Day 3 - The dawn chorus

 Jun 30th 2025

Red-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus cafer)

I love the mornings when the crow chorus is muted and I hear the other members of the  dawn orchestra.

Today was one such.  The crows were in the distant trees and the red vented bulbuls were on the closer Teak tree. I lay in bed listening to their to-to-doo calls, back and forth.  As I lay in bed, I pictured their alert coal black heads cocking this way and that, as they called.  Sometimes tails fanning. 

Birding by calls.  I enjoy it these days.  I don't need to see the birds, I just enjoy their calls and don't get into a frenzy trying to find them.

The bulbuls have been active these last few weeks in my neighbourhood, flitting from the teak tree, to the wire (in the picture), and even to our balcony plants, they in their morning busyness me in my morning pre-caffeine sleepiness.

It is a bird of low concern, seeming to be doing well in urban India in green neighbourhoods.  SOIB reports that its presence in TN is stable

As the bulbul flew off this morning, a tailorbird came by - what a sharp shrill call it has!  And they call incessantly as they go about their foraging, with a reply coming from further afield. It was so close I could see the black bib on his chest and the delicate pink legs.  

Let me see what tomorrow brings.

Day 2 - Owlet moths and sketching attempts

 June 29th 2025

I found this beautiful Spirama spp moth on my window sill on my late father's birthday - June 24th.  The ancient Greeks believed that moths carried the spirits of the dead, who visited their loved ones.  That is me looking for a connection.  Science shows that these Erebidae moth sightings go up in June, and so too my sighting.

It was dark, past 9 at night, and I as about to shut the window to keep you-know-who out, when I saw this creature.  We both startled each other, and as I gasped in wonder, it flew into the room and fluttered about in panic.  I turned the fans off, alarmed that it would fly into the fan and meet a horrible death, and it slowly calmed and sat on our white walls, when I got this picture.  

What a beauty, is this where our kalamkari artists got their inspiration from?  Lok at the beautiful border design and those lovely "eyes".  

Next morning, he was still there, though on a different wall.  I opened out the windows, and as I sipped my coffee, he (from the markings I have decided it is a male, I may be wrong), kind of fluttered out, in an uneven zig zag flight into the cooler morning air.

Now on the evening of the 29th, Abhishekha Krishnagopal, a young artist and ecologist kicked off the nature journaling journey for Monsoon Beauty 2025, and I dipped in and out of her webinar.  She made us use circles and squares and draw fruits and flowers with those circles.  "See?, wasn't that easy?", she would sweetly say.  Here at home, I grunted and rolled my eyes, oh yes indeed.  Easy for you to say, not for me who has been traumatised by biology drawings since childhood.

The point that she made was also that when you sketch, you notice textures and aspects that you do not usually.  You appreciate the insect, flower or tree that much more.  

So I decided to give the moth with the soul and the eye a sketching shot.  I did notice and appreciate the way the forewings and hindwing arranged themselves/. I noticed that they eyes were like inverted commas.  I noticed the thorax in-between the wings.  And I noticed that single outstretched leg.  

  

What do you say, appa?  Pass or Fail?  😁

Day 1 - Nature Journal - On the banks of the Adyar River

 28th June 2025

Monsoon Beauty 2025 starts today!  For the last five years, India's Nature celebrates each monsoon with some nature appreciation and citizen science pushes.  This year too, they are celebrating the Indian SW monsoon from 28th June to 7th September.  here in Chennai, this is not our main monsoon, and this period is that sticky, humid, wet-blanket like phase, of still days where not a leaf stirs, and we are all also quite lifeless and low in energy.

Every few days there will be a shower that brings relief, but also makes the earth steam, and you can feel the humidity.  Chennai weather is not for the faint-hearted, and definitely not for the Bangalorian.  😅

I digress - click here to know more about Monsoon Beauty 2025.  

A breakfast rendezvous today morning with a friend, took me to the banks of the Adyar river.  I arrived early and strolled down to the river front, hoping maybe to catch a glimpse of my friend G3 as she rowed past.  But no, she was not on the waters today, but the White Breasted Water Hens were. They always remind me of Japanese Geisha girls for some reason, with their white faces, and elegant flicks of their tails.  The tide was down and the banks were dry, and these Rails seemed to be finding insects. I stood on the bund and enjoyed their loud croaky calls  and spidery legs.

A lone Grey headed swamp hen stared at them.  I wonder if he/she knew that they were going to be rechristened as Purple swamp hens?  We humans, I tell you.

A bare Prosopis tree in the distance had a speck of blue - a White-throated Kingfisher that flew with an indignant rattly call as I approached it.  As I strolled back, the mynas called and hopped around on the grassy space between the Neem trees, Black Kites circled above and the parakeets screeched and flew from Neem to Rain tree.

I heard the Koels call, and then was delighted as a Coucal flew across - its rust-coloured wings catching the sunlight.

We sat on the verandah, enjoying watching the large stately trees buzzing with bird life and the shrubs below with nectaring butterflies - common lime, crimson rose, common leopard and tawny coster in abundance.  

In a distant tree hole, I saw the spotted owlets too - it is their favourite hole.  

Here is my e-bird list.

I wonder why I did not take any pictures that morning.  Distracted by the mushroom omelette and the fresh orange juice?