With winter nearing an end, look out for these birds
Prince Frederick
For a good part of the mornings in Chennai now, the view is marred by a heavy haze effect. Recently, through a white film of fog, I sensed something bumbling through the branches of short trees overlooking the southern section of the Perumbakkam wetland. Following the clutter of claws on these branches, I saw a shock of brown and black settle awkardly on a redwood tree on the other side of the road. It was a greater coucal jumping from branch to branch with its characteristic two left feet.
Walking down the road in Sholinganallur that trots alongside the southern section of the wetland, I once again focussed on the waterbirds. And then it caught my eye again; this time, with its partner in tow. They were exploring this heavily wooded residential area, which is still sparsely populated. A few mornings later, a resident told me about the pair. The same day, I laid eyes on them again. There is a glimmer of a hope that I may chance upon these birds with their brood soon. In these parts, greater coucals are known to breed after the monsoon. The koels and greater coucals belong to the Cuciloforms order. However, unlike the koels, which are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nest of other birds, usually crows, the greater coucals raise their young.
As a pair ranges over a really wide area, considering it their territory, they may build their nest far removed from their many stomping grounds.
However, knowing that these birds see the leaves of screw-pine trees as a great nesting space, I may take my luck with me to Thaiyur lake, where screw-pine trees grow wildly along the bunds. Well, birdwatcing is not only about patiently waiting for birds to show up. It's also about showing up wherever a bird life cycle takes it.
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The other day, a bird watcher remarked that the northern shovelers have dwindled in numbers at the Perumbakkam wetland, which led me to focus my attention on this spatulate-billed dabbling duck.
The northern shoveler is one of the four migratory ducks that arrive in large numbers in our parts at wintertime.
This observer seemed to have got it right — their current number at the wetland is probably just one-fifth of what it was, only a month ago.
The northern shoveler displays sexual dimorphism, which is striking during the breeding season. The male northern shoveler is a riot of green, white and chestnut. In the rest of the time, during various periods, the male may lose its iridescent green sheen due to factors such as moulting. At some of these periods, it may take on a shade that is not too removed from the female's. However, at any time, the black bill and the yellow in the eye, serve as the distinguishing marks of the male northern shoveler.
Most of the male northern shovelers hanging around at this wetland still display some shades of their arresting combination of colours.
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In the last column, I echoed birdwatchers' concern over fast-receding water levels on the southern section of the Perumbakkam wetland. However, this week showed that the situation is nowhere near as bad as feared. The section is hardly bleak. In the early part of this week, I witnessed a huge congregation of ruffs. On Sunday last, marsh sandpipers put on a great display.
However, the news from a boggy patch near Akkarai, where I have noticed interesting birds flock, is disappointing. It has gone dry, dashing my hopes of clicking some good photographs of the little ringed plovers, which have been flocking there in modest numbers of five or six in the mornings. Last morning, when I set foot in this patch, I felt like Thomas Moore, who expressed desolation the best way it could be in his immortal The Light Of Other Days: “I feel like one/ Who treads alone/ Some banquet-hall deserted!”
There is however a happy takeaway from this section, this season — An image of a spotted dove as it was perched briefly on the dead branch of what had earlier been a prosopis juliflora tree. This bird, which is native to our parts, is a necklace-wearing beauty. Judge for yourself.
I went looking for them a few days later with Sheila, and while we did not see the eggs (they had probably all hatched), we saw what was in all likelihood, the third chick.
When we reached, we heard the male PTJ calling in agitation and looking eft and right. It appeared that he was calling the chicks. Initially, we saw a slightly larger chick, which subsequently we did not see at all. (I have read that when they hear an alarm call from the parent, the chicks hide under a floating leaf. I wonder if that is what it did!
We did spy a littler chick, unsteady on his feet, which seemed to follow the parent, and I marvelled at how they stayed afloat and knew instinctively that they had to put their feet on the leaves and not in the water. All the time we were there, it was not fed by any parent, unlike other bird chicks, who are constantly crying for food.
The wetlands was filled with the calls of the jacanas, the honks of moorhens, interspersed with the impatient school bus and a motorcycle driving by.
I was dismayed at the amount of construction that is going on in the marsh.
Its a completely bizarre and distressing site. There are homes, apartments even, and raised roads, while all the empty plots are filled with water, reeds and remnants of marshland. It seems insane to come and build here, and even more insane to buy and live here.
Arun is the kind of modern super hero the world needs. A green warrior who has let his actions speak. And Chennai's loss is Tiruvannamalai's gain. He has mobilised and focussed native tree replanting on the hill, along with the prompt dousing of forest fires, and the results are beginning to show, as a forest and an ecosystem comes back to life.
And the returning birds have played their part, dispersing seeds and exponentially leading to forest revival.
The book, published by The Forest Way Trust this year on recycled paper, lists over two hundred species of birds that now can be seen in a 10 km radius around the hill and in the water bodies. The restoration has been supported by the district administration as well.
Hearing Arun speak about the revival of streams, the local communities working to put out the fires and the survival rate (some 1%) of planted trees, brings home the efforts that have led to this.
In the Introduction to the book, is a paragraph that I particularly like:
But while we humans may feel proud of our efforts to reforest the mountain, thinking that we have proved a home for birds in the process, the truth is that birds themselves have done far more to reforest the Hill than us. Many of the trees that we see now growing on the mountains were not planted, but came naturally, and it is often the birds that spread the seeds. And because they can fly, it is possible for birds to bring seeds a good distance from other forest areas, thus increasing the plant diversity of each place. With this, many forest birds not seen here in living memory, have made their return, like the wonderful Racket-tailed Drone. This is the most important lesson that we all must learn from nature; that other animals live their lives while making their home a better place for other life too.
All the original artworks in the book are photographs of paintings dome by Tiruvannamalai artist Kumar on limestone slabs in the Arunagiri Forest Park, at the base of Arunachala.
The book introduces Kumar, who began his association in the project as an artist painting birds, and has now become an expert birdwatcher.
The marble bust of a bedouin chief stared gravely down upon me. I loved the careless folds of his shawl
And Da Vinci's La Belle Ferroniere fixed me with an even more piercing stare.
I stared back, no hurry, no jostling crowds, trying to figure what makes a Da Vinci so special.
This is the only one of his 15 paintings outside of Europe.
This museum has bought Salvatore Mundi as well.
What are the odds of coming across 9,000 year old neolithic statues from Ain Ghazal in
two museums in two different countries? I had just beaten those odds. I had seen them at the antiquities museum at Jordan and now here again I was face-to-face
with the two-headed beauties.
A museum is a wonderful place, in general, and so too the Louvre at Abu Dhabi. It is not crammed to the gills with stuff, and some of it is quirky and odd. Like this statuette of female fertility from the early villages gallery. There was
one of a Bactrian princess which is also ancient.
The influence of the French museum collection was evident in the presence of these two paintings.
Portrait of King Louis XIV, Rene-Antoine Houasse, oil on canvas, 1674
Napolean crossing the Alps. by Jacques-Louis David. He painted five versions of this,
believe it or not - a precursor to today's clients requiring colour options - the versions
differing in colour of horse, sash, as also the look on his face. I gathered that is the Second
Versailles version.
A Chinese dragon, A Chola beauty and a prince from Lagash
This bronzed winged dragon from the 3rd century BC was a beauty
... as was this Chola bronze,
and this black stone carving of Gudea, the prince of the
Kingdom of Lagash, south of Mesopotamia, (modern
Iraq) Dated at 2120BCE, the diorite stone is
believed to have been imported from the Oman
peninsula.
The floor was cross-crossed with a place-names map
"Young Emir Studying" - Osman Hamdy bey, from Istanbul in 1878
On loan from the Musée d’Orsay:Vincent Van Gogh’s Self Portrait, 1887
Edouard Manet - one of his Gyspy series
Hans Holbein's portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt
And the Picassos!
Matisse
Kandinsky
Piet Mondrian caught my eye because of my aunt
"The Residence of a Sugarcane planter in Brazil" - by the Dutch painter Frans Post, reminded me of home.
And the three W's - Walden, Warhol and the Whistler
The Docks of Cardiff - Lionel Walden. I loved this one.
"Big Electric Hair" - Warhol, again this is a series, in many colours.
Whistler's Mother
A Koran and a Tora sat close to each other.
Chinese screens
And Japanese ones too
Egyptian frieze
An Islamic frieze of Quranic verses in sandstone , from the Ghazni empire, about AD 1200
And Durga, Krishna and Maithreya too
The description read, "Between the 5th and 15th centuries, India was a leading creative centre in the domain of religious sculpture. The lives of venerated individuals were illustrated in works produced to accompany the spread of Buddhism and Hinduism into Central Asia, and from South-East Asia, into China, Korea and Japan. Their purpose was to encourage meditation by devotees and their encounter with the divine."
A Chola dynasty granite Durga, 12th century
A Krishna painting - supposedly they have a 150 Krishna paintings, which they will display in rotation!!
Maithreya, from the Gandhara period.
So much more - The Horses of the Sun, Cy Twombly's series in blue, Alexander the Great's bust (what's remaining of it actually), cuneiform, Isis, Chinese pottery, Japanese Edo paintings of Mt Fuji.....
I would love to go back, potter around the Cosmology gallery a bit more maybe, see the Bactrian princess again, and my little female statuette from south America ... and probably Salvatore Mundi will be displayed.
Today, I visited my mother's garden for a special reason. The Horse Tail creeper is in bloom and that is an annual event not to be missed, for it is brief, spectacular and never fails to delight me.
For 350 days in the year, the vine is like a dark green curtain, cocooning my parents from the squat cement wall of the neighbours. And then for a couple of weeks every year, the vine blooms. And how!
Usually, the two weeks are in January, sometimes even February, but here we are this year, in December, with a poor monsoon, and some clock in the plant has struck the blooming hour.
Porana volubilis, of the Convolvulaceae family - Horse tail creeper in bloom
Do the bees feel the awe and delight that I do, I wondered as I quietly watched them flit from flower to flower. Somewhere, a honeycomb was being filled with sweet nectar from my mother’s garden.
Exuberant bunches, swathes of white, sweet fragrance, the drama of it all.
The softly falling petals. So much beauty. So temporary. So mortal. In a few days, maybe even tomorrow, they will be a memory.
The wild mallow seemed to keep a watch.
Until next season then, I bade goodbye to the blooms.
I wish that we could translate this interview into all the main Indian languages and get more people to listen to this simple, convincing dialogue about -
how we citizens need to protect our forests and tree cover, and ensure better governance and urban planning
how future afforestation in order to cut trees for development doesn't make sense.
what is a native species and why that's good to plant
how plantation forestry has weakened and destroyed mixed deciduous forests, and are continued by the forest dept
Delhi’s bad air is an opportunity to underline linkages between the degradation of the Aravallis and the need for good legislation.
I spent a considerable part of 2018 driving across Rajasthan searching for specimens of rock to take back as exhibits to Jaipur. Rhyolite, granite, sandstone, ironstone, stromatolitic phosphate, rippled quartzite — these were some of the specimens I was looking for. This doesn’t make me an expert on rocks or mining but I did gain some perspective on the disappearing hills of the Aravallis.
It’s true, the hills are melting away before our eyes. About 50 km before you reach Jaipur on NH 8, you drive past an imposing hill of quartzite looming over a small hamlet called Deo ka Harmara, near Chandwaji. Like a giant cone of shawarma, the rock is being pared away layer by layer and eventually ground into gravel-sized stones to be used for road-building. I have watched it shrinking by noticeable increments each time I drove past and regret that I didn’t photograph it to record its deconstruction in time-lapse. This is not an illegal mining operation, just one of hundreds of tekra outcrops that are being dismantled and crushed for roadworks all over Rajasthan, and no doubt, elsewhere in this country.
Mining is big, easy money in Rajasthan today. The state boasts a long list of valuable minerals hidden in its hills and below ground — zinc, silver, uranium, copper, limestone, some of the most colourful marble in the world, mica, dolomite — but I don’t think that all of these minerals add up to a tenth of what is actually mined in small, reckless, fly-by-night operations. Most of the mining is about relatively less-valuable Aravalli quartzite and granite. Or drive out in almost any direction from Jaisalmer town and the stony ground is pitted and broken by shallow digging for the ochre limestone that lies exposed on the surface. There is no reason to doubt that someone needs to restrain the unregulated digging and looting of rocks and minerals before Rajasthan disappears down a large dusty hole of its own making. But what a shame that it has to be the Supreme Court that steps in and not an enlightened and concerned state government.
Countries like South Africa and Australia, which do a colossal amount of mining have their problems too, but they have evolved policies that address important issues of how to steer a course between challenge and opportunity. It can be nobody’s case that mining is all bad and should be banned — these countries recognise that along with economic benefits and employment, mining threatens to severely pollute and degrade the environment and have created strong regulatory regimes to encourage compliance with environmental and mitigatory rules.
Why do we find it so difficult to do anything like this in India? Part of the problem is a lack of probity and enforcement, because there are rules and regulations in place although no one can seriously argue that the rules have been framed with any serious intent or rigour. Naam ke vaaste is the name of the game.
This applies all around, to every parameter of the environment in this country. Whether we look at the quality of water in our rivers and lakes, at the contamination of fossil water in our aquifers, at the fouling of the air or the stripping of topsoil from fields, at pesticide residues in our food, at natural old-growth forests and wilderness being lost — and this is by no means an exhaustive list — it is painfully evident that India has simply not summoned up the will to enact and enforce regulations to curb degradation. No aspect of the environment figures in the election planks or promises of any political party. Maybe it is foolish or at best naïve to expect environmental legislation to arrive unbidden from our legislatures. Maybe it needs a groundswell of public support and pressure for any of this to happen — just like it needed insistent demand from the outdoor recreational angling community to push through the Clean Water Act in the US.
The trouble with hoping for or expecting significant public support for these issues in India is that they it tends to attract the attention of small communities who are easily brushed aside as being “elitist”. The environment is not likely to attract sufficient support on a large enough scale until its downside effects are seen to impact significantly on health or mortality. This is where Delhi’s filthy air seems to represent a real opportunity to mobilise public opinion and recruit support for a better environment all around.
It may seem tragic and ironic that the National Capital Region’s dreadful plight is seen as an opportunity, but this is the sad reality in India today: It is the first high-profile crisis we have faced that everyone recognises is squarely an environmental one. More, it is seen as having a set of discrete, preventable causes and even if everyone doesn’t agree about how to ameliorate the situation, everyone does agree that it can be mitigated by a set of measures that curbs some things and outlaws others. Realistically, this is how environmental intervention in public life is likely to take place in this country — as a response to widespread public perception and concern by enacting laws and putting in place restrictions in order to bring about change for the better.
It is in this sense that Delhi’s bad air presents itself as an opportunity to underline linkages between the degradation of our air, soil, food and water, and the need for good legislation, and indeed, better enforcement of such legislation. I expect Delhi’s crisis to usher in a new general understanding of how important it is to protect our environment. I expect that political parties too, will start talking about environmental issues. The sad truth is we sometimes need to come to the very brink before we pull back and learn to act sensibly.
Krishen, an environmentalist, is the author of Trees of Delhi
Plan takes wings to protect migrant birds in Chennai's Pallikaranai
The ministry has identified sites in only 14 States and for the rest, the exercise is still underway.
For representational purposes (File | EPS)
CHENNAI: City’s Pallikaranai marsh is among the 11 wetlands in Tamil Nadu chosen under a five-year National Action Plan for Conservation of Migratory Birds and their Habitats along Central Asia Flyway (2018-2023).
Of the wetlands of ornithological importance identified on the basis of existing monitoring information, 29 sites, including 20 major wetlands and nine wetland clusters, have been identified as significant bottleneck sites for migratory waterbirds in India.
In Tamil Nadu, Point Calimere (Nagapattinam), Great Vedaranyam Swamp (Nagapattinam), Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park and Adam’s Bridge (Ramanathapuram & Thoothukudi districts), Karaivetti Bird Sanctuary (Ariyalur), Pallikaranai (Chennai) are the wetlands prioritised for the conservation of migratory waterbirds. The wetland clusters in Kanniyakumari, including Suchindram, Theroor, Vembanoor and Manakudi Estuary figure in the list, besides salt pans of Puthalam and Kovalam. This is highest for any State in the country.
In neighbouring Puducherry, Ousteri lake, Bahour lake and Kaliveli tank have been identified. The ministry has identified sites in only 14 States and for the rest, the exercise is still underway.
Asad R Rehmani, member of Governing Body of Wetlands International South Asia and a former director of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), told Express that Tamil Nadu plays a strategic role in entire Central Asian Flyway, which encompasses overlapping migration routes over 30 countries for different waterbirds linking their northernmost breeding grounds in Russia (Siberia) to southernmost non-breeding (wintering) grounds in west and south Asia, Maldives and the British Indian Ocean territory.
“Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are gifted as not much land area is left past them. The birds that come here have no choice but to stay back. So, the wetlands here are crucial and need to be protected,” he said. Globally, nine migratory flyways have been identified under the Convention on Migratory Species. The Central Asian Flyway is one among the identified flyways. Flyways are areas used by groups of birds during their annual cycle which includes breeding areas, stop-over area and wintering areas.
“After due deliberations and stakeholder consultations, the ministry has developed the national action plan along the central Asian Flyway. The plan is structured in six inter-related components i.e. species conservation, habitat conservation and sustainable management, capacity development, communication and outreach, research and knowledge base development and international cooperation,” said R Gopinath, Joint Director (Wildlife), Environment Ministry.
At least 370 species of migratory birds are reported to visit Indian subcontinent, of which 310 predominantly use wetlands as habitats, the rest being landbirds, inhabit dispersed terrestrial areas.
The long-term data sets show that Central Asian Flyway migratory landbirds are declining rapidly. However, the ministry is proposing to formulate and implement Single Species Action Plan (SSAP) for coordinated conservation measures for select important migratory species to a favourable conservation status within India. Twenty such species have been identified as high priority for developing SSAP.
For instance, the number of Spoon-billed Sandpiper, which breed in Russia and fly to India via Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand and Vietnam, declined rapidly. The species used to come to migrate all the way to Point Calimere in Tamil Nadu. But last year, only one bird was sighted and it is believed that hardly 1,000 birds are left globally.
How some animals use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate
Magnetoreception helps them locate themselves, which is vital for turtles and songbirds alike
K.W. | NEW YORK
Magnetoreception helps them locate themselves, which is vital for turtles and songbirds alike
COME wintertime thousands of garden warblers, pied flycatchers, and bobolinks—all tiny songbirds—will cross the equator heading south for sunnier climes. It is an epic trip. For guidance they will rely on the position of the sun and stars, as well as smells and other landmarks. They may also use the Earth’s magnetic field, thanks to a sense known as magnetoreception. Theories about it have long attracted quacks. Franz Anton Mesmer, a German doctor working in the late 1700s, argued that living things contain magnetic fluids, which, when out of balance, lead to disease. His idea of “animal magnetism” was debunked and similar ones viewed with scepticism. But magnetoreception has drawn more serious attention in the past half-century. A pioneering study in 1972 demonstrated that European robins respond to magnetic cues. The list of animals with a magnetic sense has since grown to include species in every vertebrate category, as well as certain insects and crustaceans. Some may use it simply to orient, such as blind mole rats. Others—salmon, spiny lobsters, thrush nightingales—may use it for migration and homing, alongside other sensory cues. How do they do it?
Think of the Earth’s magnetic field as shaped by a bar magnet at the centre of the planet. From the southern hemisphere, magnetic field lines curve around the globe and re-enter the planet in the northern hemisphere. A few features of the field vary predictably across the surface of the Earth. Intensity is one variable—the Earth’s magnetic field is weakest at the equator and strongest at the poles. Another is inclination. The angle between the field lines and the Earth changes with latitude, so an animal migrating northwards from the equator encounters steadily steeper inclination angles on its route.
Animals can potentially derive two types of information from the geomagnetic field: the direction in which they are facing, and where they sit relative to a goal. Directional information is the more basic, as polarity lets animals orient north or south as if using a compass. But this has limited utility over long distances. A strong ocean current can sweep turtles off track; winds can do the same for migratory birds. Determining latitude relative to an end point is more useful, and magnetic cues like intensity and inclination may help. Take loggerhead sea turtles (pictured). They swim from the coasts of Florida into the North Atlantic gyre, circling it for years before returning to their natal beaches to breed. Straying from the course can have deadly consequences. One study put hatchlings in test sites that simulated the magnetic fields at three points on the outer edge of the gyre. In all three cases, the turtles reoriented to stay within its confines. Another study, published in April, showed that turtles nesting on far-off beaches with similar magnetic properties (like two on either side of the Florida peninsula, at similar latitudes) had more in common genetically than with those nesting closer by. Turtles, it would seem, can get lost while searching for their natal beach. They may swim to one farther afield but more magnetically familiar and breed there.
Questions still abound. The evidence for a magnetic sense is mostly behavioural; researchers have yet to find receptors for it. Part of the problem is that the cells could be located anywhere inside an animal, since magnetic fields pass freely through tissue. (By contrast, cells that enable the other senses, like sight and smell, make contact with the external environment.) Two theories of magnetoreception dominate. One says animals have an intracellular compass. Another suggests that chemical reactions influenced by the geomagnetic field produce the sense. For researchers, this means more questions than answers.
I came across this essay from Birdcount.in, and began reading it with initial scepticism, I mean who can't tell a Little from a Large ...