Lockdown diaries - Crow Chronicles

19th April 2020

And so the lockdown will continue we are told.  Stay home and stay safe.  It happens to be a Sunday today.  As a wit on WhatsApp observed, why bother with days, its either this day or that day or like every other day!  Sundays are different - I get a fresh crossword to do and see the answer for that annoying one about the Cockney bruiser  from last week.

More morning walks.

Past the crow bath I go.  They all line up, one row at the bath and the next row waiting for their turn.  There's a fizz and cheer in them, as they have a good splash before they fly off to the Tabebuia nearby to dry themselves.  

In good Indian fashion, these crows bathe before breakfast - sustenance provided by a Good Samaritan in the building.  Every morning as I walk round and round, I ponder the question to feed or not to feed.  And arrive at no answer.  I used to be anti-feeding....in the current situation, I don't know anymore.

A crow hops on the path in front of me, reluctant to waste energy in flight until there seems no other go.  Oh these pesky humans!

Anyways now that we pesky humans are all at home, everyone else is out celebrating it seems!

Chennai Skies so blue 

Flamingoes in Mumbai, Starlings murmuring somewhere else, starry nights and even the Pallikaranai marsh is teeming!

Downsizing life

R Bhanumathi, Naturalist

For Bhanumathi, the lockdown has been a chance to think about her lifestyle choices: a reminder to live a sustainable life. “We need to examine how much resources we are using,” she says. Whether it is using ingredients judiciously in the kitchen, buying fewer gadgets and cars, or “on a more personal level, even whether we need to have two or more children. I am glad many are making the conscious decision to adopt instead. Because we have to think about the kind of planet we are leaving for them, 30 years down the line.” 

Given that things are no longer easily available to us at our doorstep, she says this has made her pay attention to the whole process of manufacturing that goes behind a finished product and all the people involved in it. 

The lockdown is a huge shift from her regular life, given she would go on Nature expeditions almost twice every month. “This period has taught me tolerance and patience in thinking before making decisions.” The odd dragonfly still wanders inside her window. “One day, I heard the calls of a spotted owlet at around midnight. I have lived in Chennai since 1982 and that has never happened before.”

OK, Pesky humans, time to change!

Lockdown diaries - all is well in the world

Were those painted storks I spied, flying northwards?

It's April and the Tabebuia blooms, as it should,

...as does the Spathodea.
The skies are blue....

...and the sunsets are brilliant.

I need to remember that one species out of 8.7 million on earth is having a bad time, and I am one out of 6 billion of that said species.  OK that is inaccurate.  About 3,000 animals and another 3,000 plants are also having a bad time, because of the one species.  

Lockdown diaries -

April 9th 2020

5am and I'm up with the crows (who never seem to sleep these days), to set off for my morning walk, before "rush hour" and so that I can keep the physical distances needed by the new world of Covid protocols.

Milk man, newspaper man, gardener lady, all rushing by with masks on and purpose-filled strides.  I hear a tailor bird calling among the Spathodea trees, but mainly its the chorus of kakas, who line up and dip into the little man-made pools of water, as they have a "kaka kuzhi".  Its a Neil Young kind of morning, as he belts out Hey Hey, My My.  Round and round, in eights and circles, among the plumeria, pugs and labradors I go.

And then I see the gardener trimming the border hedges.  The Ikebanist in me swoops down, gathers a handful and carries on up back home.

A summer exuberance

 11am - Done with the chores, and some time for watching the water and the birds.  I spy a cormorant flying south.  I perk up and look more keenly.  Four painted storks do a flyby.

I see the Adyar bridge with no traffic - what a strange sight, and the old bridge is being recaptured by nature.

And there's the broken bridge - in the background.  Here's hoping and wishing we don't see
that weird idea of a new bridge over there. 

I move to the other side, and see the Chettinad Palace, with the TS behind.  In-between, the Adyar flows.
Black Kites circle overhead

The backwaters and the Bay of Bengal - it is a lovely day.

Another arm or the backwaters, to the north.  Egrets wing across the water.  And was that a lone sandpiper that skimmed the surface? And in the background, is the Marina, strangely empty.

3pm, and the sun has vanished, I look across the Adyar bridge, and there in the distance, I can see it raining somewhere.

And soon, the rain comes, the empty roads glisten, and the smell of wet mud wafts all the way up to the 12th floor.  The first rains after several months.  Thunder, lightning, winds and wet clothes, tea and chocolate muffin.

In an hour or so, it eases, and I go down to do some in-building shopping.  It is beautiful and cool, time to stop and stare.  What's the rush?  Walk carefully, are the stones slippery?  

Avoid those door handles, use elbows for lift buttons, wash hands on reaching home....the new behaviours that I am now doing without thinking.  The new normal.

Lockdown diaries - Yellow and Purple

April 3rd 2020

Golden Bells

Ringing in my ear

26 years already?

Tecoma stans bounty

Bauhinia - a reminder of Darpana, another life.

and this one - what is it I wonder.  Pretty yellow flowers with a white bract

Lockdown diaries - A tree lifer

April 2nd 2020

Morning perambulations

Turn the corner

A sweet fragrance

Joy!

Shenbagham flower - Magnolia champaca - the heady and sweet floral fragrance that perfumers love - blooming here and now.

I thought of Janani and of Tanya and of our fragrance testing and the emotions of smell.  In Nature, the fragrance of the Sampige or shenbagam is rich and sweet and yes, joyous.  Something about natural fragrances, they are delicate yet strong, lingering yet effervescent..

It was my first time seeing a champaca tree in bloom!

Tagore's - The Champa Flower.  this one is for you SG and your Champa at home.

SUPPOSING I became a champa flower, just for fun, and grew on a branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother? 

You would call, 'Baby, where are you?' and I should laugh to myself and keep quite quiet.
I should slyly open my petals and watch you at your work. 

When after your bath, with wet hair spread on your shoulders, you walked through the shadow of the champa tree to the little court where you say your prayers, you would notice the scent of the flower, but not know that it came from me. 

When after the midday meal you sat at the window reading Ramayana, and the tree's shadow fell over your hair and your lap, I should fling my wee little shadow on to the page of your book, just where you were reading. 

But would you guess that it was the tiny shadow of your little child?
When in the evening you went to the cowshed with the lighted lamp in your hand, I should suddenly drop on to the earth again and be your own baby once more, and beg you to tell me a story. 

'Where have you been, you naughty child? '
'I won't tell you, mother. ' That's what you and I would say then.

Lockdown diaries - The constant gardener

29th March 2020

Meanwhile, there's a  diligent and gentle gardener at work on our balcony beauties, reds and pinks.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis - chilli red

Adenium obesum - cheerful pinks  

A new baby pink on our balcony - Kopsia fruticosa.  This one's special - the first bloom after coming home from my mother's garden.

Amaryllis lilies also red

and the rose bush in the corner, still putting out flowers...

..... this was its bounty in February

Lockdown diaries - I wandered today with Wordsworth for company

31st March 2020

A new rhythm in my days

falling into Lockdown stride

Chores reined in and under control

its time to move those legs.

It's an introverts' dream

No need to stop and say hello

Just nod, smile and walk on

after all, we must keep our distance.

Purslane beds caught my eye today, and my mind wandered to meadows and hills
and Wordsworthian daffodils.

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze, not the daffodils, but these grasses,
tossing their heads definitely in glee.

One cannot "but be gay, in such jocund company, I gazed and gazed, but little thought, what wealth the show to me had bought"

My heart did with pleasure fill, seeing these pinks, never still 

h

...and then to top it all, I saw these browns...
oh my! Do the residents know?

Lockdown diaries - Plumeria pinwheels

March 30th 2020

Plumerias galore

Punctuate my morning walks,

splashes of sunshine

Nodding repeatedly at me.

Old and fond friends,
already,

...cannot be ignored, 

inveigling me to check out the pinwheels, ruby red

or softly pink,
there's no locking them down, as I go back up

to my 12th floor safe haven.
And the balcony Oleanders, gazing down,
social distancing
until we meet again.  Tomorrow?

Memories of a crocodile - The Hindu

I am gobsmacked by the picture of the keeper in a lungi and barefeet. 🙊🙊

I would not have got into that enclosure even if someone had offered me a million bucks. 

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/indias-largest-salite-crocodile-in-captivity-is-mourned-by-madras-crocodile-bank/article30622569.ece

Memories of a crocodile

Meghna Majumdar

V Gangadurai and S Nagarathinam are mourning a giant. Their giant.

"I fed Jaws for 40 years," says Gangadurai, chief reptile keeper at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, "My wife still asks me what happened, and some visitors still ask to see him. They get upset when we tell them he passed away."

It is Monday afternoon, so the park is shut for visitors. The only sounds to be heard are the chatter of monkeys and the calls of migratory birds, who seem to be visiting in larger numbers this year. Perhaps to pay their respects. Jaws III, the largest crocodile bred in captivity in India, passed away last week, at the ripe age of 50.

In the office of Zai Whitaker, joint director of The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology, the two reptile keepers are gathered with curator Nikhil Whitaker, assistant curator Ajay Kartik, and joint director Allwin Jesudasan to share memories. There are many.

For Zai, the earliest ones revolve around his surprisingly fast growth. "I was living in Kodaikanal for a few years, and would come to the croc bank on holidays. I remember one year, when I came and thought, 'Who is this?' He had grown so much," she recalls.

Nagarathinam's memories are a tribute to the crocodile's intelligence: "He had learnt his feeding schedule. He could distinguish his feeder's voices, too. So even if we were just chatting nearby, he would come close expecting food."

Feeding would happen once a week — between three to five kilograms of chicken, fish, buffalo meat, large rats, bandicoots, and sometime emus. Exercise would also happen regularly, the simple act of tempting him with food and getting him to move from one end of the enclosure to the other.

But none of that means that Jaws, who fuelled Chennai's love of crocodiles for decades, was tame. Tame is not a word — or an approach — that the team here subscribes to. As Ajay puts it, "It is a process of mutual learning and discovery." Even as Jaws came to understand boundaries and patterns of human behaviour over the years, the humans learnt about him too.

 

Forging bonds

How else does one establish a working relationship with the largest member of the world's largest crocodile species? And who better to describe it than Gangadurai?

His way of establishing a sense of mutual understanding with a crocodile, was through constant, careful exposure. He would take his time to understand Jaws' movements and tendencies, and make sure that there was a point of exit open. "Some 20 years ago, when he was very fast and agile, he yanked my stick away and chased me a bit," he recalls with a laugh. "But later," adds Ajay, "He understood that a tap on the nose with the stick means 'Stop'."

It was all a matter of patience, of time, and — as Nagarathinam puts it — of Jaws coming to understand that food was involved. "Once he understood that people are in his enclosure to feed him, things became easier," he explains.

That might seem like a basic step up, but as the team points out, it was all still highly uncharacteristic behaviour for a saltie. "I wouldn't go as far as to call him cooperative, but he was certainly more tolerant of human presence in his enclosures than his brothers and sisters are," says Ajay.

There were, of course, boundaries never to be crossed. As Zai explains, no member of the team ever forgot that he was a salt water crocodile, a strong and wild animal. And no one ever expected him to behave otherwise. Nevertheless, he proved time and again to have an understanding that went beyond primal instincts. Nikhil remembers one in particular, from March 1997. "I learnt a lot of healthy respect for him that day," he begins:

"It was one of his Sunday feeding shows. He was about the same size as he was towards the end, but faster and much more agile. At one point, instead of taking the food, he suddenly grabbed hold of my hand."

 

To have a 500-kilogram salt water crocodile clamp your hand in its mouth is a situation no one wants to be in. But, even as Jaws backed into the pool till Nikhil was knee-deep in water, Nikhil's training and instinct helped him stay calm, and refrain from struggling.

Something restricted Jaws, too. Any crocodile in such a situation would instinctively, immediately start rolling, and that would serve as a death knell for its catch. "But Jaws didn't. His movements were slow. After a point, I could see his eyes turn red: a fairly good indicator that he was worried." The crocodile could seemingly gauge that the situation was not ideal. What could have happened next is something no one can predict, but Nikhil was saved by a brave act by his assistant Ramesh. "He distracted Jaws with a stick, and Jaws immediately let me go," says Nikhil. Later, when washing his hand in a bucket, Nikhil remembers being able to see through his hand into the bottom of the bucket, so severe were his puncture marks. "But he did let me go," he smiles.

Looking ahead

Memories, though, can only do so much. There remains a yawning gap in their schedules, and crocodile bank's weekly calendar. Every Sunday, visitors would gather outside his enclosure to watch the gargantuan creature be fed by his keepers. In more ways than one, he was one of the faces of The Madras Crocodile Bank.

Now, the mantle might be taken up by Thor, a saltie who was born in the croc bank in 1982-83. Says Ajay, "When last measured in 2013, he was 4.3 metres long. He must be about 4.4 now. He is different from Jaws: more assertive and less used to people. He is less tractable for now; that will change over time."

Bring me a nightmare - Asia’s hunger for sand is harmful to farming and the environment | Asia | The Economist

https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/01/16/asias-hunger-for-sand-is-harmful-to-farming-and-the-environment

Bring me a nightmare Asia's hunger for sand is harmful to farming and the environment

But governments struggle to curb illegal sand-mining

Jan 16th 2020

THE MINERS usually prefer to work under cover of darkness. This dredger is more brazen. It is not yet sunset when the boat's crew begin hoovering sand up from the riverbed and pumping it onto a nearby bank, where it will be collected and sold. At least seven barges are doing the same thing on this stretch of the Red River, about an hour's drive from Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Such teams often work without the right permits, but the rewards outweigh the risk. Whereas the average Vietnamese makes $269 a month, miners can earn between $700 and $1,000 for every boatload they scoop up. The teams working here have deposited so much sand on the bank that dunes have formed.

There has probably never been a better time to be in the sand business. The world uses nearly 50bn tonnes of sand and gravel a year—almost twice as much as a decade ago. No other natural resource is extracted and traded on such an epic scale, bar water.

Demand is greatest in Asia, where cities are growing fast (sand is the biggest ingredient in cement, asphalt and glass). China got through more cement between 2011 and 2013 than America did in the entire 20th century. Since the 1960s Singapore—the world's largest importer of sand—has expanded its territory by almost a quarter, mainly by dumping it into the sea. The OECD thinks the construction industry's demand for sand and gravel will double over the next 40 years. Little wonder then that the price of sand is rocketing. In Vietnam in 2017 it quadrupled in just one year.

In the popular imagination, sand is synonymous with limitlessness. In reality it is a scarce commodity, for which builders are now scrabbling. Not just any old grains will do. The United Arab Emirates is carpeted in dunes, but imports sand nonetheless because the kind buffeted by desert winds is too fine to be made into cement. Sand shaped by water is coarser and so binds better. Extraction from coastlines and rivers is therefore surging. But according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Asians are scooping up sand faster than it can naturally replenish itself. In Indonesia some two dozen small islands have vanished since 2005. Vietnam expects to run out of sand this year.

All this has an environmental cost. Removing sand from riverbeds deprives fish of places to live, feed and spawn. It is thought to have contributed to the extinction of the Yangzi river dolphin. Moreover, according to WWF, a conservation group, as much as 90% of the sediment that once flowed through the Mekong, Yangzi and Ganges rivers is trapped behind dams or purloined by miners, thereby robbing their deltas both of the nutrients that make them fecund and of the replenishment that counters coastal erosion. As sea levels rise with climate change, saltwater is surging up rivers in Australia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, among other places, and crop yields are falling in the areas affected. Vietnam's agriculture ministry has warned that seawater may travel as far as 110km up the Mekong this winter. The last time that happened, in 2016, 1,600 square kilometres of land were ruined, resulting in losses of $237m. Locals have already reported seeing dead fish floating on the water.

Nguyen Van Thoan, a farmer whose pomelo orchard lies not far downstream from the barges scouring the Red River, says that 30 years ago a kilometre of land stood between his house and the river. Today only 20 metres separates them. He blames sand-miners. So do the 6,000 fishermen who have had to abandon their coastal villages in the Indian state of Kerala in recent years, after extraction and erosion left them vulnerable to flooding.

Curbing sand-mining is difficult because so much of it is unregulated. Only about two-fifths of the sand extracted worldwide every year is thought to be traded legally, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. In Shanghai miners on the Yangzi evade the authorities by hacking transponders, which broadcast the positions of ships, and cloning their co-ordinates. It is preferable, of course, to co-opt officials. Ministers in several state governments in India have been accused of abetting or protecting illegal sand-mining. "Everybody has their finger in the pie," says Sumaira Abdulali of Awaaz Foundation, a charity in Mumbai. She says she has been attacked twice for her efforts to stop the diggers.

Ms Abdulali is nonetheless "a bit hopeful". Scientists are experimenting with alternatives to concrete and cement. Architects are trying to find ways to use such materials more sparingly. Even the odd government is taking action. In 2018, Maharashtra passed regulations requiring contractors to use plastic waste as filler when building or repairing roads. Singapore is creating a new patch of land by draining it of water rather than piling it with sand. Kiran Pereira of SandStories.org, which promotes awareness of the issue, says "there are plenty of solutions" if only governments would find the will to implement them. Time to pull heads from the sand. ■

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Asia's hunger for sand is harmful to farming and the environment"

Manas Day 1 highlights