Showing posts with label Pallikaranai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pallikaranai. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Raptor rumbles in the marshes

 24th October - Deepavali special - courtesy Umesh

Here is the story in his own words - 

"Did some quick site-hopping birding today with Abhishek, Vijay & Shobha, touching Kelambakkam/Muthukadu/Perumbakkam/Karapakkam. 


Kelambakkam - Peregrine seen first on its usual pylon...

... and in flight.

The GSE (Greater Spotted Eagle) minding its own business and seated on the pillar.

The GSE was perched on the pillar, and we watched and photographed it for sometime.   

And the Osprey sat, quite far away, on another pylon.

And then, we also witnessed some real drama:  Suddenly the Osprey took off and headed straight for the GSE,  seemingly for no reason!  


The osprey decided to knock the GSE off its perch and chase it around a bit. It initially seemed like they were both going for some common prey, but then it turned out that the GSE also did not actually have any catch. So not sure why the Osprey charged the GSE. But it was fabulous to watch!





After the "encounter", the Osprey landed on this perch.


Afterwards, the GSE went and sat down on the ground, and this Osprey went and once again roused it from there also!  See the video below.


Highlights of the morning: 1 Peregrine, 1 Osprey, 2 GSEs (or maybe it was the same one bird seen twice, at Perumbakkam and Karapakkam)


Oh yes, and we also saw one Grey-headed lapwing."

Umesh, so glad you saw all this and managed those dramatic photos, so you could share it with us!

Sunday, February 13, 2022

A Jacana start to my birding year

 5th January 2022

My first birding outing of the year with Umesh and Srinivas.  They picked me up before 6 am, and with masks, binoculars and water, we went down OMR to explore(for me first time ) the rear of the Perumbakkam water body, close to where the International Village School is located.

As we wound through the roads of the colony that is well, developing in marshland, there was much muttering and exclaiming from Srinivas and Umesh, as they remarked how even more plots have gone, and walls have come up where there was none before.  Habitat loss in front of our eyes.


We reached the border of the lake at around 615, and dawn was just breaking.  

There was nothing much by way of water bird life here - the water was deep - and so we moved further west, where we could see the edge of the marsh.

We walked through an (as yet) empty plot, with a bunch of these puppies following us.  A couple of them took a great fancy to my sandals and pants, tugging at them, in mock play, before losing interest and then chasing each other!

Srinivas then went even further west, on a road with large craters, and mountains for manholes - some motocross GP skills on his part - which was the local facility for the construction workers, who were involved in their morning ablutions and were quite startled by this strange threesome, who had cameras but were not taking selfies.

This part of the marsh had less water and so the waders and jacanas were out in full force.  I have never seen so many jacanas at one go!  Hundreds upon hundreds.  
 
Open-billed storks also were in plenty, flying overhead in formation

As we scanned the marsh, Umesh and I argued about the difference between a pylon, post and pillar.  If you are wondering why, he grumbled that I was misdirecting him by wrongly misidentifying these important markers, here he was staring at the pillar when I  should have been saying post, etc etc.  (Not that he missed anything, he was "just saying". )

A purple heron greatly improved the drab concrete scenery

The complete list from this Classic Farms side is here, compiled methodically by Srinivas, down to the last wagtail.

We drove back to the familiar northern side of the lake after this.  A road that was familiar to me two years ago, when we used to bring the NIFT students on a nature walk.

This was a favourite spot, always, with cormorants, kingfishers and pelicans, which would usually delight the students.  This time also, the shrub was full of activity.

There were Northern Pintails everywhere - swimming in the waters, preening on the edge of the lake and sunning and sleeping further up on the banks.

We drove a bit further down and caught a meditating purple heron, and a Pipit walking on the wall/bund.  

Blue-tailed bee-eaters delighted us with their aerial swoops as they caught insects and came back to their perch.



Look at the colours!

Complete list of the lake northern front here.

We then drove into the ELCOT area, where more surprises awaited me.  Last time during the bird race, we had walked in, only to be stopped by the guards, who were not very impressed with our birding activity.  However, going in, in a car, is perfectly acceptable it seems. So in we went, and stopped near the water-filled plot, which I hope will not be developed.

 A Little Egret seemed to pose for us, its breeding plumage fluttering in the breeze, its yellow feet clearly seen

A bunch of Fulvous Whistling Ducks first caught our eye, paddling in the water, behind the egret.


And as we scanned the banks we saw Wigeons and Shovelers a plenty.

And just as we were about to leave, a group of Garganeys came swimming to the bank.  

I was seeing migratory ducks after a couple of years of Covid-lack-of-birding.  I am hoping this year is an improvement on the last!  The Elcot list is here.  

Many thanks to Umesh and Srinivas for this little outing, and hoping for many more.  Some dragonflies later, we headed back.  A customary stop for samosas - my offer of digestive biscuits was sneered at - and tea resulted in babblers being added to the list! 

An article in The Hindu

Wetland bursting at the seams with jacanas?

The water levels have dropped in the northern and southern extremities of the Perumbakkam wetland, and both the pheasant-tailed and the bronze-winged are making the most of it

Pheasant-tailed and bronze winged jacanas at the Perumbakkam wetland on December 24, 2021. Photos: Prince Frederick

Prince Frederick

When a family member tends towards corpulence, it hardly registers in the mind till their drapes start bursting, the buttons flying with the muzzle velocity of a firearm. Equating resident birds with the close-of-kin, birders are beginning to notice that the Perumbakkam wetland is bursting at the seams with jacanas.

On the southern and northern extremities of the wetland, water has drained hugely and noticeably — respectively — exposing vegetation the pheasant-tailed and bronze-winged jacanas take to, with their never-ending jacanidae toes. They are making the most of it — particularly the pheasant-tailed jacana.

Not many days ago, when birder Gnanaskandan Keshavabharathi scanned the expanse, mumbling numbers, his tally of pheasant-tailed jacanas stood somewhere around 200. He had also counted nearly a dozen bronze-winged jacanas. Counting independently on another day, birder Sundaravel Palanivel’s arrived at a guesstimate: a whopping 400 jacanas with much of that number being racked up by the pheasant-tailed jacanas.

Either way, the jacana presence is monstrously high. Juveniles, particularly of the pheasant-tailed, make up a neat percentage of the gathering. There are also pheasant-tailed togged in their delectable breeding colours and extended sickle.

A stray thought enters the frame, altering the picture. Having guzzled water through November, the Perumbakkam is now somewhat akin to a lung whose fluid build-up is being cleared slowly. The draining is massively incomplete, with the central sections of the wetland still retaining pools of water.

Ornithologist V Santharam notes that this could be a temporary phenomenon resulting from cramped lodgings. Once the water recedes from the other parts, and the wetland gets more accessible to them, the jacanas would be more spread out. When that happens, the sense of mammoth presence would also diminish.

It could well be that the jacanas had been present earlier too in such impressive numbers, but were never shoehorned into small spaces with favourable vegetation.

The ornithologist brings yet another perspective to the jacana-dominated picture. “Congregations of jacanas are not unusual. If they have juveniles now, they must have finished their breeding a little earlier. They probably have different breeding schedules. May be post-breeding, they are congregating at a place that is relatively safe and they have enough food.”

Among the many things that stand out in the tightly-congregations of pheasant-tailed jacanas is cantankerous infighting. Every other second, two jacanas would go up in a flurry of quarrelsome and unruly feathers.

Santharam explains: “They defend small territories within which they can enjoy exclusive feeding rights. I have seen this with rails and coots — they also have a strong territorial instinct. In contrast, waders are migratory; they come here and find the food to be abundant and they go about their business quietly. These resident birds are more specialised in their feeding, looking for things in vegetation, and it is not an easy kind of food to access, and probably, they need to have some space to themselves.”


The original jacana congregation point

V Santharam, ornithologist and director of the Institute of Bird Studies at Rishi Valley, recalls how jacanas ruled the roost at two jheels in North Chennai — back then, North Madras.

“In the 1980s, we used to go to the Manali and Madhavaram jheels (famously known as the twin jheels). we used to access it from the Manali side. I do not remember the bus route — we used to take that bus from Burma Bazaar and it will drop us right at the village, and from there, we would walk about 200 metres and we would reach this place. We used to go through the village and then go into a mango orchard. There would be the shallow waters in front of us, full of lotus leaves — we used to count, most of time, 150 to 200 jacanas. And together, these jheels would be just one-tenth the size of the Perumbakkam wetland.”

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

The snipes of Karapakkam

20th April 2019

I make life difficult for myself.  I have to go and see those snipes, but I cannot take the car all by myself, so I need to find company to justify those carbons in the air, and I am finding low cooperation from the family, and so it has meant that despite Sagarika's constant nagging, bribing (with those lovely pictures), and whining, I did not go to see them.  (She claims she was after me since February, but she loves to be technical and specific about these matters.)

After extracting a promise that I will not malinger or wander or get  a heatstroke, (I am known to do all three), my husband decided to be the other warm body as we set off to see the Snipes of Karapakkam.

In the process we saw the relentless march of construction in the Pallikaranai marsh, as we followed instructions into some interior roads where every few plots were empty and marshy and supporting swamp hens, pond herons and warblers and sunbirds, while multi-storeyed buildings and debris filled more and more of the wetland.

We parked in one of the lanes and walked around stopping at each marshy plot.  Flashes of purple as swamp hens fluttered from one plot to the other.  A watercock walked into the reeds as did a bittern.  A plain prinia flitted among the reeds, calling sharply as it swayed precariously on the slim blade.  A purple-rumped sunbird flashed across heading for the wildflowers that were growing in the edges.

But no snipe did we spot.  We reached the end of the road, and suddenly it was all marsh ahead.  We seemed to have reached the existing boundary of construction,  a road running south-north along the edge.  At the far end, we saw a gaggle of photographers and binocular-wielding humans and we knew that must be where the snipes are!  We hurried across and there they were, several of them, staring balefully and not doing very much.  The Greater Painted Snipes.  My first time.

GK was there and filled me in on some rather interesting aspects.  The female is well marked, brightly coloured and polyandrous.  She does the courting, and once the eggs are laid, it is the male that sits and takes care of the nest and brood while she goes out and forages!  As a result the male is dull coloured. Opposite of the usual rule of brightly coloured males.

This was my first sighting of the Snipes.  We also saw Common Snipes.  Supposedly the Painted Snipes are not "real" snipes", Common Snipes are.  The common snipe (Gallinago gallinago) does not have the role reversal of the Painted ones, and they are also more shy it appears.  They had a long straight bill and a mottled appearance.

Here are the pictures from Sagarika's visit - we did not have a camera.

 The Greater painted-snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) male, which is a duller brown and has that white breast band

The spectacular colourings of the female.  The eye patch looks like the letter P, doesn't it?


Sagarika pointed me to another interesting aspect of this bird.  It is the origin for the word "sniper".  According to Wikipedia, soldiers of British India used "to snipe", which meant they would go and hunt and shoot these plump rather slow-moving birds.  And these "sportsmen" (whats so sporting about it beats me completely), were referred to as snipers.

The Chennai sun was out by now, and the crowd of birdwatchers thinned, and we left too, not before seeing the aerial antics of some green beeeaters.

Friday, April 12, 2019

The slowly vanishing wetland of Chennai still teams with life

Pallikaranai wetland and Perumbakkam lake:  In front of our eyes, it is slowly dying, choking with garbage, and being filled in for development, as we watch helplessly.

And how much of bird life is still there!  Through the winter of 2018-19, my friend Sagarika, visited the wetlands and recoded the comings and goings of winter visitors, the nesting of some of the water birds, the courtship and the territoriality.

Flamingoes crowd around in the little patch of water, buildings all around.


A mixed menagerie, all cheek by jowl - pelicans, egrets, herons, ducks
And all the time, there is this relentless filling in off the marsh.  


The Pied Avocets sharing space with Black-Winged Stilts and the ducks

A Yellow bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis) skulked in the undergrowth, its head feathers all astray.  She spotted several through the course of her regular weekend visits.
Another Yellow Bittern, in breeding plumage.

The black bittern (Ixobrychus flavicollis) also loves wetlands, nests in the reed beds.  Sagarika found this one,
stock still as it waited for fish.

Above the water, in the shrubbery, the winter visitor Blue-tailed bee eater brought a
flash of brilliant colour as it fed on the insects that are a plenty over the waters.
And on the lines above, barn swallows rested in droves
 

This season, the flamingoes have been seen in large numbers.  Pallikaranai, opposite the garbage dump, and in the Perumbakkam side, they have been seen everywhere.  Juveniles and adults.
 

Garganeys visiting for the winter,

... as also Godwits


Ibises aplenty,

Pheasant-tailed Jacanas in breeding plumage and nesting as well.

A Jacobin's cuckoo among the thorny scrub

She spied a Jerdon's bush lark (Mirafra affinis) or Jerdon's lark, something I have not seen, ever.  

While a bush chat seemed to spy her..


And a raptor surveyed its hunting grounds.."it was huge in size.  Huge as in so huge we could see it with naked eye!"  Bigger than a Harrier, so probably an Eagle.



A ringed Plover seemed to pose for her.


Is that a Ruff rummaging in the weeds?

A Northern Shoveler couple swim and feed

The weekend birders 'club' knew the Snipe spots!  Painted?  

They spotted some 15 one day! Common Snipes


And Wagtails together!  Citrine and Yellow.


The Clamorous Reed Warbler clamoured and sang delightfully,




Whistling teals whistled as they flew in formation across the marsh
And many a Swamp Hen preened, fed and called, across the wetlands.
Birders go every weekend, in-beween the apartment complexes.  Every empty plot is still a wetland, and along with the plastic and other human-generated garbage, there is still urban wildlife.

How long until it all vanishes?

Andamans Day 5 - The Andaman teals, and Daurian Starling show and other sidelights

 Continued from here.   Feb 14th 2024 evening There was no rest for the sleepy.  In order to maximise daylight hours and save time, we were ...