This agama rocks!

Bad joke, sorry.  Well, this is a rather spectacular lizard, and its called a rock agama, so do forgive me.  A Peninsular Rock Agama, to be precise.  This was another treasure that hung around the Chikaldhara resort.  The first time I had ever seen something like this.

I'm not a great reptile person and suffer the usual fears and concerns about all things cold and clammy.  But these two specimens were rather fascinating in a sort of creepy crawly way.

These rock agamas are interesting lizards, it appears.  Their bodies are about a foot long, and their tails could be a foot and a half.  They live in groups and have territorial fights with other lizards, and one weapon seems to be their looooong tail, which they use to whack the head of the enemy lizard.  The thump can be so hard, that enemy could end up with a broken jaw!  Regrettably, our lizard was a peaceable chap and just sat there, or should I say lay there.

Then, there was this other long-tailed fellow on the rocks around Chikaldhara.  Definitely tail once again longer than body.  Is this the female agama or a salea lizard or a skink lizard?  I have no idea, as of now.  Will add the details when I get to know.

Tree Pipit?

(Mr Ramanan took these photos to help us id the bird)

The intitial consensus was tree pipit.  But looking at the bird books have confused me more.

Also, we always saw it in the scrub below and not in a tree....

So, could it be Richard's Pipit?  But the I dont see the long hind claw.

Paddyfield pipit?  Its a bit bigger than a paddyfield isnt it?

And what about Blyth's then?!!

Please pick your choice!

My introduction to butcher birds

The heat and dust of Melghat did knock me off for a day. With a heavy head and a fever I decided to stay up at Chikaldhara one morning, and not take the jungle ride down to Melghat. I did wander through the lanes around and also had the privilege of getting morning tea. (Given the way the MTDC place was organised, it was a real and rare privilege believe me!)

As I sat in the verandah overlooking the valley, a rufous-backed or long-tailed shrike came and sunned itself on the bare tree in front of me. I have not seen this bird before, about a foot long, but immediately recognisable by its profile, and my constant thumbing through bird books. It was quite enjoyable, I must say, drinking hot and sweet chai, sitting in a chair in a verandah overlooking a valley, the cool morning air and the birds come and parade in front of you!

When the group returned I told them about my morning, as they briefed me on their morning walk through the forest, seeing a mamma stork and her 2 juveniles, and coping with an increasingly nervous Deepika!

Shoba then enlightened me about these shrikes - also called butcher birds. They have hooked beaks, and have this rather nasty habit of impaling their prey for future eating. So, tasty worms, bugs, lizards, mice and such like are stuck on to a convenient thorn or barbed wire, and eaten later when they are hungry.

I was quite appalled when she first told me about this habit, but then on reflection I realised its not such a big deal is it?  They are just being clever and planning for future needs isnt it?  Well we do it all the time in our refrigerators - keeping more food than we need!  Okay, its not bugs and lizards, but so what?

And then I saw this video......

A flycatcher and a Colonel

(Photo credit: Mr P Ramanan)
I saw this lovely little bird on my recent trip to Melghat and Chikaldhara. The MTDC Chikaldhara resort did have many feathered visitors, and all we had to do was sit around with our binoculars, and sure enough you would see a daily parade.

One afternoon, Mr Ramanan wandered in excitedly with his camera, and showed us this amazing capture - a Tickell's Blue Flycatcher. Though we all rushed out to try and see it, it had whizzed away by then.

I remember idly flicking through Grimmett and Inskipp's book on birds of South India, and wondering whether I would see any of the lovely, colourful flycatchers on Pg 180! And I was in luck! He showed up again the next day, and I was ready and waiting. Under the fig tree this time. Something blue whirred past my ear, and darted from branch to branch seemingly snapping things out of the air. When it settled for a rest, it was the same Tickell's Blue!

He kept me fascinated and enthralled for a while, as he showed off his flying skills, trilling excitedly (or so it seemed to me anyway!) These flycatchers eat, well flies, and so do need to do these fighter-plane type dives!


Feeling rather pleased with my "sighting" I went off and announced to all the others, rather grandly, then read up about it, and wondered aloud who this Tickell was, who seems to have a lot of birds named after him.

Then, the next day, this little fellow was down by the leaky pipe - remember the one I wrote about here and I took this picture on the left. He is quite small isnt he? Then, of course everybody got a view, and so now all the Melghat gang have seen this bird!

On our return, I did a desultory search for "Tickell", and guess what, he showed up rather quickly, on Wikipedia at that! (What would we do without that marvellous tool?!)  There's even a picture of him there.  This Colonel of the British army seems to have been one active birder, and there's this little blue marvel, plus a flowerpecker and a leaf warbler and a thrush named after him.  

My salaams to Colonel Tickell

What's the worst that could happen?

A friend of mine forwarded me this message.  Its aimed at the global warming sceptics, and shows that even if the doomsdayers are all wrong, the risks of inaction are too high.

Its a 10 min video, but be patient and watch it.

Are discount airlines a good environmental idea?

I came across this article in The Economist...

Posted by: Economist.com | LONDON

Categories: Green issues

WHAT impact does business travel have on the environment? GlobalExpense, a company that manages employee expenses for its clients, has come up with an answer relating to British businesses. GlobalExpense analysed almost 5m claims filed by some 100,000 British employees between 2005 and 2007 and then turned the figures over to Carbon Statement, a company that tracks carbon footprints.

Carbon Statement estimates that the carbon dioxide generated by the average expense-claiming employee from business travel (not including commuting) during a year is the equivalent of them boiling a kettle 105,413 times.

To offset this additional carbon dioxide, it would require six trees to be planted and grown to maturity (taking about 99 years) per expense-claiming employee per year: 22.5 million additional trees per year for the UK.

Assuming, bravely, that the world of business has no plans to plant 22m trees this year, what should environmentally minded business travellers do? The obvious answer is fly less, as flights are particularly damaging. Each year the British workforce claims expenses for 7.7m train journeys, compared with 1.6m flights, but those flights create around six times as much carbon dioxide.

Given that over 40% of the flights in the survey were domestic, the green dream is to put more of these flying businessmen into trains. But the difficulty in selling the virtues of time-consuming train travel is exacerbated by the fact that train fares have become dearer in recent years, and air fares cheaper.

During this period [2005-2007] the average UK train fare has increased by £6.85 – a hefty 20.3 per cent, well above the rate of inflation. This is in stark contrast to the fall in the amount paid for the average airline ticket of 25 per cent over the same period

.

It seems that until the financial cost of travel reflects its environmental cost, the number of fliers is unlikely to drop.

So, while we are hooked to frequent flier miles and discount airlines, maybe its all not such a good idea in the long run.....  

Sigh!  

Anyway, not wanting to give the Americans only bad news The Economist also published some encouraging sounds of how Amtrak has improve, and definitely worth a try.

My son and I bought a tourist pass on Amtrak a couple of summers ago, and went from New York to Atlanta, back to Washington and then on to Cleveland, before returning to NY.

My impression then was that our good old Indian Railways was much better.  Here is why:

• Indian Railways gives me a berth to sleep on overnight journeys, whether I go by second class or first class, while Amtrak decides that the poorer lot shall only get a sitting seat, (and reserves the berths/cabins for their really high-end travellers)
• At every station in India, all my well-meaning relations can come and bid me a fond farewell or an even fonder (I hope!) welcome on the platform.  No such luck with Amtrak, where only travellers get to the platform, there's no one to help with the luggage, and some surly railway attendant will assign you to seats only when you are about to board.
• Nice hot railway food missing in Amtrak, where we got some plasticky junk.
• And the loos.... I think in a train our Indian toilets make most sense.  In the Amtrak journeys, halfway into the journey and the toilets would be clogged with toilet paper....

Oh yes, and Amtrak was as bad as IR in terms of punctuality - I've forgotten how late we were on our return, but it was several hours past scheduled arrival.

Dont get me wrong, we loved the train rides (small matter that I had a tired back at the end of it all), and the pleasures of nice, large viewing windows to look out at the Hudson River all the way back.  The Acela Expresses we used were even better.  If I had to do it again, I would still take the train, but not many middle class Americans do it seems.  None of my NRI relations had, either!

19:00 GMT +00:00 What about Amtrak? Posted by: Economist.com | WASHINGTON DC Categories: Trains

AMTRAK, America's oft-maligned national passenger rail service, has had a rough life. Deferred maintenance, low levels of federal funding, immense debt and competition with airlines have all taken their toll since the quasi-governmental entity was organised in 1971. But by the numbers, at least, Amtrak seems to be doing better. Ridership was nearly 26m in fiscal 2007, a new record. Ridership for 2008 is up 12% so far, according to AFP. Even Amtrak's "built-too-wide" Acela Express service is doing well. The increased security in airports following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 have made flying a lot more of a hassle, especially for short trips like the ones between New York and Washington, DC or between Boston and New York. For many business travellers, it's simply easier to go from Penn Station in midtown New York to Union Station in downtown Washington, DC than it is to make the long trips to and from the airports that surround those two cities. A trip from New York to Washington on the Acela takes a little less than three hours, doesn't involve passing through security, and usually costs a little over $100 if purchased in advance. (Tickets can set you back more than twice as much if purchased at the last minute.) All-in-all, the Acela is a comfortable, fast option for travel between the major cities of the north-eastern United States. Bloomberg's James S. Russell elaborates: Flying can't be counted on to have a time advantage when you add waits at security checkpoints and travel to and from the airport....Right now, no other rail corridors in the U.S. match Acela for speed, comfort or frequency. Overburdened airports, along with jammed highways, high gasoline prices and global-warming concerns, may at last push longstanding plans to build fast train service between heavily trafficked urban markets like Los Angeles-San Francisco-Sacramento, Houston-Dallas, St. Louis- Chicago-Detroit and Florida's east coast. Yes, Acela is better, though by international standards it remains a joke. It looks good today mainly because driving and flying are looking so bad. Mr Russell is right: the Acela only seems great because the other options are so miserable. But that's been enough for Amtrak to capture, by some estimates, over half of the market for business travel between New York and Washington, DC. One easy improvement could make Acela even more appealing: Wi-Fi. Right now you need to bring a broadband wireless card along if you want to stay connected while you're on the train. But if the various $20 bus services between New York and DC can provide free Wi-Fi on the road, how hard can it be for Amtrak to provide it on the rails? In a smart post on Information Week's website, Cora Nucci argues that Amtrak faces a moment of truth: Business travelers are Amtrak's bread and butter. It should be hustling to make Wi-Fi a priority -- to make it free, make it fast, and make it available in every car on the line. This is the time to do it. High oil prices are placing a golden opportunity in Amtrak's lap. Amtrak already offers a service that is greener, cheaper, about as fast, and less of a hassle than its competitors. It doesn't even require a trip to the airport; it takes commuters from city centre to city centre. If Acela also offered free Wi-Fi, it would be a deal business travellers would find very hard to pass up.

Melghat vistas

Continued from here...

The table tops from Chikaldhara....

The Gavilgarh hills, with their characteristic table tops.

The brown hills are actually covered with teak forests.

Will make a pretty sight, post-monsoon.

The picture on the left is the view from the resort.  Perched atop the farthest hill is the Gavaligarh fort.  The picture on the right is the hilltop with the MTDC resort.  The little speck of a building is the resort.  

Great location isn't it?

Below, the hills at dawn, and then later at midday.

A greener view ...

And the rivers ..

These were at Melghat in the sanctuary.  Tributaries of the Tapti.  The Sibna, mainly.

Below, left is the small pool at Ghol Khas, where we saw water birds like the Black Ibis and the Woolly-necked stork, as well as a Malabar Whistling Thrush, which had to be lost!  Its supposed to be in Malabar isnt it?!

Above right, in the evening light, and below, in the early morning light!
 

The dry river beds revealed the lovely rounded and smooth river stones.  I was tempted to bring a few back....

Beautiful sunsets

Birds profiled against the fading light, on the tree top.

There is a view point called Sunset Point, on top of the tallest hill there called Vairat.

And the wildflowers

... Which were all so pretty.  I checked them out on  Flowers of India.

I got a few ids.

The one on the right is the Mexican Prickly Poppy.  It grows all over India, and give a yellow juice according to the site, and is toxic, so animals dont graze on it.  Pretty though.

The one on the right is either Indian Snakeweed or Blue Porterweed.  

Dahi rabri anyone?

This terrific signboard alerted us to the local delicacy of dahi rabri or rabdi. No, no, not another daughter of Laloo, but a cooling summer speciality that seemed to be the raison d'être for the existence of the eateries that we came across in Semadoh. Funnily, we didnt find it in Chikaldhara, just 26 kms away. I wonder why....

Ordering it with curiosity and enthusiasm, the group fell strangely silent when this was plonked down on the table at Mukund Rao's hotel. Err, what was it? Well, the white clumps are the dahi, and the brown goo it is residing in was the rabri.
It was not re-ordered shall we say.

This was the pet cow that inhabited the front of this dhaba. The first time I've seen a cow behave like a dog - beg for food - gently brining its snout near our plates. I'm sure if we hadn't shooed her away in time, she would have quite happily had the dahi rabri. (Why didnt I think of it then - could've magically and quickly finished it off that way!)

Anyway, near this dhaba was a women's toilet which was an enclosed-for-modesty open to the elements square. One day we found this cow in there, using the facility! Well trained isnt she?!

We settled for rotis and dal, which were really good.  Mrs Mukund Rao sat in front of this chulha, in the scorching summer heat and produced a pile of them.  The final baking was done by the proprietor himself, on another stove.

The locals did not seem to eat a roti-type lunch.  Rather the usual order seemed to be dahi rabri, jilebi and batata wada.

This here, is our trusted jalopy.  It was a Mahindra Maxx, which rattled and shook us around Chikaldhara, Semadoh and the Melghat sanctuary.  The amazing thing was that it did not break down - this particular vehicle - throughout our stay and travels.  

This was Sajid's vehicle.  Sajid was a commendable young man.  Every morning he would be at our dorm at 4:30, drive us through the day in the dust and heat - no power steering mind you - with a cheery grin all along.  he seemed to be the local champion carrom player, because he would report in the morning saying he won a game the previous night.  

A few days down the line, I discovered that Sajid was consuming 25 packets of Gutka in the course of a day.  I also discovered that those rows of colourful sachets hanging in the dhabas were all different brands of gutka, all very correctly carrying skull and bones and health warning messages.  Aren't these things banned?  In my broken Hindi I managed to convey to Sajid in gory a manner as possible the ill-effects of chewing tobacco... he promised to stop.... he shifted to chewing gum on the last day we we were there....I do wonder if he managed to kick the habit?

So, here's a whole generation getting addicted to chewing tobacco, while Anbumani Ramdoss talks about drinking and smoking in films.  Talk about missing the wood for the trees.

I do wonder what Sajid thought of us.  Mad Madrasis is my guess.  Since he was the better/safer/more sensible driver of the two, we women were assigned him, very chivalrously by the men.  We of course spent our time in the van giggling hysterically as the dust rose from the roads, and Raji covered her head, face and was soon just a vague bundle.  We found a lot to laugh about on that trip, everything recounted in the van, to further laughter.

At one point, Sajid decided he would drive the other vehicle, at which point Raji told him (in Hindi worse than mine) that she would only travel in his vehicle, whichever one it was!!  You have to agree, that he was a brave young man, twenty something at the most, facing these 40+ crazy women!

So, if any of you fellow travellers of mine remember what it is we laughed about, please do write in.   I remember a few -

#  The wild dog, which turned out to be a goatherds dog

# Wind rustling the roof in the night and Raji swearing it was an intruder tapping the door

# Deepika asking the forest guide nervously as to what to do if she came across a bear in the jungle (his suggestion that she lie down and play dead only made her more nervous!)

# Raji and me winning the laziness competitions hands down

# Mr Kadamkar, the forest officer suggesting cheerfully that we spend the night at Raipur ( a dusty village in the middle of nowhere), and Mr Ranjan saying that he would die if we did such things!

Waiting in line

Definitely more orderly than we Indians at a bus stop! Mr Ramanan from MNS  snapped this terrific moment on a hot dusty afternoon at our Chikladhara resort, on the recent Melghat trip.  The apt title was also his.

The leaky tap proved a delight for us birdwatchers as there were several visiting dignitaries - these red vented bulbuls, yellow-throated sparrows, spotted doves and more.

The red vented bulbuls I am well acquainted with, as they frequent the trees around our apartment in Madras, but I never tire of them. They have a lovely, chirpy musical call, striking colouration and an alert, intelligent look about them, all beautifully captured in this photo.

Check out Mr Ramanan's other photos here.

The majestic Crested Serpent Eagle

This was the sight that greeted our jalopy as we entered the Melghat forest at Pipalpadav one evening.  I think, for me this is the closest I have been to a raptor in the wild.  

The forest was quiet, resting in the afternoon heat, when Divya spied this lovely specimen on a branch to our left.  As we watched in silence, the eagle also sat in silence, ignoring us, and keeping a sharp look out for prey.

Sekar, clicked away and came up with these compositions in brown.  Trees, leaves, bird - almost a sepia print.  

Do click on the photo, to enjoy a full resolution view.  Only then will you see the crest, its hooked beak and the black bar across its tail - all distinguishing features for the Crested Serpent Eagle.  

In Melghat, we subsequently saw a lot of these raptors, circling above, sitting on trees, calling in the forest.

They are fond of well-watered country and also eat snakes, besides frogs, lizards and rats.

That was all we saw that evening.  Not one other creature moved in the forest.

That's the beauty of a jungle visit.  The jungle will reveal when she wants to.  You are unimportant.  A visitor.  

Be patient, enjoy the quiet and you may be privileged to see some small marvel.

When I return from these trips, I am always greeted by, "So what did you see?".  Its kind of difficult to explain that I enjoyed seeing the fallen leaves, the large anthills, the round river stones and the experience of not being "at home".  This is not my habitat anymore.  I am so far removed from it, I am a city person, sure to get lost on my own in the forest.

The dry and dusty teak forest of Melghat.  Initially my mind rebelled.  I want green, I want life, energy and vibrancy it said.  But after about three days, I think it did grow on me.  We learnt to cope with it, and recognise that in Nature there is summer - hot and dry and no running away from.  Life is not always about Spring.

Travel tips for Melghat

So, where do you stay if you do decide to visit Melghat?  We stayed at the town of Chikaldhara, which was 26kms away from the sanctuary gates.  But little did we realise what that meant.  The 26km was bad ghat roads to be traversed in a 20th century jalopy!

So, the Mad Madrasis at Melghat were travelling 104 kms a day to just get in and out of the sanctuary!  Not advisable, no definitely not!  Unless ofcourse you have a masochistic streak and like your bones rattled and reset, everyday!

If your aim is the tiger sanctuary, staying at the village of Semadoh, in the valley, makes more sense.  The problem with Semadoh, though, is that it is HOT in the day, though cool in the mornings and evenings.

It boils down to this - 

Semadoh for proximity 

Chikaldhara for better weather, scenic views of the hills and good birding.  But be warned of the long rides.

If you do choose Chikaldhara, then the MTDC resort we stayed at is best avoided.
We took the dorm, and the pictures below show you the state of disrepair and neglect of the property.
Fans and lights are missing, and the roof looks like it would leak in the rains - see all the stains on the roof?
Missing tube lights and stained sheets as well.
The doors of the toilet would not close, the taps would not work, and everything was falling apart. The enthusiasm and can do spirit of our group ensured that before we left, things were a bit better than when we arrived!
The whole property showed a lack of supervision and maintenance, scrap and rubble all over the place, broken chairs and window panes.
Then of course there was the dining room, where the cook and assistant had gone off on vacation, and we were fed by the boy who is probably a helper in the kitchen. The sunny temperament of this boy and his willingness to accommodate our need for less spice and oil were the saving grace. The kitchen would've been closed down by any sanitary inspector - roaches and grime kept our food company.
The dining room was another Mr Bean moment, with its oddly skewed pictures on the wall, broken window panes and wires running all over the place.

As with all government properties, the MTDC place has a superb location, and the view into the valley provides great birding opportunities, as also the fig trees on the campus.

The district was also in the throes of systematic power shutdowns. The notice board carried a weekly schedule of the timings of the power cut. While there was definitely no power during the times promised, it did not mean that we were assured of electricity the rest of the time!
These are issues that you expect to face while on the move in small town India.

The only thing that bugs me is the apathy of government officials, and the complete indifference of the public sector employees. My point is, why is the government in the business of running hotels in this country?
The most memorable and telling quote is probably that of the manager of the MTDC place, who moaned to us that even he could not get tea from the kitchen, leave alone us!
That summarises beautifully the state of affairs - the complete lack of accountability of the system, despite the dozens of registers, and the customer is not important attitude of all the staff.