July 1st 2025
Half the year is gone!
A Gentle peek of the outside |
Freezing a Munia moment |
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.
I wonder why I did not take any pictures that morning. Distracted by the mushroom omelette and the fresh orange juice?
I love wandering in these thickets, you never know what you will find. Today was a butterfly day. |
The cricket match had driven the birds away, I guess. My Valmiki Nagar thicket ebird list here. Blue-tailed bee eaters were doing their aerial dives and a lone black Kite flew over the water's edge. |
I didn't see the flamingos since the Sewri spot is now inaccessible. |
A Mocis frugalis - Sugarcane Looper -Identified via iNaturalist - spent the night on our room curtain. |
A Blue pea vine had these beautiful blooms. |
The Banyan did not have much bird activity and I wondered why. |
It was the Jackfruit corner that was buzzing with sparrows, babblers, sunbirds and the fantail, |
The birding year that was - A hat tip to my MNS Backbenchers
A trip to Perumbakkam in early Jan
Wigeons and Shovelers, was how it began.
Kentish plover in February
at the mouth of the estuary,
The sea shells were not part of the plan.
Nanmangalam was the highlight in March
When I spied the Jerdon’s Bush lark
Valparai, in April
Pitta, Thrush thrills,
And the Flameback hammering at the bark.
Thiruvanmyur in the heat, all of May
Hellos to those red vented bulbuls, everyday
The koel all through June
matched my mood with its maddening tune
A life’s journey ended that day.
The TS brought some cheer in July
I watched the beeeaters swoop and fly
Soil, earth - TTUF in August
lapwings shrieked and fussed,
As though we were there to pry.
Already it is September
and the pelicans on pylons I remember
Rain-drenched Mishmi in October
That Sultan Tit and Red-headed trogon, not at all sober,
Those colours! In my memory forever.
ECR outings and friends in late October
Terns, Whimbrels, pied kingfishers and laughter, still linger,
marshlands in November
Osprey and Marsh Harrier
My raptor watch attempts I confess were meagre
While Our fledged offspring took precedence in December
But still, those 3 score Black Kites in Andheri, soared in splendour
And so the year ended,
My heart will be mended
Wigeons and Shovelers, at the wetlands once more.
*****
The first birding year where I have seen 200+ species.
2022 list
Eudynamys scolopaceus
raucous and rapacious
uninvited eggs were deposited
she emerged brown and spotted
And the crows found her appetite quite capacious.
Through August and September
Her loud demands I remember
The crows found her rude
But kept her in the brood
Until she fledged in October.
14th August 2022 - the first time I spotted the Koel fledgling in the neighbour's teak tree. |
Most days I would see her tail and hear her insistent rattling call |
15th August - and she flew from one branch to the other, first flight, but no proud parents to watch or guide. |
25th August 2022 - and she flew to our terrace! My attention drawn by the ballyhoo of her calls and the rattling of the clothesline. |
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Rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri) - female and a juvenile, judging by their lack of the rose-ring. |
Intermittently through the summer of '21, through lockdown, sightings of a young peacock yet to grow his elaborate tail feathers, have been reported up and down our road. A solitary vagrant (?) that has taken a liking to the neighbourhood?
13th Dec 2021 was my close encounter.
The morning starts with a light drizzle, hmm, terrace walk, to go or not, tussle between my id (relax!) and my overactive superego (no you must go, don't be lazy)...sigh, superego wins, and off I go to our terrace.
Emerging from the door, I gasped, there was the peacock just beyond the door, and not in the least perturbed or shocked at seeing me! I stood stock still and watched as he strolled across the terrace to the wall and hopped up.
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My first of several pictures of the young chap. Pavo cristatus - Indian peafowl |
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I admired the brilliant "peacock blue" of his neck. Got a close look at the leg spurs. |
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All through the stroll, the house crows of the neighbourhood made their displeasure known, swooping close to his head, hopping closely with loud caws. |
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Finally, after a complete stroll around, with crows constantly swooping around, he hopped onto the eastern wall, before he launched off. |
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I peered over the wall, but lost sight of it. Saw the beautiful reddening leaves of the jungli badam instead. |
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And then I spied him, across the road on the neighbour's roof! |
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We were able to admire the crest on his head, and the beautifully descriptive eyes. That blue.... I had some sarees in that colour....silk, gorgeous. |
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He was feeding on the little berries and the young shoots...peck, peck, look, look, duck from the crow, peck again, neck in, neck up...we observed his motions. |
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Up went its unformed tail, and it faced the crow - was it as a threat or in courtship? The crow like the peahens, looked totally disinterested, looking the other way. |
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As i watched this scene in total rapt fascination, the crow decided it had had enough, and took off, (I like to think), when faced with the rear end of the peacock. |
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Immediately the tail came down and the peacock kind of peered over to see where the crow had gone off to. |
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As we watched, it 'walked' rather jauntily across the road and up onto the gate, before flying into the neighbouring badam tree. |
It is Vijayadasami today. A day to start/renew. And here I am saying hello to my blog again.
My morning terrace walk today - learned about Squid Games (South Korea's version of Hunger Games) and saw two Green Bee-eaters in the sky. The Bee-eaters did a couple of sorties and were gone, sadly. The parakeets stayed, and a young crow fixed me with an intense and curious stare, following me, up and down the terrace before it flew away out of boredom.
The skies are full of Wandering Gliders, moving east to west, from the coastline, across the city, and made me wonder if that's what had attracted the bee-eaters.
The Wandering Gliders never cease to amaze me, coming with the monsoon winds every year, and moving ceaselessly and tirelessly. I shot a long video of their gliding and wandering on the beach. It doesn't make for good viewing or sharing, because they are in and out of the frame in a second, and there are these tiny squiggles moving across the screen. I marvelled at their two sets of wings, sometimes beating in harmony and other times out of sync for some reason. Lift? Velocity? Hover?
Solving A Dragonfly Flight Mystery
Dragonflies adjust their wing motion while hovering to conserve energy, according to a Cornell University study of the insect's flight mechanics. The revelation contradicts previous speculation that the change in wing motion served to enhance vertical lift.
The Cornell physicists came to their conclusions after analyzing high speed images of dragonflies in action. The insects have two pairs of wings, which sometimes move up and down in harmony. At other times the front set of wings flap out of sync with the back set.
The physicists found that dragonflies maximized their lift, when accelerating or taking off from a perch, by flapping both sets of wings together. When they hover, however, the rear wings flap at the same rate as the front, but with a different phase (imagine two people clapping at the same speed, but with one person's clap delayed relative to the other).
The physicists' analysis of the out-of-sync motion showed that while it didn't help with lift, it minimized the amount of power they had to expend to stay airborne, allowing them to conserve energy while hovering in place.
The research will be detailed in a forthcoming issue of Physical Review Letters. The authors are Z. Jane Wang and David Russell.
Sept 2007
Aug 31st 2021
Walking past our eastern windows, I look out in my usual post-lunch habit of looking at the teak tree in our neighbour's garden, for the Drone on the hunt, or the bulbul calling, when I saw a large something on the wall of the neighbour's terrace. I look again, and there stood a peacock, surveying the territory!
While I scrambled to get my binoculars and rouse the family to this unusual sight, it stood on the parapet, gazing down at the dog below, and almost seeming to wonder as to what to do. It was calm and unhurried and strolled up and down the parapet.
Then it hopped down into the terrace and surveyed the ground for fallen neem fruits, which it seemed to eat. I noticed that his tail feathers had not grown out as yet and also that there was no other peafowl/hens around.
In all our years at Thiruvanmyur (25 plus), this is the first sighting of a wild peafowl in the neighbourhood for me. My brother had seen a peahen in May at the height of lockdown. Through the lockdown, peafowl have been sighted in various TN cities, quite regularly.
On the 27th, NBR neighbour Rags had messaged that he had seen one in the neighbour's garden - just flew in from nowhere! We continued to see it in and around our building for the next three days, and then it flew on.
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Doing a walk on the parapet |
I learnt that males get their feathers after say 3 years, so this was probably below that age. I was reminded of another day, in Manas where I had most recently seen the peacock dance for his mate.
Every forest trip in India for me has a peacock memory, and here was this young chap right at my doorstep!
July 1st 2025 Half the year is gone! The window frames glimpses. A Gentle peek of the outside Freezing a Munia moment Why is the munia a qu...