Madras Ramblings

Sunday, May 15, 2011

A Kutchi summer - Day 1 - Searching for the wild ass

Seen on the wall of our room at Rann Riders

From Chennai to Ahmedabad by the Navjeevan Express ...two whole days on the train, when will we have faster trains in India? Junior is armed with ipod...without headphones. Just as I have a good laugh, Pritam also sheepishly announces he has left his behind too. Prasanna saves the day...she has a set and Vish is mightily relieved. (He took ownership of those headphones for the next whole week I should add. Thanks Prasanna!)

Arrive at Ahmedabad at 7:30 at night, to the heat and dust of Gujarat in the last week of April. 36 of us from MNS. Board our buses for Dasada (Point B on the map) stopping for dinner at a wayside Dhaba, where there is no Gujarati meal - only a Punjabi thali!

View Larger Map

SH18 takes us past lorries and more lorries. Going where? Mundra port? Its past midnight when we trundle into Rann Riders, which would be our home for the next few days. I am sharing with Prasanna and my "little loris" Vikas. Junior is off with Vijay and Pritam.

We are to be up at 5:30 the next morning, (actually the same morning, isnt it?), and i was sure that there would be many absentees for the morning ride. How wrong I was, even Junior was up and ready!!

The Little Rann of Kutch is a salt marsh and when I was in high school, I remember being fascinated by the markings we had to do over the Kutch peninsula, those dotted lines symbolising the area being under water for certain periods of the year, post-monsoon. I learnt that more than half of India's salt comes from here.

When we went, it was bone dry, as is typical of the summer months, and it was hard for me to imagine this whole stretch under shallow waters! What a treat that must be, and no wonder its a paradise for migratory birds! We do need to go back post-monsoon, I tell myself.

Here's a clip of the landscape, and some wild ass and a nilgai we saw.

The lunar landscape is the only home to the Indian Wild Ass, called khur. As I jolted along under the Kutchi sun, I could not help but be amazed at this strange country I live in, grinding poverty all around, and yet a safe home for the wild ass.

Here are some absolutely wonderful photos taken by Mr Ramanan

Photo by Mr Ramanan. With the sun back-lighting them, this herd provided ample photo ops for all the shutter bugs!

Photo by Mr Ramanan. Notice the little black patch where the leg joins the body

Photo by Mr Ramanan - They run quite fast, we saw them gallop along with the jeep, and were doing a fair pace.

I wondered where they would reside during the rains. It seems they stay on the little elevated sandy scrub parts, called bets locally.

Next, the Flamingo experience.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Let the lions roar

Its lion season for me! Come on CSK!

Lion on the march, reclaims lost kingdom - The Times of India

New plan to move Maldharis out of Gir

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The countdown begins

'The Great Rann'- album sample by Listening Earth on SoundCloud

By the Navjeevan express

Anticipation suppress

Let it not be late

The Rann awaits.

Wetlands, endearing wild asses

moonscapes, wide open spaces.

Dusk falls as the Francolins call

Will we see Banni grasslands tall?

Across the Kutch we shall ride

to catch the roar of the pride.

Asiatic lions, the only den remains

protected by the Nawab of Junagadh on the Gir plains.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Excitement!

Wild wonder: Slender lorises sleeping on a tree on the Kalakshetra campus. — Photo: Tara Gandhi

Mr Ramanan had taken some lovely pictures of the endangered loris, which I wrote about here.

But here they are, in my own backyard!!

Slender lorises sighted on Kalakshetra campus

By P Oppilli

Naturalists are excited after sighting a good number of slender lorises, rare and endangered arboreal primates, inside the Kalakshetra campus. A detailed study on the primates has been taken up by members of the Madras Naturalists' Society (MNS).

G. Vijay Kumar, Secretary of the MNS, said in July last year students of Kalakshetra saw the movement of some animals on the tree. They then sought the help of MNS members to identify the animal. When the members visited Kalakshetra campus, they were taken by surprise by the presence of a large number of the arboreal primates.

Following the sighting, they approached ATREE, a Bangalore-based nature research organisation to fund a study inside the campus. The organisation had provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs.70,000 to take up the study. The six month study began in middle of January this year and will be completed by July.

A total of 20 lorises, including infants, were sighted by the MNS members, who went around the campus between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. The habitat in which they managed to survive needed to be protected and the lorises in Kalakshetra were wild ones, he said.

The MNS members used head lights covered with red cellophane papers, while studying them. As they were very sensitive to light, shining lights directly on to their face would stun them and they would be unable to feed due to this. Hence, the members have tied a paper around the lights to avoid disturbance to them, he said.

K.V. Sudhakar, member of the MNS, said there were not many records of sighting of lorises in and around the scrub jungles in Chennai. One had to travel to Mamandur near Renigunta in Andhra Pradesh to sight them. Similarly, not much information was available about this arboreal primate, except a detailed study by P.J. Sanjeva Raj of the Madras Christian College during 1950s.

Not many records of sighting of lorises in and around the scrub jungles in Chennai are available

So here's another account from Sheila, who was in another group, looking for this creature, (I wont tell you where!), and the excitement of a midnight search!

"About half an hour later, Shreekumar gesticulated wildly, but I guess we couldn't see in the dark, so the gesticulations were lost on us!! Finally Vikas realised he was calling us, and we all went to have a look. Shreekumar shone the torch on a tree on the other side of the road. He was absolutely certain he saw a pair of red eyes. He was very excited. He said he had no doubt about it - he's been a naturalist the last 20 years, and had been good at tracking snakes, etc and he was positive it was a slender loris, not a cat or owl or civet cat!!

We all trooped out onto the road and scanned the branches overhead and in the neighbour's garden. There is a continuous canopy over the road, as the branches from our trees and the neighbours' trees merge over the road. Tara says the slender loris will go from canopy to canopy, and must have gone from through the branches of the trees over the road, and into another garden. But try as we might we couldn't spot it. A couple of motocyclists passing by looked on curiously at us. Thankfully the flashes from the torches did not wake up the neighbours! Nor did they call the police to report the nocturnal activites happening in their backyard.

Vikas was thrilled that finally we were lending credence to his sightings!! "Amma, I told you, but you wouldn't believe me!!" Prasanna mentioned how they went all the way to Ariyalur (or someplace) near Madurai, spent 2 hours in the night 8pm to 10pm, looking for the slender loris, but all in vain!!

Shone our torches all over. Disturbed a barn owl which went screeching by. Vikas pointed out where he saw a bronze backed snake(!) (thankfully some days earlier and not last night!)

12.10am -

Again Shreekumar who was scanning the trees in a methodical way, gestured to us. He had spotted it! Vikas went quickly and saw it too. The next second when I went there, it had already gone. We spent a few minutes scanning the trees, but no sight of it.

This time we distinctly heard the call. 3 times, if I remember correctly. Shreekumar feels it was an alarm call. Also he feels the alram call is a means of communicating with each other about the presence of intruders, so this shows the presence of more than one slender loris.

The call had possibly come from a different direction too, one from a tree nearby and one from the western side, but I can't be sure of this.

We broke up aorund 12.30-12.45, all of us very excited and satisfied at the confirmation of sightings! Its difficult to believe that such a small patch of land has provided refuge to this animal.

Amazing, isn't it? Hope to see it sometime soon..."

I hope so too, Sheila!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

A few of my favourite wings - I and the Bird #148

(With due apologies to Hammerstein, Julie Andrews and Sound of Music!)

Red Northern Flickers and Himalayan Griffons

Pale blue eggs and nest-building herons
Brown Lincoln Sparrows and a Snail Kite in wing
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the Stints limp
and the vultures die
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite wings
And then I don't feel...so bad

Red vented bulbuls and Coppersmith barbets
Birding with children
And wagtails with stonechats
Idying birds with beaks, crests and things
These are a few of my confusing wings!

Woodpeckers in forests with streaks and white patches
Sri Lankan Frogmouth with lovely eyelashes
A warbler singing with the coming of spring
These are a few of my favorite wings

When the poachers kill
When the trees fall
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite wings
And then I don't feel...sooooo baaad.

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List of Contributors

IATB # 149 will be hosted by Kirk Mona at Twin Cities Naturalist on 28/4/11. Send in your entries by the 22nd!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Twisting terns at Kelambakkam

Skandan and Mr Shivakumar have photographed and reported the several terns that they have been sighting in the backwaters of Kelambakkam to the south of Madras.

And then there was the matter of gulls - brown-headed and black-headed - also reported. And Ruddy Turnstone. And Curlews.

So off we went today morning in Sheila's car armed with driving instructions and precise directions on which bund to walk on, etc etc.

It was a most rewarding morning - many gulls and terns I was seeing for the first time, plus of course the usual greenshank to madden us, before we id it.

Little terns
River tern
Whiskered tern in bleeding plumage, which I thought was a black-bellied tern
Sandwich tern and/or gull-billed tern?
Caspian tern

These we saw just off the road, as they went about the business of catching their breakfast with single-minded focus. I found it quite confusing to figure out which was which, and did that yellow beak have a black-tip, is the black cap "rakish", was that a yellow-tipped black beak, and so many more permutations and combinations!

Off the road, down by the broken bridge, walking along the bunds, and we saw the gulls. Brown-headed and black-headed in a mixed bunch....they were a huge flock in the distance, and without Chitra's spotting scope, and Preston's idying guidance, "look for the white mirrors on the wings", I would not have spotted them.

And there was a Eurasian Curlew too!

A few more visits needed.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The maddening world of wader identification

Madras is blessed with a lot of water bodies big and small, brackish and fresh. Any self-respecting birder in the city has to know their waders.

Now, if you are as bad as me at this, you will benefit from this "Waders 101" or "Waders for Dummies"!

There's a young man in MNS by the name of Gnanaskandan, (aka GK aka Skandan!), who has patiently put these pictures and the idying tips together. The original pictures can be found on Facebook here.

He has also designed a google map on Birding places around Chennai, which is definitely worth a look-see.

Shanks

1) Common Greenshank (Top) - Grey above - Foreneck & underparts white with Streakes - Greenish legs - Long , stout bill slightly Curved upwards - Prefers : Freshwater & Saltwater wetlands

2) Common Redshank (Bottom) - Variable brown to Grey above - Grey breast - Orange Red at base of bill - Orange Red legs - Prefers : Fresh & coastal waters

Red Shank - Prefers shallow fresh & Coastal waters

2 Species:

1) Spotted Redshank (Pic 1) - Has longer,slightly down curved Red bill., very conspicuous white supercillium (line above the eyes) and less streaks in neck & ear-coverts - Widespred winter visitor - Taken @ Pulicat

2) Common Redshank (Pic 2) - Has shorter bill compared to Spotted Redshank., lacks the white supercillium and more streaks down the neck - slightly smaller than Spotted Redshank - very timid and gives out an alarm call in flight - Taken @ Pulicat

Sandpipers - Size : Bigger than a Little Riged Plover - Prefers Freshwater & Costal wetlands and sandbanks

1) Common Sandpiper (Top left) - Distinct White Shoulder line - White Supercillium extends till nape(Not extending after eyes in Green Sandpiper) - Constantly bobs its head - Greenish yellow legs

2) Green Sandpiper (Top right) - Distinct White Supercillium not extending after eyes(extends till nape in Common Sandpiper) - Dark wings compared to Wood Sandpiper - Greenish Yellow legs

3) Wood Sandpiper (Bottom left) - Heavily Spotted Upperparts - Dark Yelllow legs - Prominent white supercillium

4) Marsh Sandpiper (Botton Right) - Fine Stilt like bill - Foreneck and underparts more whitish compared to other sandpipers - Greenish Yellow legs

Stints - Size : Slightly smaller than a Little Ringed Plover - Prefers shallow fresh & Coastal waters

1) Temminck's Stint (Pic 1) - Yellow legs - Lacks Supercillium - Complete grey Breast band - Uniform grey wing pattern - Widespred winter visitor - Taken at Pulicat

2) Little Stint (Pic 2) - Dark legs - Prominent White Supercillium - Rufous to Grey streaks in neck & breast - Black to Rufous wing pattern - Widespred winter visitor - Taken at Pulicat

I am off to Kelambakkam this weekend, and lets hope my wader idying improves from the abysmal level it is currently at!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Pallikaranai fire - TOI reports

PRECIOUS WETLAND IN NO MAN’S ZONE
No Inquiry Into Pallikaranai Blaze As Agencies Pass Buck
Julie Mariappan | TNN

Chennai: It is more than three days since a mysterious fire ravaged several patches of the Pallikaranai marsh but no government agency seems to be taking responsibility to initiate an inquiry into the cause. Several birds are reported to have died in the fire.
While the Kancheepuram forest office says the fire broke out on a few grounds of land belonging to the Corporation of Chennai, the latter says it has little knowledge about how to maintain the area. “The area is not yet notified under Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Forest Act, 1882. It is still owned by the local body. Our staff took pains to douse the flames. The fire and rescue services personnel could do nothing due to the characteristics of the wetland,” Kancheepuram district forest officer P Jayabalan said.
Almost 20 cases had been filed before the Madras high court, laying claim to the lands already notified on the southern side of the marsh. Only eight were disposed of and the forest department is still waging a battle. “It is likely that the patches were set afire by outsiders in a bid to grab the land,” sources said. The forest department is yet to take air samples from the area for testing, due to the confusion over the jurisdiction.
Corporation commissioner D Karthikeyan said that the land was being maintained by the forest department, though informally, based on a decision taken at a higher level. “The title of the ownership is still vested with the corporation,” he said, adding that the civic agency didn’t have the expertise to take care of the wetland. Saturday’s fire is a reminder that immediate steps have to be taken to protect the wetland.
One of the last remaining natural wetlands in south India, the Pallikaranai marsh sprawled over more than 8,000 hectares till 30 years ago.
Today, indiscriminate dumping of solid waste and the discharge of sewage combined with construction of high-rise structures and laying of roads in the surrounding areas have seen the marsh reduced to 800 hectares.
A recent study by Anna University revealed that a large quantity of metallic sedimentation from the corporation dumpyard in nearby Perungudi had been deposited in the marshland, affecting the biodiversity. The forest department was able to build an 870-metre-long boundary wall on the Sholinganallur side only recently.
Forest ranger Ramadoss said plans to set up a flood bund and provide walkways with necessary drainage facilities on the eastern, southern and western boundaries were awaiting the government’s nod. While the bunds will stretch for about 9.5 km, the walkway will be 2 m wide, a blessing for fitness freaks,
ornithologists
and patrolling staff. “The formation of a green belt and an earthern bund, without disturbing the marsh, is a good idea. Or else birds like waders and ducks will not roost in the wetland,” said KVRK Thirunaranan, founder of The Nature Trust.

Marshland yet to be notified as reserve forest
Julie Mariappan | TNN

Chennai: An ambitious plan to notify 150 hectares of the Pallikaranai marsh as a reserve forest area, announced over a year ago by the DMK-led government, is yet to see the light of day. The ecologically sensitive wetland, adjoining the Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Radial Road, remains with the Corporation of Chennai.
The forest department is said to have taken up the issue with the civic body. “It is a significant site to ensure the contiguity of habitat and bio-diversity in the marsh. Desilting and cleaning operations and monitoring can be conducted at the site,” said Jayashree Vencatesan of Care Earth, a non-government organisation.
A 317-hectare area was notified as a reserve forest area in April 2007, under Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Forest Act 1882, thanks to sustained efforts of nature lovers, environmentalists, activists and volunteers. It was brought under a separate range in Chengalpet Forest Division at Kancheepuram with headquarters at Pallikaranai. The forest department is still chasing revenue officials to demarcate the notified site.
Care Earth, along with City Connect, in a recent report recommended an “adaptive management plan,” including establishment of a coordinating agency to enable multistakeholder engagement, for the conservation of the marsh. One of the key elements was to prepare a detailed strategy, including ground demarcation, soil and water assessment, ecological profiling, habitat zonation, sedimentation studies, biodiversity assessments.
The Pallikaranai marsh supports over 100 birds species, five of them in the endangered list for Indian birds, and a number of fish and amphibians making it a potential candidate for inclusion as a site under Ramsar Convention, of which India is a signatory. “It is a legally bound mechanism to protect marshlands. The Pallikaranai marsh is certainly qualified for inclusion,” said V Srinivasan of the Save Pallikaranai Marshland Forum. The Wular lake in Jammu and Kashmir and the Chilika lake in Orissa are among such sites in the country.
Care Earth managing trustee RJ Ranjit Daniels said: “The rise in number of species is a sign the marsh is improving. It could also be due to the deterioration of other wetlands near Chennai.” The White-Spotted Garden Skink was recently spotted in the marsh, the first time in the state, as was the Russell’s Viper, the largest and the most widespread of Asian vipers. Fish such as the Dwarf Gourami and Chromide, bred and traded worldwide for aquaria, occur naturally in Pallikaranai. Also, Windowpane Oyster, Mud Crab, Mullet, Half Beak and Green Chromide are some of the estuarine fauna present in the marsh.
****************
MNS members have documented so much avian life at Pallikaranai. Some of the recent ones:

Rosy Starling
Spot-billed ducks

Purple swamp hen

Monday, March 21, 2011

The hornbills that I did not see

The hornbills eluded us on our January trip to Parambikulam. According to this article, in The Hindu, Hornbills are now nesting at karian shola. However, if we go now, we wont be allowed into the shola itself, the article says, and since I enjoyed those forests so much, its ok that we didnt see the hornbills, in retrospect!

After cleaning up the traditional nests in January, hornbills have, since February, started nesting eggs in tree cavities deep inside the jungles in Karian Shola near Top Slip in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR).

The chicks are expected to hatch out by the end of May or June.

While there is sustained focus on conservation of tigers and protection of herbivores that serve as a prey base for the carnivores, the multiplying of hornbills is also happening within the ATR.

Two species of hornbills found in this part of Western Ghats are Great Pied Hornbill (Buceros Bicornis) and Malabar Grey Hornbill (Ocyceros griseus).

“We have spotted close to 25 nests in the thick forests of Karian Shola,” Range Officer of Ulandy– Top Slip range S. Thangaraj Panneerselvam said.

Shy bird

Since the hornbill is a very shy bird, forest officials have denied trekking permission for tourists and access to Karian Shola even for naturalists.

“We do not want the nesting or the feeding of the female bird by the male bird to be disturbed. There is instruction to this effect from Field Director of ATR H. Basavaraju,” the Range Officer said.

Any disturbance will result in the male bird keeping away from the nest and this may cause the death of the female and the chicks as it is the male that brings them food.

Traditional nests

When it comes to nesting, the hornbills occupy only the traditional nests, which are typical hollows in tall trees in rainforests.

The same hollow is the nest year after year. It is abandoned only if the trees fall or any form of severe disturbance.

If barks grow and cover the nests used last year, look for another nesting place. The one with a narrow opening is taken over by the Malabar Grey Hornbill, which is smaller than the Great Pied Hornbill.

The nests are cleaned after surveillance for nearly a day to ascertain the presence of predators. It is done in January and nesting begins in February. The incubation period is 90 days.

Creates a quilt

Once the female bird gets into the nest, it sheds its feathers to create a quilt and on nesting the eggs, it covers the cavity with a paste made of its excrement and mud.

Hornbills normally hatch one or two eggs. To ward off ant threat to the eggs, it will keep its beak at the opening.

It is a rare sight to spot the male feeding the nesting female. The male passes food to the female through the slit that allows space only for the beak to pass.

The male bird will keep feeding the female with ficus fruits. A fortnight after hatching the eggs, the female will come out breaking the covering made of excrement and mud.

The chicks then cover the cavity and bring down the size of the opening. Male and female Hornbills then feed them with food such as snakes and lizards.

No open flying

Subsequently, for three or four days, the male and female hornbills will engage themselves in teaching flying to the chicks. The hornbills will never allow the chicks to fly in the open owing to the threat from black eagles, hawk eagles, black owl and hawk owl.

Despite such protective delivery and post-natal care, the survival rate of the hornbills is hardly 10 per cent to 15 per cent. However, of late, the population is healthy in the ATR areas.

Karian Shola was proving to be one of the best breeding sites for the hornbills, Mr. Panneerselvam said.

Forest officials have denied trekking permission for tourists
The incubation period is 90 days