Sunday Jan 22nd.

The TOI new report has a few errors.  The winning team of Vikas was Bridled Tern.  And he spotted an eagle not an owl!

The IE report - Students create a buzz at CBR.

The Hindu report - Feathered friends

The Jacana Junkies were at the third edition in 2010.


Monday, January 11, 2010

The Jacana Junkies at the bird race

There were 4 birders from Madras
who had not birded for a while, alas!
So they decided to change their ways
And take part in the Chennai bird race.

Jacana Junkies, there were four
One slept over
And then were three!
Never mind, we thought, off to GNP!

Bird calls everywhere and we were so excited
I heard the bulbul, but an oriole was sighted!
Parakeets and sunbirds, all so restive
And the butterflies added to make it all so festive.

Oh man, I thought, I am really out of touch
Spotting that calling coucal is proving too much.

The boys from Olcott School
I tell you, were way too cool.
An ashy drongo they showed us
Lurking in the bushes.

On we went to the polo ground
Where blackbuck and chital do abound.
A screeching shikra was identified
And was that a sparrow hawk we spied?

Two jackals with bushy tails, sauntered past
With my camera I should have been more fast.
Baby chitals peered with curiosity
Were we three such an oddity?

An Asian Brown Flycatcher
Had us JJs in a lather
Books were perused and binos viewed
before we deduced
the id of this winter visitor!

Pallikaranai marsh was next on our path
But only after a hearty repast
Pongal, kichdi and dosai with ghee
And good south Indian sweet and strong coffee!

To provide us Pallikaranai never fails
A bountiful supply of feathers and tails!
Jacanas and moorhens,
egrets and herons
Swallows and Swifts
Ducks and Stilts.

But it was the pelicans that were delightful
A couple in the water, unusually busy and cheerful.

Then we looked up in the sky and gasped
Like a busy airport with planes a-circling
Another fifty pelicans lazily gliding
Riding the thermals, waiting and watching.

A Marsh Harrier rounded up our sally
45 was our final tally.

By now, one Junkie was sneezing and snuffling
Another's phone was ringing and calling
Yours truly's car was low on petrol
And so we all headed on home.

I watched Cilic and Wawrinka do battle that night
As they hit the tennis ball with all their might
But guess what I found in the ladies' bathroom
next to the pots and pails and brooms?

A white-browed wagtail,
a fitting end to this Bird Race tale!


******
(The 3rd Chennai Bird Race was organised by the Madras Naturalist Society along with India Bird Races and HSBC on 10th January, 2010. Our team was the Jacana Junkies, after my favourite new bird of 2009, the pheasant-tailed jacana. )

For more sensible accounts of the bird race, read:

Some photo albums as well:


Saturday, January 9, 2010

Third Chennai bird race

Birding to turn fun for nature lovers from dawn to dusk on January 10 - Chennai - City - The Times of India

No, we dont race the birds, just race to spot birds!

We - the Jacana Junkies - will be doing a leisurely search (no racing for us) at a couple of spots in and around south Madras on Sunday.

Chennai Open final also beckons in the evening.

PS: There's a storm approaching, reportedly on Sunday!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Spot that bird

An account of the bird race, by the winning team that appeared in The Hindu.
Spot that bird

There are more birds in Chennai than we thought…That’s what the Bird Race showed. NINA SIMON

With two bikes between four of us, Arun, Hopeland, Rajkumar and I spent our time after an unfair Saturday at college (they don’t call it a weekend for nothing!) criss-crossing the city searching for birds. January 29 was the bird race held by the Madras Naturalist Society and we were in a hurry to finish our homework and be free. Arun named our team “The Common Crows” as we entered the race.

“D day”: I never wake up in time; my college attendance or rather its lack is proof. So Arun had to leave home at 3.00 a.m. to wake me up! At 4.30 a.m. we were on the road, cold wind whipping our skin and the first bird we saw was the common crow! Soon we were on the East Coast Road on the way to Vadanamali Village.

As dawn appeared we searched the bushes for lark, whimbrel, curlew, sandpipers and other birds found near the backwaters. We ticked more birds than we expected on our checklist but a fast fading “flamingo pink” sky told us that we had to get back on the road. This time to Pallikaranai spotting 46 species and seeing an eagle hunt a snake and feed on it.

Next visit: Sholinganallur where we spotted wagtails, pintails and greb along with a few raptors.At 9.00 a.m. we passed through Nanmangalam to see the booted eagle. Reaching Ponmar by 10.30 a.m. we got to see harriers up close perched on the electric cables as we searched for paddy birds while allowing our bikes to cool down. We visited Arun’s old friend the barn owl at Vijayshanthi Apartments too. We then spent a stiff one hour on the 365-acre campus of Madras Christian College since we knew where to find the birds (we study there).

Above us a Montagu’s harrier hovered in the air trying to find prey in the dense scrub jungle below. We spotted the yellow wattled lapwing, which made our day! Hopeland had to write down the birds we spotted sitting on a moving bike because we had no time.

It was already 12.30 p.m. and our next stop was one—and –a- half hours away! We reached Vedanthangal and set ourselves spotting birds: in no time we’d ticked off painted storks, pelicans, open bills, cormorants, darters, greb and a whole list of water birds from our list.

We drove back to the city just in time for a rush-hour traffic jam. Looking like vagabonds we limped past the President Hotel parking lot trying to look a little bit more presentable only to find that we were not the only ones around. Kids of eight and 10 were talking about their passion for birds, rattling off bird names; and old men and women were acting like children comparing notes like secrets!

All through this race I had only one thought other than spotting birds: “would we win?” But now I realised it didn’t matter for the experience of driving 310 km and spotting 131 species and sharing my experience with the rest was a trophy in itself. After the meeting and dinner hosted by the Madras Naturalist Society each of us walked out with a treasury of tales and a satisfied smile.

Each of us had contributed to a conservation movement that might one day save the birds of our city. If you have ever heard the owl hooting at night you will understand the satisfaction I got that day!

Nina Simon is a IInd year student of Zoology, Madras Christian College


Well, they must have had some sore butts after that, with 300+ kms under their belts, in a day!

Monday, February 2, 2009

The Baya weaver and other discoveries

Here are the birds that I saw for the first time during the Chennai Bird Race. The Baya Weavers were in a palm tree, on the road to the Vedanthangal sanctuary, after the turn-off from the highway, before the temple.

The tree was full of these birds and their nests!  I've seen empty nests before, close to Pulicat, but this was the first time I saw the birds and the nests in use.  We saw a couple of males who have a lovely yellow cap and breast during breeding, but I think this one is a female.

Mr Baya is rather industrious.  He weaves this nest from paddy reeds and other grass.  He also has a regular harem, with several wives and a separate nest for each one!  Now the interesting thing is, he weaves several of these halfway (like the one in the picture) and then has to await approval of the Mrs!  A prospective Mrs Baya comes along takes a look inside while the anxious male waits outside.  If she approves of his weaving skills, she occupies the nest, completes it, and then lays the eggs inside, taking full responsibility of incubating them! Then, our cheery Mr Baya goes off and looks for more wives with more half-finished nests!!  

What interesting lives in my environment, and I didn't know about this until now!  The finished nest has a passage that goes upwards into the egg chamber, and its so secure that snakes cannot get at the eggs.  Click here for more details on the nest and some great pictures and drawings of completed nests.

The Glossy Ibis was my second new "discovery" at Vedanthangal, actually in the fields surrounding the protected sanctuary. This is the adult in breeding plumage, and the sun caught the colours quite spectacularly.  

The Glossy Ibis, if I'm not mistaken, is a winter visitor, and a glamorous one at that.  As I watched it, intent on feeding in the fields I had this image of a serious and ponderous gent all dressed up for a music kutcheri but more interested in the newspaper in his lap!
The slow, stalking movements take away from my pre-conceived image of grace! Quite similar to the painted stork, so beautifully captured in this photo taken within the sanctuary. Such lovely colours and such an elegant pose - like a fashion model on the ramp, but then there's an awkwardness to their gait and a certain silliness when they clack their beaks that takes away from the image!  Maybe thats why Ranjit Lal christened the Prime Minister in his Crow Chronicles as Pinky Stink Tainted Storkji!

I am reading the book, set in Bharatpur, and the bird personalities are so apt, that I think I'm going to write a couple of posts based on that book!

And late in the evening, I finally saw a Common Hawk Cuckoo, also known as the Brainfever bird!  In Kanha, in the summer of 2005, they called out to us, from all over the forest, but maddeningly, I never did get a good sight of them, as they hid in the foliage, or took off just when I sighted them.  So, four years later, I look up into the foliage, and I saw a juvenile just sitting there, quietly.  No call.  I would've missed it entirely if I had not glanced upwards.  They call mainly in the summer and are largely silent in the winter.  

Sripad's got this great shot as it feeds on its favourite food - hairy caterpillars!  

Brain-fever bird

For more of Sripad's bird race pictures click here.  

For more of our pictures from Vedanthangal, click here.  

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

2nd HSBC Bird Race - All in a day: 131 species of birds spotted

Yes, I did it! Finally made a trip to Vedanthangal. All in the name of the bird race, which we took part in as (rather unimaginatively named) Sarus Cranes.

We ended the day with 60 species seen, whcih I thought was a great improvement from our forty something of last year!

Last year, we went to many more places inside the city. This year I toyed with the idea of green birding, but then there were added complications. Some of the team members needed to be back in half a day, and we had to see visiting family in the afternoon. It all seemed too complicated, and we chose the easy way out - we took the car. There were several teams who took on the challenge of only using public transport. Hats off to them! Maybe I'll get there next year!!

Our route was off in the morning to Vedanthangal, which is two hours away, returning via Muttukadu. Followed by lunch, siesta and some socialising with family, then off to Poonga, (no species added there), a strong bonus at the Madras Club where low tide revealed a bunch of waders, and back to the reporting venue, a trifle late actually as we crawled along in evening traffic.

I added three new birds - the glossy ibis, baya weavers and the brainfever bird.   Saw new parts of the city, enjoyed the company of kids - my friend's daughter who got all excited on spotting a bird in the bush or on the wire, my son who was all keen to go the previous day, then went through a patch of utter boredom before perking up at Vedanthangal (maybe he needed those sandwiches!!), and my Bangalore-based nephew who provided interesting sidelights about how Bangalore has so many kites (true) in the air, and that the winning team in their bird race there saw as much as 150 birds - probably also true!!  

Here's the article that appeared in the Indian Express.  I think the author meant dawn-to-dusk!

2nd HSBC Bird Race - All in a day: 131 species of birds spotted

More than five teams sighted more than 100 bird species. The Southern Grey Shrike was the rare bird of the day, seen enroute from Vedanthangal to Karikili

EITHER the bird population in Chennai and its neighbourhood has gone up in recent years or more and more people in the city are taking to ‘bird watching,’ as a hobby or for fun.
This is judging from the response to the bird watching competition on Sunday when the winning team spotted a record number of 131 species. The event was the Second HSBC ‘Bird Race,’ hooking the bird-watchers of all kinds- mostly students, professionals, housewives, and even tiny-tots and a group of physically challenged for a ‘dusk-to-dawn’ event.

The winning student team from the Madras Christian College that spotted 131 species had started its groundwork a month ago, making it clear that birdwatching is not just fun, but lot of hard work and planning. They had nicknamed their team as ‘the common house-crow.’ Reputed orinthologist Shantaram who had a hard time judging the competitive entries said this time the bird race had seen a record-breaking sighting of birds. More than five teams had sighted more than 100 bird species and eight to ten other teams had identified more than 80 birds. The Green Birding team, Iora, had seen 60 species.

The Southern Grey Shrike was the rare bird of the day seen enroute from Vedanthangal to Karikili by the Golden Oriole team.

A major number of participants this year was school students. It was intriguing to hear even tiny tots describe birds like the Paradise flycatchers, Red wattled lapwing, Indian Pitta and Spotted doves after racing them from dawn to dusk. A seven-year-old even had a warning for fauna lovers: “ Don’t cross the fence in marshlands, you might just sink into the mire.” Kumaran Sadasivan of the Madras Naturalist Society, leading a team of novices, could tell the name of the bird species just by hearing the call. The Guindy National Park offered a rare sight with children and adults seen freaking out at the occasional sights of spotted deer, blackbucks and star turtles too. “What better way to spend the Sunday?” the participants were heard talking to each other.

Fauna enthusiasts had set out in groups of four from early morning to the most expected birding areas like Guindy National Park, Vedanthangal, Nanmangalam, Pallikaranai Marshland and un expected ones like Madhavaram Jheel too.

Kavas Mistry, HSBC manager of credit operations and a participant, said, “it is a very refreshing break from the routine credit and debit work that I do. I have now learnt to look at birds more attentively,” he said.

Shobha Narayan, associate vice president of HSBC, said: “I am a novice in bird watching. But this is the best way to break the programmed lives we lead. This is my first experience, and I will continue the practice. I hope this lung space of Chennai at the Guindy National Park remains untouched.” Another participant, Varsha Manoharan, said: “I have learnt the finer points of bird watching. One can actually spot 12 species of birds on a day at the house veranda itself,” she said.

The fact that warblers were seen more and heard less and the tailorbirds seen less and heard more, were only one of the many interesting facts that emerged during the bird race.

According to the organisers, compared to last year’s 40 teams, this year the event attracted 49 teams.

Physically challenged children had not ignored the competition. A group from Vidya Sagar participated too.

The new category of Green Birdie, which used only public modes of transport, had 11 teams participating.

Students of Olcott Memorial School in Besant Nagar discovered a bird sanctuary in their school itself by recording 46 bird species.

Guneet Singh, senior VP at HSBC, said that about 99 per cent of the participants had taken part in the unique race mainly for fun. Mangalraj Johnson, Chairman, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), being a bird watcher for about 60 years, remarked: “bird watching is contagious, and there is no cure from it.” Wildlife Warden, Karunapriya, said that with the fall in bird population from important birding areas like the Pallikaranai marshland, it was vital for the local people to proactively protect the places of bird habitation.


Pictures to follow!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The second Bird race coming up on Sunday!

Madras Naturalists' Society (MNS) along with HSBC and India Bird Races is organising Chennai's Second B*ird Race* on January 25th 2009.

*The Bird Race is a dawn-to-dusk event where teams of bird-watchers willspend the entire day birding in and around Chennai (within a specified geographical limit to its outer boundaries). The participants will try and record as many species of birds as possible and learn about the finer points of bird-watching from the experts and the experienced. *

Each Team will consist of *04 (four) persons* and each Team *must include a good birder* who is familiar with the site's/region's avifauna. You are *free to constitute your own Team,* but must ensure at least one of you is a proficient birder, familiar with the region's birdlife, and who can be the Team Captain.

You need to send a mail to either mns_memb...@... or birdr...@... to register, giving brief details of whether you will form your own Team (in which case you need to include your team members' names) or would like us to form a Team for you.

For further information do visit *www.indiabirdraces.com*

Monday, March 17, 2008

Not much luck for the Bubo bubo team - The Chennai Bird Race

5:45 am Sunday morning, Feb 3rd 2008, and the three of us, and our neighbour Sheila set off on our quest to see how many types of birds we would see through the day. We had signed up as the Bubo Bubo team, to take part in the first ever Chennai Bird Race.

Rules were simple - we had to stick together, tick off the birds we spotted in a checklist, and return by 6-30 in the evening. Lateness would invite disqualification, we were told.

So off we went, with my husband being driver for the day, and with my son providing comic relief, and with Sheila and me the supposed birders of the team. (More like the blind leading the blind it was!)

Chembarambakkam lake was our first halt. This huge lake provides the city of Madras with our water, and though I have it seen it from the highway on our several roadtrips to Bangalore, I have not actually stopped and had a dekko. Sheila having been there last month gave us directions. "Turn in at Enterprising Enterprises". So, if any of you want to go the bund, that's the directions for you!



The lake bund road is really enjoyable and a good picnic spot. There were a bunch of morning walkers, some fisherfolk, washerwomen and some curious bystanders wondering what this odd bunch of green-capped (we had caps courtesy HSBC, which announced "Chennai Bird Race" on them) and binocular-toting people were up to!

The sun was just rising and the light was poor, but the Eurasian Wigeon ducks were identified. I had not seen these ducks before, and was fascinated with the little yellow "namam" of the males.

Then of course was frustrating moment #1 - what was that duck with the white beak? And that one with the red patch? All of us scoured through the duck pages of Salim Ali and Inskipp, but no there was no such bird. Back and forth we went to the book and to our binoculars. But identify it we could not. Out of sheer disgust we gave up, decided to have our sandwiches, and thought gloomily how our identification was starting off on a bad note.

Then was Eureka moment #1! No, its not a duck, but its on the Rails and Sandgrouses page - the white-beaked fellow is a common coot, and the red-patched one is the common moorhen! We all felt rather sheepish, but also elated that we could add some more ticks!


Further up the bund, and after many roller birds, kingfishers, beeeaters, drongoes and treepies and mynahs, we reached a road that forked, with the left fork leading away from the bund. OK, lets try the short-cut back through Kunrathur we decided. The well-topped surface flattered to deceive as we were soon in a mud road that had these huge craters and menacing looking jagged stones all over. The only saving grace was there was no traffic and we could wind our way at will.

Thankfully, this did not last long, and we reached the narrow concreted lanes of Kunrathur, where a gent in a tea shop gave us helpful directions. "Sir, ange rightu ponga (pointing with his left hand), konju doora pona, left cutting varum (now pointing right), adidha main road pallavaram. Now do we follow his hand directions or his verbal?! As we wended our way past cattle and goat and the occasional cyclist having a chat in the middle of the road, we came across Tulakan Street, and if we were in any doubt as to what that meant, it was translated as Muslim Street as well!

Two monstrous L&T cement mixers swerved in from a side road, and then we thankfully stuck to their tail as they cleared the way for us all the way to the Grand Southern Trunk Road near Pallavaram. Past Chrompet, and we see see this huge spaghetti loop-like overbridge. I wonder that people use it, it all looked rather confusing!

Left at the Tambaram station, and on to the Tambaram-Velachery road. We see a family of four on the right-hand side of a median, attempting to ride their two-wheeler across it, to the left-side. I was wonderstruck - they actually managed it!

Nanmangalam: 10 am, on the second stop of our day long bird-spotting race. We stopped off on the Medavakkam high road - its closer to the quarry and its famous resident.

Who is its famous resident you ask? No, no, not Rajni or Aishwarya or Stalin. If you are still in the dark, it means you have not read my earlier entry, Rendezvous with Bubo Bubo. it may be good to do so before reading this!

"Are we having breakfast here?", asked my son hopefully. You see he had come armed with some juice and chocolate milk and sandwiches, but we were not stopping anywhere long enough for him to have it! So, yes the quarry was chosen as the picnic spot for breakfast.

No “landmines” this time, but instead, as soon as we entered this time, we found these mounds of burnt feathers and hair – it was pretty creepy, like some mass murderer had been at work. And a rather unpleasant smell as well. We hurried along, to get away from there as quickly as we could.

First you have a few hundred metres of sparse vegetation, close to a maidan, where you will always find a cricket match in progress. As you walk a bit further, you reach a eaucalyptus grove, which is a noisy zone – filled with bird chatter. On this visit however, a huge flock of mynahs seems to have chased every other bird away, much to our despair, until we heard the lovely call of the red-vented bulbul, and then saw the proud crest of its red-whiskered cousin. Another unidentifiable bird on a tree top, and we proceeded to the quarry.

As we rounded a corner, familiar voices approached and some more green caps led by Chitra appeared. They had finished and were on their way to the next spot. “Two Bubo bubo chicks, as well’” Chitra announced, and then we zipped along, not stopping to look for any other birds. Just as we reached the quarry, there was huge shadow that flitted across in front of us, and as we looked up it was (Mrs?) Bubo bubo herself, flying in the air, and landing on a nearby tree to watch us. What a magnificent sight, and a handsome bird! A hint of cruelty perhaps, in those yellow eyes?

Where were her chicks? We scanned the face of the quarry, and some slight movement caught my eye, and there they were – 2 brown faces, huddled against each other, precariously balanced on a ledge. Did they know to fly? What if they slipped off that edge? Or even fought with each other, like most siblings do?! They were not tiny, like other chicks, at least fifteen inches, from what I could see, but they still looked small compared to their mother. The two exhibited different personalities, and reminded me of my niece and nephew. While one was ever alert, (the one on the left) suspicious and keen to the least sound, the other one had an "oh whatever" attitude and continued to sleep through all the noise we made! See for yourselves.



The quarry itself was full of water, and the green reeds provided camouflage for one little bird/duck, which kept appearing and disappearing. What was it? Try as hard as we could we could not get a good sighting. A red neck, I think, muttered my husband as he caught a fleeting glance through his binoculars, and in a flash it was gone. Not very good are we? Anyway, at the end of the day we were kindly informed by our fellow birders that that was a Little Grebe, or dabchick. Now of course, to confuse beginners like us, this fellow has to show up with the cormorants and darters, and not with the ducks!

My son by now had opened up his goody bag and was busy chowing away, when another team of bird racers came by, and we showed them (very proudly), the juvenile owls on the ledge.

There were sunbirds a plenty, with their purple plumage catching the sunlight, as they streaked across, from bush to bush. As we returned, we saw a shikra above us, but when we looked through our binoculars, we saw that it was being bothered by a group of flying insects – bees probably? – buzzing around its face!

Back past the feather mounds and into the car, to stopover at Pallikaranai.

Pallikaranai - 1:00 pm, - going back home for lunch. (This in itself would cause all the seasoned birders to raise their eyebrows - you mean you actually took a break?) En route, we keep our eyes open as the Pallikaranai marsh is on our right. Huge mounds of mud block our view, then in a gap, we see literally thousands of birds! Stop the car!

Out we scramble, my husband and son decide to sit in the car, and so I dont have a camera to catch my bird of the day. Something I was seeing for the first time - a Purple Heron. I stood fascinated watching it move in its slow, deliberate fashion as it trod across the marsh, and posed so that I could see its "kudmi" and aquiline profile!

As Sheila tried to decipher whether some of the other birds were sandpipers or a pipits, this heron kept me rather distracted! Swifts swooped in hundreds over the water's surface, egrets - small, medium and large stared meditatively into the water and hundreds of black-winged stilts hopped around. Every time they pulled their red legs out of the marsh, they appeared black with mud, and at one point I was wondering whether these black-legged birds was another species!

On the electric pylons in the distance, were these large birds- pelicans and storks.

Despite the garbage being dumped and burned in the marsh, despite the land reclamation and high level of construction activity, despite the heavy traffic on the road, these birds continue to consider Pallikaranai their home. But for how long? Will the government declaration of the marsh as a protected land, make a positive difference from now on? Hats off to all the dedicated naturalists, citizens and environmentalists who worked doggedly, to make this happen.

Though I was elated with my purple heron, we were also very depressed at the state of the marsh. Further depression was to follow in the evening, but that's another story.

The mouth of the Adyar, 4:00pm,: After a snooze and a refreshing cup of tea, we set out again, though not far - to the mouth of the Adyar river, next to the TS(Theosophical Society). I had hoped that during our break in Thiruvanmyur, I would spot the hoopoe or the barbet or the tailorbird, which unfailingly comes to the tree outside our window. Ofcourse it didnt. Murphy's Law. Even the rock pigeons were strangely silent!

We walked through the Urur Olcott Kuppam, where residents were relaxing on the streets on a Sunday afternoon. One group of women eyed us with curiosity, and one called out to me in Tamil, asking for the time. When I answered her in Tamil, she was most disappointed, and muttered to her friends, "ivingu thamizh pesurangu"! Maybe we looked like some exotic species of humans from far north - migratory birds - as far as they were concerned.

Anyway, it was a longish walk to the rivermouth, as we skirted the walls of the TS, past the turtle hatchery enclosure, past groups of cricket playing youth, until we reached the old, broken down remnants of the original bridge. Empty bottles, garbage, plastic bags and other such urban waste greeted our eyes, but couldn't take away from the beauty of the river meeting the sea, the cool breeze, vast expanse and the birds.


But they - the birds I mean - were so far away! How in the world were we beginners to identify them? They all looked feathered, and brown and small! The ones we could identify were the large egrets, and the jungle crow! After a while we gave up. They could have been plovers or godwits, or sandpipers, we could not make out. We started on our return, deciding to stop by at Madras Club and Adyar Poonga if time permits. Once again as we trooped through the village, the ladies' group ha d alot to say among themselves. Maybe they had gone to see turtles, anyway they know tamil, from here only, what a big camera that man has, were some of the comments that we invited!

The club is a sure shot for rose-ringed parakeets, but that day they outdid themseves, they were all over, screeching and swooping, and looking down at us from the trees. I have seen woodpeckers and a spotted owlet in the trees, but no luck that day. Neither were the stints or godwits in the water. Grumbling about our poor luck, we got into the car, and realised it was too late to go to the Poonga. (As it turned out, I believe it was full of birds!)

6:15 pm - Reached the hotel. Last minute filling in of our names and tallying the birds we saw. A grand total of 43. We were rather pleased with ourselves, until we realised that the average a team saw was around 80! And to put it further in perspective, the winning team saw 120!!

After waiting endlessly (or so it seemed) for our chief guest to appear, the formalities were got through, and we all had a sumptous dinner, exchanged our stories, and vowed to do better next year!

The other MNS members had seen two birds rarely spotted - the Peregrine Falcon, and the Indian courser.

And so ended our bird race. Hopefully, next time around, our combined spotting and identifying skills have improved!

Andaman Day 4 and 5 - Rangat scrub and open forests

Continued from here.  Click here for the previous post.  Feb 13th 2024 - Our Post lunch wander The post-lunch session is always one that req...