Great Cormorants at Chinapannahalli Lake in Bangalore

9th June 2017

Bangalore was a city of lakes, big and small.  Most have been lost to development, others foam and burn like from some end-of-the-world science fiction movie, and there are a few that hang on desperately and precariously.

The lake, off Brookefield Main Road

One such little jewel that I discovered through my friend Raji was Chinapanahalli lake, off Brookefield Main Road.  Raji had come across it recently, and we walked there one morning last week. She wanted to show me the bunch of Great Cormorants that she had seen there.

It was a typical cool and overcast Bangalore June morning.  We got off the main road and into the byelanes, There were Markhamia trees lining the roads, dotted with yellow flowers and their telltale long hanging seed pods.  Street dogs were having their own territorial battles that did not include us thankfully, and a fruit seller pushed his cart full of tempting mangoes down the street.

My eyes widened with delight as we came on to the lake bund, and my first site was a bunch of large black cormorants with webbed feet, sunning themselves on a rock in the middle of the lake.  Just as I was looking at them in the distnace, we saw people milling around and staring at the edges of the lake.  There were agitated conversations in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada and Tamil as various families stopped and pointed.

Fish gasping for air

We looked too, and then discovered the source of dismay - dead fish on the surface, dozens of them - large and small.

We walked a little further and came across this huge school of big fish literally gasping for air at the surface.  Quite clearly the oxygen in the water was insufficient, and they needed oxygen from the air.  it seemed that the overnight rain had washed the effluents into the lake.  It was a downer for sure, and we walked despondently and helplessly, wondering where to begin in this big mess that we are causing.

A manmade bund in the middle of the lake was a good perching point

One species problem was another's feast, however, and the Cormorants were indulging in sheer gluttony, as the sluggish fish were easy prey.  They dived under and would come up with large fish that they would swallow in three gulps, before diving again.

Egrets, grey herons and a solitary night heron also fished, and pond herons were caught between displaying their breeding plumage and enjoying the fish.  

Brahminy Kites glided across, and a solitary Spot billed duck went on a flypast.

But for me, the bird of the day was the Great Cormorants. (Phalacrocorax carbo) that sat on the rocks, flew overhead and fished merrily and greedily.  We recognised them from their large size, the gular pouch which one chap was gurgling away, and the white on their flanks.  I have not seen these cormorants frequently, and I remember last spotting them at Dungarpur in 2008!

There were also Little Cormorants, that we see quite often.  A couple of possibly Juvenile Indian Shags as well, though of this I was not very sure.  Raji has promised to go back and take a better look and confirm the id in the course of the week!

Our bird list in an hour

Great Cormorant
Little Cormorant
Red Wattled Lapwing
Pond heron
Little Egret
Intermediate Egret
Black crowned Night Heron
Grey Heron
Purple Heron
White breasted water hen
Brahminy Kite
Black Kite
Little Grebe
White breasted Kingfisher
Common myna
Spotted Dove
Red vented bulbul
Tailor bird


Raji spotted a Little and Pied Kingfisher the next day, and also reported that the fish were not in distress.  However, on the 11th June, once again they were gasping for breath, and the lake had many dead fish.

She has also seen Painted Stork at the lake, but obviously they are not resident.  

Lets hope this lake continues to thrive.  According to an article in TOI, the lake area has shrunk from  50 to 15 acres, and has been restored by a trust after the BBMP cited lack of funds for inaction.   

The icing on the cake was some balcony birding as well - rose ringed parakeets, bee eaters, a magpie robin, flameback and bulbuls.

The unusual ecological tale of Sippighat, Andamans

Our wonderful week at the Andaman islands included stopping by at Sippighat.  (The place names on the islands are a delightful mixture, and warrant an independent post - ranging from Junglighat, Dollygunj, Guptapara and Sippighat to Aberdeen and Rifleman Island!)

The newly formed Sippighat "wetlands".  All those black dots are waterbirds - whistling ducks, cotton teals and coots.

The tsunami of Dec 26th of 2004 changed many things all around us, and Andamans was affected in several ways, with an enormous human toll and ecological changes.  Some islands sunk by as much as a metre because of the earthquake, and at Sippighat, which is about 10kms from Port Blair the seawaters rolled in on a 10m high tsunami wave, and the land was inundated, and has remained waterlogged ever since.  The army has built a bridge to get across the newly formed water bodies.

Why could they not use these boats, I wondered.  or did the
tsunami wave wreck them?

We drove by the morning we arrived, on our way to ANET at Wandoor, and we saw the skeletons of drowned boats, submerged homes and abandoned building projects.

As we gawked in astonishment at this, a bunch of whistling teals took off from the water, with their characteristic whistling call, did a sortie and landed back in.  These freshwater ducks had obviously adapted to the now brackish waters of Sippighat, just like the Cotton Teal groups?

White-bellied sea eagle - Photo by Pritam

Up above, a White-bellied sea eagle glided lazily as a common myna flapped its wings busily, trying to keep up with it.  

We clearly saw the characteristic wedge-shaped tail, and raised wings while gliding

The Sea Eagle was a delight - it swooped down into the waters and picked up a fish in its talons, with one expert dive, and the bunch of us "aahed" involuntarily!

The waters were abuzz with bird life - swamp hens, coots and egrets of all sizes.  The swallows swooped around in the air above, but there was no sign of the Andaman Teal which supposedly is found here.  

Cotton Teal  Nettapus coromandelianus - Photo by Sivakumar

Cotton Teals swam by in groups - and in our excitement, the females were first mistaken for Andaman Teals.  A closer look and much discussion ensued, since none of us had seen an Andaman Teal earlier, it was worse than the one-eyed leading the blind!

The Forest Dept board finally did help, as quite clearly, the ducks we were seeing had an eye stripe and not the white ring around the eye.

It was a cloudy morning, and every now and then there would be a welcome thundershower for a few minutes, but yet we sweated inside our raincoats, the showers increasing the already high humidity levels.

The relatively new army bridge across the waters.  The waters have become a means of moving goods across the island.

We watched some feral ducks, kingfishers and a lone Great Knot busy in the mud.  Suddenly there was a commotion among the Cotton Teals, and three males were mobbing one hapless female, who was trying to get away, quite unsuccessfully.  I was sorely tempted to throw a stone at those male ducks and scatter them....should I have?

We were commandeered into the bus by Vijay, as Manish and team waited at ANET, and the cloudy sky looked ominous.

On another evening visit, on the way back from Chidiyatapu, we stopped again and this time Zoya from ANET took us in to another part of Sippighat and there we did see the Andaman teals (Anas albogularis) with their characteristic eye patch.  These are endemic to these islands, and are now considered as a separate species from Sunda Teals.  There are supposedly about a thousand of these teals. and we were privileged to see a large flock of them. 

Andaman teals (Anas albogularis) - Photo by Sivakumar

Once again though, for me, it was the White Bellied Sea Eagle that was most memorable.  We saw a pair of them, roosting in the trees beyond the waters, and what appeared to be a nest was spotted through our binoculars.

They took turns gliding over the waters, before perching majestically on the tree, settling down for the evening.

White Bellied Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) -
Photo by Sivakumar

Andaman endemics

Andaman Crested Serpent Eagle - pic courtesy Pritam Kukilaya

Andaman Woodpecker - pic courtesy Pritam Kukilaya