More tree tales from GNP

March 15th, 2009 7:30 am, and a dozen of us awaited another walk through GNP with Bhanu. Strange, I thought, all my walks in this city sanctuary have been with Bhanu!  She probably loves the place, and sees it as a great and easy way to sensitise people to nature, flora and fauna.

(Read about Bhanu and her puppetry here.)  Why were we there?  Well, MNS and Bhanu offered a kind of "train-the-trainer"  weekend session, where we were expected to pick up skills and tips on how to spread the message among school children.  So, on Saturday, she had taught us games, exercises, craft ideas and even puppet-making, all great tools to help reach out to children.

Blue Mormon

Poor Bhanu, I do not think she would have come across a more artistically-challenged "student" than yours truly!  Defensively, I whined, "Bhanu, this is not my strength"!  Well, to cut a long story short, I stuck my thumb in paint, used some sketch pens, cut paper furiously, looked uncomprehendingly as she demonstrated string art, and was pooped at the end of the day, with all this hard work!!  All around me, the other ladies seemed to be coping much better than me, working faster and more skillfully!  

Mean-looking thorns!

So, it was that on Sunday morning we were to go on a nature trail. I looked forward in anticipation to a morning out among the trees.  I even sacrificed my maternal desire to go to the station and pick up my teenage son, on the altar of my morning learnings!!  (Well, I had not seen him for three days and four nights, you know.)
Leaf galls

It was a cloudy, dull morning but the learning started almost immediately.  Leaf galls, cotton stainer bugs and chitals in the distance as soon as we stepped in.
Cotton stainer bug

Tamarinds hang in bunches
Spot the chital
The GNP "regulars" - Glycosmis, Clausena and Perandai.

Glycosmis cochinensis
Tamarinds hung in bunches, as did antigonon flowers and Prosopsis pods. Actually it was quite a pod-filled morning - all shapes and sizes.
Clausena dentata
Cissus quadrangularis
Siris treeMy favourite was this flowering Siris tree - looks like a  white-flowered  rain tree does it not? Albizia lebbeck, if you want to read up about it.  Its got these pods that rattle in the wind, reportedly - we didn't hear them - it was not windy!
Then there was this termite "road" that wound up a tree - why did the termites not use a short cut and go straight up rather than follow the path of the vine?

See the lichen on the bark - signs of low pollution levels.  More pollution and the lichens disappear.  So, GNP is not doing too badly I guess.

Jatropha shrubs, favoured by green link spidersA green lynx (or is it link) spider- Peucetia viridana- clambered up a Jatropha shrub.  give that shrub a second look.  Its native to Central America and has led to much excitement because its seed has some 40% oil, which reportedly is a good diesel substitute!!

I am imagining the day I go and fill the car with jatropha oil.  And then, the waste leftover can make electricity too!  A lot of uses for an unassuming looking shrub, isn't it?

I wonder what the implications on the soil are if its planted widely, though?  The Indian Railways have already experimented using the oil in diesel mixtures for their diesel locos on some sectors.

Bracket fungus

Can you spot the bracket fungus growing out of this branch?  Its pretty colourless and so difficult to spot.  

What is the difference between mushrooms and fungi?  I just learned that mushrooms are actually fungi!!  

I just lost my appetite for them.  Yuk, imagine I've been eating fungus all along!

Cassia auriculata flowerHere's another Cassia.  This one's a shrub and not a tree.  Cassia auriculata, evergreen and "gregarious", the GNP book says!  See, now I even know a gregarious plant!  

And the pods are thin and flat.
Cassia auriculata pods

Carissa spinarum
Here's another GNP regular - Carissa - probably quite tasty, since the black buck and chital reportedly browse on it, and it has edible fruits! Pity, there weren't any on it. But we saw a lot of the white flowers, tinged with a slight pink
Morinda tinctoria barkThe Nona tree - Morinda tinctoria - the bark with personality, is another common tree of the area.
Morinda tinctoria canopy
Kiss & Hug?!I think this is a flowering wood apple tree.  
And this last one was very confusing - kiss and hug, kiss and kill, epiphyte or parasite, I need to get clarity on this!  (Update:  Check the comments - this is the Dodder or Cuscuta and yes, it is a parasite - so its probably a kiss and kill!)

Oh yes, the highlight definitely was that Blue Mormon seen above.  It was HUGE, and it was blue and black.  The light was poor, and that's all the colour that my camera got, sorry.  It looks more white than blue in this!

Of crows and tigers - a tale from GNP

October 5th 2008:

Morning Guindy National park with MNS.

Through the southern entrance, rather than the western entrance which we used last time.

And we see tigers - hundreds of them, blue ones!  

Well that's what some one in their infinite wisdom named these butterflies - Blue Tigers.  Why? There's nothing tiger looking about them.  Strange.

There were also Glassy Tigers in plenty, and GNP for me was transformed by these lovely butterflies flitting from branch to branch and tree to tree, all over the park.

The Common India Crow is what this lovely brown butterfly is called.  Common, I can understand, but crow?!

I learnt that its the butterfly season, and I just soaked in the sight of all these butterflies, and the fragrance of the Divi divi flowers, which they all seemed to love.

There were little Pierrots (those small white butterflies) and the Common Grass yellow (little yellow ones) as well.  And though the white-browed bulbuls called noisily, the koels sang and the parakeets screeched, it was a butterfly morning for me.

Sekar found these lovely blooms of the Sickle Bush. Dichrostachys cinerea - a small tree with these interesting yellow and pink flowers.  Strangely, these vivid colours did not seem to attract the butterflies, or was I just imagining? 
And the Pink Cassia blooms filled the tree.  There are so many Cassia types aren't there?  

The weaver ants were busy as well...  Check out the Wikipedia entry on Weaver Ants - their nest building, or should I stay stitching, is quite fascinating.  I remember we saw one of these at close quarters at Penchalakona, and the ants themselves are large and menacingly red.

A weaver ant nest I think
Bhanu was very excited on seeing these yellow flowers - and muttered (more to herself I think) that this was Gmelina asiatica, a herb with lots of uses I think.  Some googling revealed that this was also called the Asian Bushbeech and mulkumizh in Tamil.  I hope I'm right!

More tigers!  As is evident, I coudn't get enough of them!

The tree is called Inky maram - because the make a dye/ink from it! 

Another one is initiated...

... in to the pleasures of birding in Madras.

Vaishna Roy visited the Guindy National Park, Nanmangalam
and Pallikaranai.

Read her report below:

Outlooktraveller.com

A jewel in the jungle

After all these long years in Madras, I can finally say that I've visited the Guindy National Park. Not the snake park or the children's park, but the protected reserve behind a locked gate.

Sunday evening and Banumathi of MNS took a bunch of 15 of us into the park. The basics of nature walking - silence, dull clothes and a keen eye.

This beautiful antigonon spray greeted us on our entry. Its a lovely creeper, and commonly called Coral Vine. I believe there's a white variety, which I have not come across. This pink variety is all over the KFI school walls, Blue Cross and various large estates in south Madras.

I learnt about the difference between a bug and a beetle - the bug sucks and the beetle chews. Saw some great looking insects - the jewel bug, the green link spider, the flightless grasshopper, and other creepy crawlies. Some parakeets, posed for us, as also the coppersmith barbets.

One of the high points was definitely coming across this little marvel called the jewel bug. It was a real beauty, its colours glitterring in the sun. Belongs to the Scutelleridae family.

Learnt that bugs like this "suck", while beetles chew!

One learns something new everyday.....

Frog spawn - oh I thought it was a rossogolla - star tortoises, and the endangered black buck. What kind of strange human beings could shoot these magnificent and handsome creatures?

Ate wild berries, worked up a good sweat, and was in the heart of south Madras without the sound of a bus, or a crow. The big aeroplanes though roared by at regular intervals, startling the fawn and gambolling deer.