Mangalajodi

I wrote about the Godwits of Mangalajodi and here is a piece after my own heart.

 Birdwatching: Flying wild

How a village near Odisha’s Chilika Lake, once infamous for hunting, transformed into a haven for migratory birds

A whiskered tern. Photographs by Ananda Banerjee/Mint

Today, the Mangalajodi marshes on the northern fringes of Odisha’s Chilika Lake are again a haven for water birds. Thousands of them flock there every winter, from November-February. The black-tailed godwit, the Siberian bluethroat, an assortment of ducks, geese, grebes, harriers, bitterns, herons, snipes, gulls, terns and crakes—you get to see them all. Many of them fly thousands of miles south to beat the harsh winter in their breeding grounds. According to local bird guides, some migratory birds have even started staying back in the area.

Chilika is the largest coastal lagoon in the country. It is spread over 1,100 sq. km and three districts: Puri, Khurda and Ganjam. Mangalajodi is one of 132 villages that dot this vast lake adjoining the Bay of Bengal. It is a poor, sleepy fishing village with a population of about 5,000, most of whom live off the land. So a wild duck for the pot or a waterfowl for a feast is not uncommon.

But in the early 1990s, the birds came under attack on a much bigger scale as Mangalajodi gained notoriety for the exploits of Kishore Behera. He is said to have begun poaching as many as 4,000 ducks daily, using nets, traps and pesticides, supplying the birds to markets nearby. Behera came to be known as the “Veerappan of Chilika”, a reference to the infamous sandalwood smuggler who eluded the authorities for years.

By 2001, Mangalajodi had begun to be described as a “poachers’ paradise”. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) reported that the number of birds had dwindled to an estimated 5,000 during the migratory season, down from the many thousands, or hundreds of thousands, that would be spotted earlier.

That was a time when “villagers were expected to carry a wild duck as a gift to officials to get work done, or if they were visiting family or friends outside Mangalajodi,” says Nilanjan Behera, founding chairperson of the Mangalajodi Ecotourism Trust (MET), a community-owned and operated eco-tourism enterprise that has been working on conservation issues since 2010.

Slowly but surely, efforts such as MET’s have brought about a remarkable change in Mangalajodi. The villagers are now involved in conservation. Binod Banik, 29, who dropped out of school in class VIII and was my guide for the two days I spent in the village, can easily spot about 70 of the 211 bird species recorded in the village. Bala, who effortlessly navigates the boat through the tangle of floating vegetation, knows exactly where to find an elusive crake in the reed beds.

Both Binod and Bala are members of MET. Their new-found winter professions have given them a certain social status and a better life; in summer, Banik works at a shop, while Bala goes back to fishing. The number of visitors to their village has been going up every season, and there is a growing pride among villagers in showcasing the avian diversity and setting an example in conservation.

Sugyan Behera, a bird guide, shows off a photo album in which his father, also a guide, has neatly pasted the currency notes of different countries that he and 12 other guides got as tips. George Washington, the first US president, looks down from the one-dollar bill in the plastic album, which also has a Bhutanese ngultrum, Bangladeshi taka, United Arab Emirates dirham and currencies from South-East Asian countries.

Mangalajodi is slowly turning into a birding destination, says Nilanjan. India Post has recognized the change, releasing a special cover on Mangalajodi in association with the Eastern Indian Philatelic Association.

The transformation, however, wasn’t easy. Nilanjan recalls the day he was mocked by his college teacher as someone who belonged to a village of poachers. That was in the 1990s. “I wanted to do something to change the image,” he says.

“The marshland of Mangalajodi comes under the revenue and irrigation departments. So the forest department had no land or presence in and around Mangalajodi. There was no control over poaching. Also, the village had little idea about conservation and wildlife protection,” says Nilanjan.

With the help of Wild Orissa, a non-profit, they formed a bird protection group called Sri Mahavir Pakshi Suraksha Samiti (SMPSS) in 2000. In 2010, this became the MET, with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Foundation India and Indian Grameen Services, a non-profit, playing a pivotal role in its establishment. Today, it provides alternative livelihoods for 70 households.

The turning point came in 1996, when they managed to convince Kishore Behera to give up poaching and take up pisciculture. Other poachers followed suit.

It took another decade or more for the SMPSS to get organized as a community-based conservation project, but this was the period when birdlife began returning to the village. Gradually, the villagers, too, began to understand how avian tourism could help them. Many villagers work under MET as boatmen, guides, souvenir shop operators and hospitality service providers.

Today, the marshland teems with birds. According to the BNHS, Mangalajodi sees around 150,000 migratory birds every year; it’s designated as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International, the world’s largest nature conservation partnership.

N. Sunil Kumar, director, RBS Foundation India, says: “Mangalajodi has struggled to get out of the infamy it had gained due to bird poaching in the 1990s. Today, the place is considered one of the best to spot different species of birds.”

It is now off the radar of Kishore Behera, who has left the village, and on the radar of tourists. Around 1,000 tourists visit every season. A number of hotel chains are showing interest in the area.

It is equally clear, however, that Mangalajodi cannot sustain mass tourism. Much, then, will depend on how Mangalajodi and MET walk the tightrope between economics and environment.

Pongal at Goa - the trees at Bondla wildlife sanctuary

13th January 10: 30 am

Bondla sanctuary is tiny.  It is just eight sq kms in area! And no one knows about it, except the locals, it appears.

It is hard to get to, and tucked away, and has a little zoo(which we didnt go to) for rehabilitation of injured animals.

I didn't see much bird life - some saw the trogon - but we heard the hornbills call for the longest time, before we suddenly saw them, scooting away from us noisy lot.

For me, it was the trees and the vines that I admired.

Look at the artistic natural curve of the vine!

A sambar deer peeked curiously at our vehcle.

Gliricidia sepium was in bloom everywhere

As was the Terminalia paniculata

...more vines

...and roots, keeping the soill together

Amazing.  What was it though?  Unfortunately no tree expert around.  I missed the Nizhal people!

The peeling bark of the Lagerstroemia giving it away.  I have not seen such large specimens ever.  And as I admired this one, along the fringes of the resort, the Malabar Trogon gave me a wonderful "darshan"!

No, not a snake, just this massive vine!

We climbed up to a large laterite rock crop that evening, in search of a night jar.  The night jar sat looking like a rock, but we saw a most beautiful sunset. 

That eveningI wondered about the logic of a 8 sq km park.  Which self-respecting mammal or reptile would be restricted to 8 sq kms?

Isn't this a way of inviting animal-man conflict?

I wonder if there are any plans to make a corridor connecting it to the larger Bhagwan Mahaveer?

Pongal at Goa - Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary & Mollem National Park

Pictures from others who came on the trip:

The MNS Facebook photo album

Sanctuary Asia talks about the way forward

The Way Forward

October 2012: Praveen Pardeshi, Principal Secretary, Forests, Government of Maharashtra, has been one of the architects of wildlife conservation in this proud state for decades. He writes here about his vision for the future and the steps taken by the Maharashtra Government to implement plans to secure the natural heritage of generations unborn.

The Great Indian Bustard and Nannaj

It is four a.m. in Solapur, the year is 1996. My five-year-old daughter and I creep across the still dark grasslands of Nannaj to sit in our little hide. As the sun rises, casting a pinkish glow across the eastern horizon, a soft booming call echoes across the undulating landscape. An alpha male Great Indian Bustard (GIB) is courting females, head thrown back, gular pouch raised, and tail up. Moments later, a covey of female bustards shufflepast, foraging for crickets that have come to gorge on the fresh, green grass.
Though this bustard and his countless ancestors have exhibited their mating rituals on the small lookout plateau of Nannaj-Mardi for millennia, there is no guarantee that our children will still see this display 20 years from now.
The GIB sanctuary was scattered over 8,200 sq. km., whereas a much smaller forest area needed to be made inviolate for the bustards to breed. If even this small area could be well protected, we could secure the future of this endangered bird for posterity. It was vital, however, to include areas such as the Gangewadi grasslands into this more tightly-protected bustard haven. People had begun to turn hostile towards the birds because they considered the declaration of a vast 8,200 sq. km. sanctuary dedicated to bustards as illogical, since the birds were not found in most of the areas here. What is more, entire towns such as Solapur, Mohol and Karmala were included within the Protected Area boundary! Wildlife conservation was proving to be an obstacle as it came in the way of the alignments for highways, canals and even in the decisions they had to make about how best to use their own lands. Blackbuck learned to hide in protected forest patches in the day and then to devastate jowar and groundnut crops of farmers at night. Had the state government not denotified a huge chunk of the GIB Sanctuary, neither the blackbuck, nor the bustards would have been able to survive.
Today, a major effort is underway to win support for organic farming in the neighbourhood of this sanctuary, a step that will enhance the food availability and safety of the GIB which consumes beetles and other insects.
How quickly things can deteriorate can be judged by the fact that as the District Collector of Solapur from 1995 to 1997, I would see GIBs on every visit to Nannaj.
On none of my recent visits was I able to see a bird, not even on the bird’s favourite hillock, where my daughter and I used to see them so often. It worries me, of course, to observe how farmers who were once happy to grow coarse grains like jowar now want to grow sugarcane, flowers and pomegranates, thanks to the abundant water they obtain from the Ujjani dam. If this trend continues, then grassland species, such as the blackbuck, chinkara, grey wolf and the GIB face a bleak future.

The Melghat Tiger Reserve: Cattle and people

I first visited Melghat in 1979, when it had just been brought under the Project Tiger mantle. On night drives, we came across gaur and sambar, but during the day all we saw were cows and buffaloes… no wild herbivores. A decade later, I returned as Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Parishad, Amravati, with a clear mandate to implement programmes to reduce poverty. The sustenance of Korku tribal communities  depended on lightly-cultivated soils on which they grew wild millets including kodo and kutki. Each year roughly half their crop would be lost to deer and wild pigs, not to mention beetles and grasshoppers. The sanctuary regulations did not permit black topping of access roads, new dams for irrigation or setting up cotton ginning and dal mills, all of which were possible just a few kilometres outside the wildlife sanctuary.
Protecting wild animals in the 1,500 sq. km. Melghat Tiger Reserve, with 28 villages, a population of 16,000 humans and 11,000 head of cattle, was a huge challenge. Particularly, when you consider that the estimated number of herbivores was a mere 3,500 on which 34 tigers were supposed to depend. At that time, neither the tiger, nor the Korku people seemed to be doing too well. The tigers would resort to cattle raiding, particularly during the monsoons, and Korku cattle owners and farmers had to suffer not only crop losses, but bear attacks and cattle kills.
We had to cut this Gordian Knot if both people, and the reserve, were to be provided a real and sustainable future.
We took a conscious decision to develop variegated strategies based on local geography, social conditions and ecological circumstances. We also aimed to involve local communities in regenerating ecosystems on which their own lives would ultimately depend. In the last 18 months, with the support of the Chief Minister, Prithviraj Chavan and Forest Minister, Dr. Patangrao Kadam, Maharashtra’s political and administrative system, the Forest Department has been able to put these plans to the test. And while it is still too soon to pass judgement, the landscape-wide approach seems to be showing results that point towards a renewal that will benefit both livelihoods and biodiversity conservation.

Photograph by Mihir Godbole/Wild Maharashtra

The last remaining vast forests of Vidarbha: A nuanced approach to protecting Melghat, and Tadoba

The Satpuda and Tadoba landscapes are two of the largest contiguous forests remaining in Maharashtra. Home to source populations of tiger, gaur, chital, sambar and endemic birds such as the Forest Owlet, the hill forests of Melghat have relatively low herbivore and tiger populations, in contrast to the plains of Tadoba and the Karandla, Bor and Nagzira landscapes, all of which have dense populations of herbivores and, consequently, tigers.
Over the past two years, we have evolved a nuanced strategy to meet our biodiversity objectives, while simultaneously catering to the sensitivities and the needs of local communities. In Tadoba’s core area, we began with the voluntary rehabilitation of villages. And to provide space for spillover populations of tigers and herbivores, we have managed to expand inviolate Protected Areas such as Nagzira and Navegaon and their corridors. In Melghat, however, 15 of 28 villages will remain in the core. Here, we are trying to promote co-existence by reducing their dependence on forest biomass. This involves providing alternative fuelwood, fodder and also by encouraging eco-tourism based livelihoods.

The larger Melghat Landscape: Co-existence and conservation

In Melghat, we have been implementing a strategy of ecological development in the buffer zone villages. Six out of 28 villages have already been rehabilitated after they passed the necessary Gram Panchayat and Gram Sabha resolutions. These include Vairat, Churni, Dhargad, Barukheda, Amona and Nagartas whose rehabilitation package was specifically tailored to fit individual requirements. Churni and Vairat, for instance, wanted land for the land they gave up. This was done, even the landless got land and the new village gaothan was provided water supply, electricity, black top approach roads and access to schools. Their farms were provided well-irrigation by tapping existing state schemes. They all agreed to move away from free grazing of livestock in the forest to stall feeding, which also supplies biogas-based fuel for kitchen fires.
Amona, Nagartas, Dhargad opted to collect the National Tiger Conservation Authority package of 10 lakh rupees per adult in the family. The Forest Department and Collector’s Office chose to ‘hand-hold’ the process by providing two lakh rupees for relocation and construction of homes. To prevent men from squandering this sum, seven lakh rupees was placed in a long-term, monthly interest-yielding annuity, which cannot be encashed without the prior permission of a committee headed by the District Collector. Each family thus draws a monthly income of Rs. 6,500 (calculated at nine per cent interest with the State Bank of India). With prior permission of the Collector, 60 families chose to encash the bank deposit, and have purchased more than 70 ha. of valuable agricultural land.
Going beyond the legal stipulations of the ‘cash package’ to help develop the new village sites, the administration provided drinking water, electricity to each home, internal roads to newly-settled villages and more. All four newly-settled villages chose their own sites next to, or as part of an existing, developed gaothan so that they could benefit from existing infrastructure and connectivity to larger towns.
Credible NGOs such as the Satpuda Foundation led by Kishor Rithe worked with dynamic forest officials such as Srinivasa Reddy, then the Deputy Conservator, Akot and A. K. Mishra, Field Director, Melghat, because they knew that delivering real benefits to villagers was key to the tiger’s future.
Camera trap images reveal the return of gaur, chital and tiger to all the meadows that magically regenerated after the villages moved out. Following the principle of ‘nothing succeeds like success’, villages that were initially hesitant are now flooding us with requests for similar rehabilitation packages. This includes Semadoh, Somthana, Talai, Rora, Gullarghat and we now need to obtain the resources to enable this. An independent socio-economic study by the Amravati University reveals that in the rehabilitated villages the per capita income has tripled!

Photograph by Praveen Pardeshi

The larger Tadoba Landscape: Inviolate core with eco-tourism and sustainable agriculture in the buffer, inclusion of corridors in expanded Protected Area network

“Why is the tiger coming to our village every day? Do something about it!” That was the continual refrain of one resident of Jamni village who kept disrupting a meeting I was attending to discuss the park-people relationship. I imagine that in bygone days Jim Corbett must have faced similar outcries, but the villager no longer had the option of summoning Jim Corbett to solve the problem his way!
Later that day I was at the Pandharpauni lake in Tadoba, when I saw a tigress with her four cubs that showed up as if on cue in response to the heat of summer. Ideally, villagers living around Tadoba and similar wild landscapes should profit from the presence of tigers. Instead today, the tourism trade and visitors benefit, while villagers are left paying the price in terms of loss of livestock, crop raiding and constant fear.
Tadoba, Jamni, Navegaon, and most of the families of Kolsa have opted for voluntary rehabilitation outside the park. Funds were allocated for Navegaon and Jamni to move to chosen sites at Amdi and Khadsanghi on the Mul-Nagpur road with irrigation, electricity and drinking water facilities at the gaothan itself.Tiger conservationist Bandu Dhotre, and the husband and wife team Poonam and Harsh Dhanwatey who run the Tiger Research And Conservation Trust (TRACT) have both played positive roles by working with the Forest Department, while representing the villagers’ interests.
But this is not enough. In the buffer zone and in forests under the Territorial Division of the Forest Department, serious tiger-poaching incidents have recently taken place. It is here that the spillover populations of tigers are lost after they leave the protective care of the 10 to 12 breeding females that occupy Tadoba’s core critical habitats. Strengthening less-protected forests such as the corridors leading to Bhivapur, Navegaon and Bor is therefore essential. This is what has occupied Dr. Vinay Sinha, Field Director, Tadoba, who did his PhD. in participatory Forest Management, over the past year. Working on a strategy to share revenues earned from tourism with villagers in the buffer zone, he used the gate fees of Rs. 45 lakhs lying with the Tadoba Tiger Foundation to give a sum of Rs. 51,000 to each of the 53 villages in the buffer zone. This was used for community welfare on necessities such as biogas plants and stall feeding of cattle.
He also placed a moratorium on more than 51 vehicles entering Tadoba’s core, while empowering the Junoana and Devada villages outside core areas to erect a gate and collect fees from visitors who chose to avail of a specially-created wildlife route managed by the village Eco-Development Committees (EDC). Additionally, local youth were trained as wildlife guides. With 15 more routes planned in the protected buffer, these areas promise wildlifesightings comparable to those in the core. The experiment seems to have succeeded. Seeds have been sown for livelihoods that sustain people, while benefitting the tiger.

Sustainable livelihoods linked to a rise in tiger and wildlife populations: Koyna, Chandoli and Bhimashankar: A mix of rehabilitation and community based eco-tourism

Villages in the Koyna Sanctuary, like Dichauli, Punawali, Nahimbe and Ambheghar suffer a double burden. The Koyna reservoir has cut them off from their normal economic markets in Karad and Satara, and the declaration of the Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary has led to further restrictions on them, making transportation, livelihoods and energy a huge challenge. Such villages have been petitioning for rehabilitation for several years and we are trying to raise resources to meet their demands. Over the past year, the state Forest Department has managed to develop village infrastructure in Pulus and Babar Machi, where nearly 200 families have already shifted, free from crop depredation by wild pigs and sambar!
In the vast buffer zone around Koyna, Joint Forest Management Committees have become active. Working with the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve officials they have developed trekking routes for intrepid hikers who will be invited to walk designated trails on the understanding that theirs will be zero-garbage visits, and that all waste will be carried back out of the park. Local village guides, familiar with the area have been trained by expert naturalists who will add to the monitoring strength of poaching squads, particularly in the remote crest areas that are difficult to reach daily, even for forest guards, particularly during the monsoon.

Hope for the future

In recent years, with advancing climate change, habitat destruction and pollution, India has been battered by bad news. But we also have news of resurrection and recoveries – for instance, the slow return of Gyps vultures (with the Bombay Natural History Society taking the lead) and olive Ridley sea turtles (thanks to Bhau Katdare and his inspirational team of volunteers off the coast of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg).
Recognising the wisdom of using the internal motivation of NGOs, the Maharashtra Forest Department is adding its strength by co-financing ‘vulture restaurants’ to ensure Diclofenac-free food. Support for collecting and hatching of olive Ridley turtle eggs and releasing them is underway. All the tiger reserves of the state have received support from Hemendra Kothari’s purposeful Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT), which donates patrolling vehicles and equipment for forest staff. In the case of the GIB and the grey wolf, the process of protecting grasslands is underway, though the course is predictably long and uncertain.
It is my view that Homo sapiens may well be able to reverse the destruction of nature. This article is a plea to all of you to join hands with Forest Departments and conservationists to make this a reality. Admittedly we have a long way to go.But we now know the right direction.

Photograph by Anish Andheria
by Praveen Pardeshi, First appeared in: Sanctuary Asia Vol. XXXII No.3, October 2012

Pongal at Point Calimere - Butterflies at Udayamarthandapuram

(Sheila's picture)

Uttara writes about UMP - 

An irrigation tank fed by water from the Mettur dam, the Udayamarthandapuram Bird Sanctuary was the bird and butterfly lovers’ paradise providing a nice quiet environment except for the noise made by the birds. 

The place was basically like a water body surrounded by vegetation with a path that went all the way around and was more than 3 km long. At times the trees on either side of the path grew tall and met, forming a canopy to create an arch-like effect. 

Also taken by Sheila

At times the path was open to the sky. The place was full of pond herons, grey herons, night herons, purple moorhens, and we also saw pheasant tailed jaçanas, black-headed munias, white ibises and darters. There was also an osprey perched on a pole in the middle of the water body. 

An eagle was also seen though there was some debate on its species. 


Many of us did not even walk the entire perimeter of the sanctuary but even then, a lot of time had already been spent there. It was time to get back because the vehicle had to be sent to pick up Vijay uncle who was to join us then. When we returned to the guest house, the time was 2:45 pm. It was also time for a late lunch at our favourite mess. 

Butterflies!

Can you spot the Common Grass Yellow?
Eurema hecabe.  Maybe this is the
post-monsoon
paler morph?  Caterpillar here.

Me:  I will always remember UMP for the butterflies and the dragonflies.  I went crazy with these winged beauties here, and forgot all about the birds.  It was even greater fun trying to photograph them.  We would slink up on them sloooowly, and just as we got our Panasonic to focus, they would flit away, and then perch a couple of feet away, and the whole process would start again!


India is one of the butterfly hotspots in the world, with around 300 species endemic to us.  I thought this was amazing.  I didnt know this.

Tawny Coster - Acraea terpiscore - common
in Madras too, and I think endemic to India.  Birds find them
unpalatable, and this is how the caterpillar looks.

Common castor - Ariadne merione.  They feed
on castor, are found all over the country

I wonder if this is also common castor or
angled castor?  The wings never rested flat for this butterfly.

A Common Leopard (Phalanta phalantha), basks in the sun.
They love the sun, and love lantanas as well!  

A pair of Common Ceruleans (Jamides celeno)
were in the shade.  These are endemic to India, and
in the dry season, they look a lighter colour
(almost white), as compared to this.

A Common Wanderer - that we found wandering!
If you would like to see how beautiful it looks when the wings are open,
click here.

Lemon pansy - Junonia lemonias.
The caterpillar is quite spectacular!
Its an easier butterfly to photograph.
Basks nicely and cooperatively!

Actually, even the undergrowth near the saltpans had some pretty butterflies.  I could not "capture" that Painted Jezebel that kept flitting about.  And the Crimson Roses in the Kodiakarai grasslands would not still, but made such a beautiful sight, as their red and black went like a blur among the blue meadow flowers.  These beauties below from around the salt pans.

And here is the White Orange Tip.
Ixias marianne, which I first saw in Bharatpur.

A male Danaid Eggfly.  Hypolimnas misippus
The female loves fancy dress.

Dragonflies


These are easier models, they know how to sit still!  The trick is in spotting them, which quite often I don't.

The Ruddy Marsh skimmer - male.

 

Green Marsh Hawk (I think).
Spectacular!
Supposedly pretty common, but my first sighting.

Pongal at Point Calimere - the mangroves of Muthupet

Muthupet is a huge lagoon to the west of Kodiakarai, where we were camping.  I learnt from this article in The Hindu, that Muthupet is ten times larger than Pichavaram (?, huh?  really?).

....But Sunderbans and Pichavaram are the largest and second largest mangroves in the world, aren't they?  So I wonder what that article was referring to.  I looked them both up on Google maps, and discovered that the Muthupet lagoon is huge, but only 4% of it is mangrove according to Wikipedia.   Pichavaram, on the other hand has a much more intricate and widespread network of canals, and the mangrove area is much larger therefore.

So I guess the article was referring to the lagoon size only.

Mangrove ecosystems are fascinating - the salinity of the water as fresh water meets sea water, the adaptations of the flora to these natural conditions, the tidal up and down.  These mangroves are wonderful natural barriers against storms and tidal waves too.

Leaving the canals

The tributaries of the Cauvery that flow into the lagoon before emptying into the sea can be seen in the map below, as also the worrying spread of salt pans to the north.

How do salt pans adversely affect these intertidal ecosystems?  They increase the salinity of the area isnt it?  In a regular mangrove, high tides will bring in salt water, evaporation during low tide will increase soil salinity and the high tides will bring in water to flush it out as well, so the salinity is in a range.

I guess if more and more salt pans are created than salinity of soils only increases, and there is nothing to mediate and regulate the salt levels?

View Larger Map

The HUGE lagoon - shallow but wide

 
It was wonderful to be out in that vast expanse of the lagoon, once we had navigated the canals that take us there.  I wish we could have just drifted in the waters, without the sound of our noisy outboard motor, but that was not to be.

Let's just rewind and recall that entire day.

Uttara writes about Muthupet

I think MNS should be renamed MTCFS (Madras Tea-Coffee-Food Society) because everyone seems to love their food and caffeine.

Day 2. 14th January. Saturday. 5 am

We set out in the 3 vehicles to Muthupet. We were going to the mangrove forests. The journey took more than an hour and a half so there was time for everyone to sleep a little longer. A little while before reaching the destination, the vehicles stopped for tea and vadai. But I can’t tell you anything about the food because I, like the others in Tempo Traveller#3, refused to get off the bus.

(Me:  I got off and I must say the vadais were excellent, and so greedy and self-absorbed was I, that I overlooked getting some for the rest in the tempo - sorry girls and guys!)

When our bus finally reached its stop, we got off and walked towards the bank of a small river where 5 boats were docked. We occupied three boats in total, each boat holding about 11 people excluding the two men who did the steering (actually only one controlled the propeller/rudder while the other sat in the bow).

(Me:  By this time, Rags had worked himself into a fine frenzy about not knowing how to swim, shaking hands and saying final goodbyes, with nice-knowing-you exchanges!  And our dear Arun slunk away and refused to climb on!)

The people in the boat I went in, a blue boat, included Kedar, Ambika aunty, Chandrasekar uncle, Preston uncle, Venkat uncle, Dr Alaganandam, Raji aunty, Hemal aunty and Vishwanath. The journey along the river took a long time. The vegetation by the water’s edge slowly changed from Prosopis juliflora to mangrove.

Spot the Pied KF in the Prosposis.
(We also saw a black-capped KF!)

The boats cut through the water just as the rivers had cut and split up the land into numerous pieces. Along the way we saw many kingfishers, cormorants, brahminy kites (these were so common, it was starting to get annoying) and gulls flying in the sky and diving and swimming in the water.

A dove eyes us curiously from the mangrove

A bobbing cormorant

Everywhere cormorants landed on the water and after paddling a bit, they dived in and soon reappeared quite some distance away. Everywhere in the trees there seemed to be a nest. Everywhere there were pied kingfishers sitting on a branch, hovering in the air and then plunging from a great height into the water. Everywhere gulls flapped and flew about. Everywhere there were birds.

The board walk fiasco

In the end we reached the board walk that went through the mangrove forests. So the boats were docked and we got off onto wooden planks and walked till we reached a hexagonal shelter (built off the ground where the slush and the breathing roots were) with benches all along the sides and a sloping roof and open on the sides. When we looked out into the forest at the back of the shelter, there was a sorry sight awaiting us all.

The boardwalk was in a dismal condition. Most of the planks were broken and were lying around on the soil among the roots. Somebody had taken the trouble to build this elevated boardwalk but nobody seemed to care about maintaining it. It was quite disheartening.

What a shame!

To see how it looked in 2005, click here.

But we couldn’t stop now. There was only one thing left for it now and that was to walk in the mud. Of course, this meant that the enthusiasm that had hung in the air instantly vapourised. A lot of the people like my mother, Rags uncle, Suresh uncle, Chandrashekar uncle, Kirthana, Jayamurthy uncle, Dr. Ravi, Ramanan sir, Vishwanath and Raji aunty took the smart choice and decided to stay back.

Then there was the second category of people like Ambika aunty (and Hemal!)  who walked the first few steps and wisely decided to stay back.

A closer look at the Avicennia aerial roots, which help the
plant absorb oxygen from the air

Last but not least there were always people like Kedar, Vikas, Prasanna aunty, Preston uncle and Venkat uncle who were the adventurous kind who did not chicken out even when they found out they would have to go through the swamp barefoot! We started off through the marsh, threading carefully between the roots and the dangerously slippery-looking areas. Things went wrong almost at once, when Kedar slipped and fell in the mud, luckily for him, not face first. After that, everyone treaded carefully, holding onto anything to steady themselves, even other people.

The mud was squishy and squelchy and the water was grey.  Some of the planks that had broken off the walk and fallen into the water were laid out like stepping stones and walking on them felt much better than walking in mud that was under water too dirty to see what you were stepping on. The only problem with the wooden boards was that they would abruptly sink when your feet landed on them; sometimes the boards were unexpectedly unstable and tilted all of a sudden, and sometimes the water hid the sharp nails hammered into them, causing your feet to experience an acute sharp pain. So it was always a relief when we once more got to the usable sections of the board walk but they never lasted long and we had to tread through muck again. The board walk was also not as long as we thought it was though we couldn’t go till the very end because we’d probably have had to wade through waist deep water at the very least.

Only two birds were spotted on the walk, one being a rose-ringed parakeet. A call was also heard though I don’t remember what heron Vikas said it was. With the end of the board walk in ruins, there was nothing in for it except to return to the little shelter where the rest were waiting. Again the dreaded journey through mud resumed and everyone had to taken precautions (nobody wanted to do a Kedar). Once at the shelter we first washed up our feet and then boarded our boats once more.

Preston and the "sea horses"

The lagoon proper!

We sailed out to a wide open region where a lot of fishing was going on. There was a man who looked like he was riding a horse, Venkat uncle pointed out. His posture was just right. But Ambika aunty was skeptical because the horse would have had to have been fully submerged in the water. It was a sea horse, Preston uncle explained solemnly!

"See they are trained to breathe through a tube, and can you see the reins in his hands.  Look, did you just see the tail swish?!"




There we turned around the boats away from the man on the “sea horse” and made for the place where the vehicles were waiting for us. It was closer to noon and none of us had eaten breakfast. Once at Muthupet, we found the eatery we were searching for, Muthumani unavagam, and we ate breakfast there. There were dosais and parottas to be ordered. As usual, all the members with their large appetites wolfed down their breakfast in seconds.

The plan after breakfast was to go to a birding spot some 6-7 km away.

Next up - Udayamarthandapuram sanctuary.

Further readings

India's Mangrove cover, up.

Pongal at Point Calimere - beachcombing with the camera

The sand at the saltpans

The beaches and saltpans of the region are a beachcombers' delight.  The sands were strewn with shells, and I was taken back maybe fifteen years, when the beaches of Thiruvanmyur would be like this!  Sadly, they are combed so heavily these days, that we only see small, broken shells.

On the beach sands, near the Chola lighthouse

I have not systematically looked at this whole class of snails, clams and molluscs and this trip was a first, as I looked to understand about these marine creatures.  They could be univalve or bivalve.

So, we all indulged in virtual beachcombing, photographing all the pretty, colourful, unusual, large shells that we saw.   I have tried to match my notes/names with the pictures I took - I hope I am correct, please do point out if I have wrongly identified.  (Errors, if any are mine and not Uttara's!)

The waters near the boat jetty

At the waterfront

Uttara's account, which started here, now continues:  

A dead starfish.
Wonder what they do with them?

...Then we headed further south to the boat jetty where we saw crabs and star fish left behind from the day’s catch. Later we headed further away from the fishing boats to a quieter spot where we just roamed about, picking shells of all kinds and pestering Preston uncle with questions about each one which he patiently answered. 

The puffer fish
Highly poisonous

Among the shells we found were the cockle, clam, scallop, horned, screw, murex, bonnet and olive shells. The other things we spotted were a dead puffer fish (and all puffed up too) and the mother of pearl of an oyster. That evening was extremely fun what with all the beach-combing and shell-picking.

A capiz/windowpane oyster buried in the sand.
Placuna placenta.  Some translucent varieties used to make windowpanes!  (Its a bivalve.)

From L to R - Sundial, Murex, angelwing, spotted tun

Bottom - screw shell.  Above - I dont know, but it was pretty.

Blistering Barnacles!  I learnt that these creatures are crustaceans,
and the creature kind of cements itself to the substrate, and since they live in shallow waters, they have a set of plates which cover the opening when the tide washes out.  (These are dead and so they are open)

More dead barnacles on a branch by the sea-shore.
To see how these creatures, who cannot move on their own, feed,
please click here.

Is this a razor clam shell?

The hermit

Someone found a hermit crab. It was a juvenile, a tiny red little thing in an over-sized, borrowed shell. When we held it up, it scrambled all over the palms of our hands and it took a lot to stop it from falling of. Finally we released it back into the water and watched it being thrown back and forth by the waves until it disappeared from sight.

At the saltpans

The notice that hung on the wall
at our guest house on
marine life that is protected.

(Uttara)


We walked among the very large and small pools of saltwater that had been brought in from the sea which came in from both the south and the east. The large pools of water were separated by man-made mounds of dry soil. While there were a lot of Prosopis juliflora growing around the mudflats (some black-winged stilts were spotted here), marking the boundary, few plants grow in the area itself save for the few small bushes that grew around the mounds. On one side of the mudflats there grew the pooarasam or Portia tree also called Indian tulip tree (Thespesia populnea) which can grow in difficult conditions like near salt water and the sea coast. The land was dry and bare and in places cracked. Though proximity to water resulted in wetter soil, the land still retained its parched appearance.

Colourful spiral horn shells - all over the bunds
surrounding the salt pans.

But looks can be deceiving. While in most places, especially the mounds, it was perfectly safe to walk around, some areas were very marshy and when the earth gives way under one’s feet, it is certainly not a most pleasant sensation for most. I say this from first-hand experience. 

Is this a banded tun shell?  "Tun" supposedly
means cask or wine jar.  Tuns are typical of tropical water
and feed on other small creatures.

L - Frog shell? Or is it a broken whelk?
R - Harp shell - notice the lovely vertical ridges,
reminiscent of the strings of a harp.  The
harp shell creatures have an interesting feature.  They drop a part of their foot when threatened by a crab.  As Mr Crab munches on the foot, our harp will encircle it from the rear, cover it with mucus and sand, and then consumes it!

TL - Paper fig.  Very light
TR - Moon sea shell?
Middle - Brown banded tun
Bottom - screw shell

I had to walk the rest of the way barefoot which wasn’t so bad except there were a shells everywhere embedded in the mud and they were very sharp. You see the sea had come into the saltpans/mudflats and left behind millions of shells firmly held by the earth. The saltpans were as good as the beach for shells. We saw whelk and cone shells among others and again Preston uncle explained about them. Again on the return some of us had to do the usual feet-scrubbing before we could return to the guesthouse.

Conus shell.  The creature inside this is venomous
and its sting is unpleasant, and shoots out on a proboscis
at the narrow tip of the cone.

L - I dont know/Forgot
R - vase shell.  Common on the eastern Indian coasts,
despite their small size, they are predatory!

A scallop bivalve, next to a very small spiral horn.
Very common on our beaches

When we returned, the light had faded from the sky. We gathered in the entrance lobby to begin talking about what had been done that day and what there was left and even some random stuff. Vikas, Vishwanath, Kedar and I mostly yelled at and fought with each other. Then began the daily list-making ritual with the usual “Order, order!” and “Disorder, disorder!”

By the boat jetty, on the last morning
(Me)

A crab eyeballs us, looking
quite angry!

The morning of our departure, Hemal, Raji and me took an early morning stroll down to the boat jetty.  As we neared the beach, we came across a rundown, abandoned petrol station!! Really!  I wonder if it was for the fishing boats?

The fishing village was a hive of activity.  Motorbikes and cars whizzed past us, and we wondered what the excitement was all about.  We arrived to see the auction in full swing - last evening's catch was being sold.  Fisherfolks on cell phones, deals being struck, profits made.  It reminded me of an article I read in The Economist long ago, of the positive effect of the cell phone on the fisherfolk of Kerala.  Maybe this was the reason for traders coming in by car, having heard of a good catch that morning?  We didn't find out.

R - A lovely Murex turnispina,
quite common for our waters

During our four day Pongal stay, we found that the price of fish and prawn rose significantly, almost from meal to meal.  There was some joking as to how local demand was raising the prices, but it turns out, that the number of fishermen willing to go out to sea through the festival drops off, and this results in supply dropping substantially.

Sting rays, at the bottom of a freezer box.
According to the poster in the guest house, this is a protected species.

Turbanidae?

We wandered around, as fishermen repaired their nets, emptied the morning catch, their wives busy cleaning out the ice boxes.  Seeing our cameras and binoculars, one woman wanted Raji to take a picture of her.  Now it has to be understood that my dear friend Raji wants as little to do on such trips other than stopping and staring, so she quickly got out of this duty by asking the woman jocularly whether she wanted to become a TV star.  the lady in question gave a disarming, paan-stained grin and went off.

We got talking to some young men who had just returned from the sea.  Kodiakarai is approximately 50-60 kms from the tip of Sri Lanka, and we are always reading in the papers about fishermen from either country being arrested by the opposite coast guards, for straying into their waters.

An octopus was in their catch.
Among the most intelligent of
invertebrates

Just that weekend, 13 fishermen from this very village had been freed.  One of the young men, more a boy actually, told us that he was one of those who had just returned!  He also proudly said that it was not the first time he had been taken in by the Sri Lankan Navy.  "They lock you up for a week, take all your money, and then send you back", he said in Tamil, with a shrug and a bit of a swagger.

As we wondered why they had to take these risks, one of the older fishermen remarked as to how the size of their catch is falling - there is just not enough fish, and how they need to go further and further.  Sounded familiar - Downeaster Alexa from Billy Joel.

I know there is a 47 day ban on fishing or a fishing holiday around Chennai/TN coast, but that seems to be not enough?  Sustainable fishing is the mantra of the government, but is it working on the ground?  I dont know.

I also found it sad to see "unwanted" fish just being brought in, in the nets, dead and of no use.
More beautiful univalves.

A lovely, abandoned sea fan

On our way back, we saw a cheerful and noisy bunch of rosy starlings in the undergrowth, and its amazing how their chatter can lift one's spirits.

As we got onto the southern most end of high street, we saw various other fellow MNS members sprinting, and so followed suit.  and this is what we saw!

No marine creature this - a retreating wild boar.

Some strange thing
we came across.  (Not the pen!)
That was Hemal's touch of
scientific observation.

Lets hope that we learn and understand about sustainable living, sooner rather than later.

Signing off with this absolutely fantabulous specimen of a Murex (?).
Photo by Mr Ramanan

Up next - Mangroves at Muthupet.