Artsy birding

What’s special for #birdNov this year? Meet birders who combine art and their love for Nature

November 9, 2023

November is a birder’s favourite month. It heralds the visit of winter migratory birds to the Indian subcontinent, and is also the birth month of the late ornithologist Salim Ali. Social media has been abuzz with bird trivia under #birdNov and #birdNov2023, with enthusiasts sharing photos, write-ups, artwork and data on birding hotspots.

Among them is S Senthil Kumar, a school headmaster from Salem, who is posting crisp write-ups in Tamil every day, while K Selvaganesh, a birder from Valparai is creating informative posters. Surendhar Boobalan, a school teacher, is sharing Tamil riddles about birds on a WhatsApp group, and S Jayaraj, a Chennai artist is keeping with the theme and making watercolour paintings and sketches. 

We talk to three people who are combining their love for birding, and art. 

Block by block

P Jeganathan, a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation, is an expert birder who participates in #birdNov with interest every year. This year, he is arranging jenga blocks to create shapes of commonly-spotted birds. “This is something I do at home to keep my seven-year-old son occupied,” says Jeganathan, who is based in Tiruppur. He posts a jenga bird a day, on Instagram. “Jenga blocks are supposed to be stacked,” he points out, adding that he decided to give this a spin and come up with something creative for #birdNov. “With jenga, I am limited to creating only a handful of birds, but my son and I find this practice soothing,” he says. 

P Jeganathan’s jenga creation of the Indian Courser
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

Jeganathan also collects stamps featuring birds, and is posting about them on social media as well. This includes stamps featuring the paradise flycatcher, wagtail, rosy pastor, and other birds. 

From P Jeganathan’s stamp collection
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

Dots and lines 

Vidhya Sundar, a birder based in Texas, USA, manages to create complicated shapes of birds using the deceptively simple lines of the traditional pulli kolam. All it takes is one look, for someone to guess the bird from her kolams. She achieves the shape of the red-headed vulture and Asian bee-eater, for instance, to the T, and also does elaborate nelivu kolams. 

Vidhya Sundar’s elaborate nelivu kolam
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

“I draw kolams every day, and do elaborate ones for festive occasions such as Margazhi,” says Vidhya, adding that she experimented with bird rangoli earlier this year for Navaratri. She came to know of #birNov last year and has been hooked ever since. “I live in Austin where it gets quite cold during this time of the year, so I came up with small kolams of birds that I can do from home,” says the 47-year-old. Vidhya has been birding from 2012 when she lived in Bengaluru, and says that Bird Count India’s regular challenges and the eBird platform are among her motivators. “I have been birding every day from 2017 after Bird Count India announced the ‘Last Birder Standing’ challenge,” she says. 

Vidhya Sundar’s kolam
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

Feathers and folds 

Angeline Mano is getting back home from a birding expedition in her hometown of Salem when we speak over phone. “I’m out in the field every day,” says the 25-year-old research assistant and Nature educator with the Salem Ornithological Foundation. She saw that several experts were sharing information about birds – the Salem Ornithological Foundation, for instance, is posting on birding hotspots in the city, with information regarding the birds that can be seen in these places – and decided to try something different. 

Angeline’s flamingo made with paper quilling technique
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

“As an educator, I spend a lot of time with school children, teaching them about birds,” she says. “Origami is one of the tools I use, and I can fold paper into the shapes of many birds,” she adds. Angeline posts an origami bird a day, apart from birds crafted using the paper quilling technique. She has so far made a flamingo, peacock, swallow, and dove, and has more on the cards.

The Attenborough echidna

The link has a little video clip of the creature.

First ever images prove 'lost echidna' not extinct

By Jonah Fisher and Charlie Northcott

Scientists have filmed an ancient egg-laying mammal named after Sir David Attenborough for the first time, proving it isn't extinct as was feared.

An expedition to Indonesia lead by Oxford University researchers recorded four three-second clips of the Attenborough long-beaked echidna.

Spiky, furry and with a beak, echidnas have been called "living fossils".

They are are thought to have emerged about 200m years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Until now, the only evidence that this particular species 'zaglossus attenboroughi' existed was a decades-old museum specimen of a dead animal.

"I was euphoric, the whole team was euphoric," Dr James Kempton told BBC News of the moment he spotted the Attenborough echidna in camera trap footage.

"I'm not joking when I say it came down to the very last SD card that we looked at, from the very last camera that we collected, on the very last day of our expedition."

Dr Kempton headed a multi-national team on the month-long expedition traversing previously unexplored stretches of the Cyclops Mountains, a rugged rainforest habitat more than 2,000m (6,561ft) above sea level.

In addition to finding Attenborough's "lost echidna" the expedition discovered new species of insects and frogs, and observed healthy populations of tree kangaroo and birds of paradise.

Aside from the duck-billed platypus, the echidna is the only mammal that lay eggs. Of the four echidna species three have long beaks, with the Attenborough echidna, and the western echidna considered critically endangered.

Previous expeditions to the Cyclops Mountains had uncovered signs, such as 'nose pokes' in the ground, that the Attenborough echidna was still living there.

But they were unable to access the highest reaches of the mountains and provide definitive proof of their existence.

That has meant that for the last 62 years the only evidence that Attenborough echidna ever existed has been a specimen kept under high security in the Treasure Room of Naturalis, the natural history museum of the Netherlands.

"It's rather flat," Pepijn Kamminga the collection manager at Naturalis says as he holds it for us to see.

To an untrained eye it's not dissimilar to a squashed hedgehog because when it was first gathered by Dutch botanist Pieter van Royen it wasn't stuffed.

The importance of the specimen only became clear in 1998 when x-rays revealed it wasn't a juvenile of another echidna species but in fact fully grown and distinct. It was then that the species was named after Sir David Attenborough.

"When that was discovered, people thought, well, maybe it's extinct already because it's the only one," Mr Kamminga explains. "So this [the rediscovery] is incredible news."

Dr James Kempton lead the expedition to the Cyclops Mountains

The Cyclops Mountains are precipitously steep and dangerous to explore. To reach the highest elevations, where the echidna are found, the scientists had to climb narrow ridges of moss and tree roots - often under rainy conditions - with sheer cliffs on either side. Twice during their ascent the mountains were hit by earthquakes.

"You're slipping all over the place. You're being scratched and cut. There are venomous animals around you, deadly snakes like the death adder," Dr Kempton explains.

"There are leeches literally everywhere. The leeches are not only on the floor, but these leeches climb trees, they hang off the trees and then drop on you to suck your blood."

Dr Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou looks at an insect on a treeImage source, EXPEDITION 

Once the scientists reached the higher parts of the Cyclops it became clear the mountains were full of species that were new to science.

"My colleagues and I were chuckling all the time," Dr Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou a Greek insect specialist said.

"We were so excited because we were always saying, 'this is new, nobody has seen this' or 'Oh my God, I can't believe that I'm seeing this.' It was a truly monumental expedition."

Dr Davranoglou broke his arm in the first week of the expedition but remained in the mountains collecting samples. He says they have already confirmed "several dozen" new insect species and are expecting there to be many more. They also found an entirely new type of tree-dwelling shrimp and a previously unknown cave system.

Local scientist Gison Morib, a PhD student from Cenderawasih University, who was on the expedition, said: "The top of the Cyclops are really unique. I want to see them protected.

"We have to protect these sacred mountains. There are so many endemic species we don't know."

Sacred mountains

Previous expeditions had struggled to reach the parts of the Cyclops mountains where the echidnas live because of the belief of local Papuans that they are sacred.

"The mountains are referred to as the landlady," Madeleine Foote from Oxford University says. "And you do not want to upset the landlady by not taking good care of her property."

This team worked closely with local villages and on a practical level that meant accepting that there were some places they couldn't go to, and others where they passed through silently.

The Attenborough echidna's elusiveness has, according to local tradition, played a part in conflict resolution.

When disputes between two community members arose one was instructed to find an echidna and the other a marlin (a fish).

"That can sometimes take decades," Ms Foote explains. "Meaning it closes the conflict for the community and symbolizes peace."

Dr Kempton says he hopes that rediscovery of the echidna and the other new species will help build the case for conservation in the Cyclops Mountains. Despite being critically endangered, Attenborough's long-beaked echidna is not currently a protected species in Indonesia. The scientists don't know how big the population is, or if it is sustainable.

"Given so much of that rainforest hasn't been explored, what else is out there that we haven't yet discovered? The Attenborough long-beaked echidna is a symbol of what we need to protect - to ensure we can discover it."

Map showing Cyclops Mountains

Monkey Baat from Talakona

Our Talakona trip reacquainted me with all sorts of monkey business.  Bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata), everywhere in the camp, but not in the forests!  The forests belonged to the Grey Langurs.  It was fascinating to see this clear division between the omnivorous macaques and the leaf-eaing langurs.

In the same way. it was only MNS members of the Homo sapiens who seemed to go into the forests around - others stayed in camp!

It is the tuft of hair on the head that has led to their naming, I learnt. 

Photo by Baskar.  The Accommodation area, when serene and quiet, early in the morning or late in the evenings.  Through the weekend and the holidays, the whole area was packed with families and shrieking, excited homo sapiens, playing and bonding on the swings and slides in the play area.

 

 The macaque children also enjoyed the slides. 

Photo by Baskar.  It is a beautiful camp area, with a river running though it, and the tall riverine trees, so majestic!

Under these trees, we witnessed many an interesting macaque interaction.  As Tara walked along cheerfully chocolate in hand, a cheeky juevnile came and snatched at her hand, and as Bhuvanya told her to drop it, the monkey continued to pursue her...until chased away by the others, leaving Tara alarmed and shocked.

Photo by Baskar.  These were the rooms used by us ladies, all the balconies had grill protection from the monkeys, which emerged and swarmed the place when the tourists congregated.

It was like a regular jungle gym experience to see them clambering up and down the bars and stair cases.  Our dining area was also "caged" - we were within the cage, and the monkeys were out looking in on us.  They seemed especially fond of puris.  The morning when we had puris for breakfast, there were half a dozen monkey babies on the bars looking in, trying to make eye contact, make sad faces, cooing sounds, and actually beg for morsels.  I was so astonished to see this learned behaviour.  The bigger males, were on the roof, banging on the tin and making a god awful racket.  

On my return, I came across this article, which more or less sums up what we saw:  Novel ‘begging’ behaviour observed in bonnet macaques at Bandipur

Photo by Baskar.  The men's dorm was set back at the far end of the camp space, with lovely wooded walking trails behind it.

 

The little stream that was the life force of the area, and created the riverine ecosystem on either side. There were huge wild mango trees and Shorea species. Arjuna and Elephant apple as well.

The temperature in the camp under the tall trees was significantly lower than when we went say 500m away, where it became more scrub-like rocky, and dry.

I loved to sit on the benches by the side of the stream.  We saw a pair of Common Kingfishers one morning, while sitting on a bench.  They were on a fallen tree branch on the opposite side.  They called and bonded, fished and seemed to feed each other as well.  Such a lovely experience in the morning quiet.

Rajaram captured the kingfisher pair (Alcedo atthis), and the one with the orange lower mandible is likely the female.

Near the check dam, the cement wall was a favourite perch for the monkeys, they would sit and preen, sun bathe, meditate, groom, fight, love, beg, play and explore here. 

This Singapore cherry (?) was a favourite spot with the juveniles - they would sunbathe and pick fruits and play, all on its canopy, while the mother sat on the bund, appearing disinterested and meditative.

The Primate Conservancy site had this nice summary of their status and the human interactions we see. 

"Having learned to thrive in a wide range of habitats, the bonnet macaque (macaca radiata) is highly visible throughout India’s southern peninsula.  The scrappy bonnet macaque’s ability to live commensal with humans presents perhaps its greatest vulnerability: although the species appears abundant and at ease among humans, recent studies suggest its numbers may be declining faster than previously thought and conflicts with humans further plague this resourceful Asian monkey.

Diet

The bonnet macaque spends much of his time inhabiting temples and other urban places where he can readily consume human food. Although he prefers fruits and plant materials, he’s an omnivore and will resourcefully rummage for nourishment in nearby houses, food stalls, gardens, and trash piles. Sometimes, tourists will find entertainment in feeding the monkeys, making the foraging work all the easier. Pale-bellied bonnet macaques and other forest-dwelling bonnet macaques eat fruits, soil, insects, and sometimes small invertebrates and reptiles.

Consuming high concentrations of fruits, plant materials, and certainly human foods can upset even the most robust of digestive systems, but the bonnet macaque appears to have a way to alleviate indigestion, nausea, and diarrhea. A study conducted in the Marakkanam Reserve Forest of southern India found that bonnet macaques ate the soils of termite nests, known as termitaria, which are rich in kaolin and smectite. The combination of these materials, when consumed, mimics the mineralogy of eko, an African remedy for stomach ailments, and Kaopectate™, a western anti-diarrheal preparation."

 This macaque is picking termites of the tree.   Another one, having ingested something it did not like, was making puking sounds. 

Their climbing skills are remarkable even at a young age. 
 

 Two Alpha Male incidents

Yuvan observed a grown man hand-feeding Madras mixture to a grown monkey.  The man had a pleased look, as he held out his hand with mixture, and the monkey picked it up and ate.  This went on for some time, as the man dug into the mixture pack and refilled his hand, and the monkey ate.  The man looked gratified and the monkey ate.  Until the mixture ran out.  At this point, the monkey slapped the man, and stalked off, leaving a shattered and disillusioned man, whose visions of a man-animal bond had just crumbled.

The other incident also involves this same Alpha Male.  Prologue - I did not enjoy this caged eating, and so used to take my cup (or rather thimble) of tea, and sit by the water and enjoy the moment.  It seemed like the monkeys did not care for tea, and all was peaceful to woman and animal.    

Until the time I encouraged Bhuvanya and Minni to also bring their tea cups out and sit on a bench.  So a little MNS session was in progress, when the said Alpha Male, came up to Minni on the extreme left and tapped her leg, in a not-very-gentle fashion.  Our own not-so-alpha Male Yuvan then stomped his foot in a symbolic gesture of "be off with you".  But the real Alpha Male was having none of it, and went up to Yuvan and bared his teeth and let out a growl, causing Yuvan to be taken aback, quite literally.  In this fracas, Minni slipped away into the Caged Dining area with her tea, I sat transfixed and Bhuvanya jumped out of her seat.  The Monkey Male then turned its attention on me, and I (not wanting to share my tea), quickly drank the last dregs, and also fled, with empty cup.  And so ended that monkey encounter.

Langur vs Macaque

I have been a bit obsessed about understanding the difference between the two, and Ravi Chellam pointed me to two major differences - The macaques are omnivrous and have cheek pouches and the langurs are herbivores and have sacculated stomachs.

The link on Old World Monkeys describes it well.  There are at least 78 species of Old World monkeys in two subfamilies---the Cercopithecinae (that includes Macaques) and the Colobinae (that includes langurs).

The macaques have cheek pouches - "cheeks that expand rather like those of hamsters to allow the secure temporary storage of food.  This is a useful trait for these omnivorous monkeys since they compete with each other for desirable foods and are not inclined to share.  Fruit and meat are particularly prized."

The langurs are all herbivores - "lack cheek pouches.  They also share in common the fact that they have sacculated click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced stomachs.  That is to say, their stomachs have "saccules," or sack-like compartments, in which bacteria and unusual combinations of enzymes break down plant cellulose, thereby providing more useable calories.  Their stomachs also contain more acid than do those of other monkeys.  This speeds up digestion but results in delicate stomachs.  The Colobinae have unusually long intestines that increase the absorption of nutrients.  These are all adaptations to a predominantly low protein, fibrous leaf diet.  Not surprisingly, the Colobinae are also referred to as the "leaf-eating monkeys." "

To Feed or not? 

Why Feeding Monkeys is Bad for Forests provides an opinion for all sorts of animal feedng, city dogs inclued, and how adoption is the better thing than street feeding. And the problems from various places reflects the same behaviour we saw at Talakona. 

"a video from Lopburi, in Thailand, depicted a more apocalyptic scene. It showed hundreds of long-tailed macaques roaming the streets and chasing down any hapless human they could find, hoping to scavenge scraps of food. These monkeys were used to being fed by tourists, and a thriving “animal feeding” industry had sprung up around the temple ruins. With the pandemic-induced lockdowns and travel bans, these easy sources of food vanished. The monkeys, completely dependent on humans, literally took to the streets.......

Near the Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal, residents have expressed their woes about macaques’ looting’ shops and wreaking havoc in fields. These incidents started occurring mainly after the lockdown. Like in Lopburi, the Buxa macaques too were accustomed to being provisioned by tourists.....

Animals fed on high calorie-low nutrient human food such as bread usually are obese, have alopecia, and have increased physiological stress and parasitic loads....As for the macaques, they are far too ecologically resilient to need any help from us."

Earlier this year, the monkey business got so out of hand in Chandigarh that the city put a fine and even imprisonment for anyone caught feeding monkeys. 

In my aunt's home at Jayanagar in Bangalore, a large troop of monkeys reside in her garden, and the humn residents all stay within their home, caged and locked in.  I know that they used to feed earlier, and not any more.

It is in the wider interest then, for the AP Forest Department to actively discourage monkey feeding, either by disallowing eating and picnicking in their camp site in the outdoors, or by active monitoring and education of the visiting homo sapiens.

Buried seeds are viable after 144 years, but mystery remains - Futurity

https://www.futurity.org/buried-seeds-viable-2995582-2/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic%2Fscience

Buried seeds are viable after 144 years, but mystery remains

Kim Ward-Michigan State

How long can seeds remain viable? New findings hold an answer, but the mystery continues.

In April 2021, four plant scientists met at an undisclosed area of the Michigan State University campus to dig up a bottle containing seeds buried more than 144 years ago by botanist William J. Beal.

Fast forward to 2023, more than two years after the seeds were excavated from their secret location, molecular genetic testing has confirmed a hybrid plant was accidentally included among the seeds in the bottle—a discovery that would have surprised and amazed Beal because DNA was unknown at the time.

During his time on campus, Beal wanted to help farmers increase crop production by eliminating weeds from their farms, so he was determined to find out how long the seeds of these undesirable plants could remain viable in soil.

He filled 20 glass pint bottles with sand and 50 seeds from 23 weed species. Beal buried the bottles with their mouths slanting downward so water wouldn't collect, replicating as best he could the natural seed and soil conditions. And so began the Beal Seed Experiment.

Beal originally excavated every five years to test the seeds, which grew each time they were excavated. However, in 1920, it was decided to change the interval to 10 years to prolong the study. Then, in 1980, the interval was extended to 20 years. With four bottles still buried, the experiment will continue until 2100.

In 2021, the current team of Beal researchers excavated the 14th bottle of seeds buried on campus to see if they could finally answer the question: How long can seeds remain viable to grow?

"The biggest surprise to me is that the seeds germinated again," says Frank Telewski, professor emeritus, plant biologist, and Beal team leader. "It's amazing that something so old can still grow."

Since April 2021, the Beal experiment team members, including Telewski; Lars Brudvig, assistant professor of plant biology; and David Lowry, associate professor of plant biology, have been sequencing genomic DNA to confirm the plant species' identities for the first time in the history of the experiment. The Beal team's work appears in the American Journal of Botany.

The team always thought a hybrid was somehow mixed in with the original seeds but never had the tools to confirm it, until now.

"The molecular genetics work confirmed the phenotypes we saw, which is that the plants were Verbascum blattaria, or moth mullein, and one hybrid of Verbascum blattaria and Verbascum thapsus, or common mullein," Fleming says. "Beal stated that he included only Verbascum thapsus seeds, so some mix-up must have happened while the bottles were being prepared.

While most species in the Beal experiment lost all seed viability in the first 60 years, the persistence of Verbascum seeds provides invaluable information about seed viability in natural soil conditions, Brudvig says.

"In the 140-plus years since the experiment's start, the question of seed bank longevity has gained new relevance, including for rare species conservation and ecosystem restoration; for example, prairie plantings on former farmland," Brudvig says. "Our findings help to inform which plant species, like Verbascum, might be problematic weeds for a restoration project like this, and which other species may not, depending on how long a field was farmed before being restored."

Beal hoped to help farmers eliminate weeds by determining how long seeds would remain viable. After 144 years, that question remains unanswered.

"The Beal experiment will ultimately end when we run out of bottles," Lowry says. "If seeds germinate again from our next dig, we may need to consider extending the time between bottle extractions to every 30 years. It's still a little early to put it on my calendar, but I am looking forward to seeing if we can wake up any more seeds in 2040."

Source: Michigan State University

eBird India Checklist - 5 Nov 2023 - Saul Kere / Sowl Kere - 41 species

eBird India Checklist - 5 Nov 2023 - Saul Kere / Sowl Kere - 41 species

Overnight rains, a cloudy day and my dear friend Neeta for company - quite a perfect start to a birding morning.  

It started with a sight of these piggies snuffling in the mud, surprising and amusing me.

The yellow tacoma bushes were a riot of yellow, and just past them, we saw the usual pond herons and swamp hens in plenty.

Today's surprises included a dozen pelicans - I did not see them on my last visit - and some Garganeys!

Also bumped into the bangalore birders in full strength including Garima.

The best moment was a pair of white-cheeked barbets, knocking on a dead tree, possibly nest building.

And oh yes, another checkered keel back - this one in the water, swimming away and into the hyacinth.

Talakona - 2002

Our visit To Talakona, and these previous reports surfaced.  This one by V Santharam who took the Rishi Valley kids, and despite the chattery cheerful teenagers, he managed to see such an amazing variety of flora and fauna.

I enjoyed the writing.  

No Monkeys mentioned though... Interesting.  Watch my next post.

 

eBird India Checklist - 3 Nov 2023 - Saul Kere / Sowl Kere - 43 species

eBird India Checklist - 3 Nov 2023 - Saul Kere / Sowl Kere - 43 species

Lovely and long morning at Saul kere.  Walked to the lake and back.  Water levels, even lower, and the hyacinth is more.  The JCBs have done their job - there are storm water drains coming in from everywhere.

My morning highlight was a Cinereous Tit seen almost at the end, the scaly-breasted manias in plenty, and the Kingfishers flashing across the water.

The Prinias - so evident last time from all parts of the surrounding scrub, were conspicuously absent.

There was a yellow flowering tree, in a row, and I have identified it as Burmese Rosewood - it looked like a cross between the copepod and the laburnum!

The Marsh Harriers were here, but the birds were quite calm.  

No migrant ducks  did I spy.

eBird India Checklist - 2 Nov 2023 - Kaikondrahalli Kere / Kaikondanahalli Kere - 37 species

eBird India Checklist - 2 Nov 2023 - Kaikondrahalli Kere / Kaikondanahalli Kere - 37 species

2nd Nov 23

The water level was low, there continues to be sewage inflows, but the marshy wetland areas were abuzz with activity - Ibises, swamp hens, egrets and pond herons aplenty.  Little grebes everywhere.

A bunch of Great Cormorants are nesting at the Lake.  its a good place to se all the Cormorants, but no Darters.

My first Marsh Harriers of the season as well.

No large herons though, a lot of Dabchicks and the beautiful Spot billed ducks.  I enjoyed watching them foraging tin the waters and preening and sunning on the rocks and shore as well. 

The hyacinth and marshy area was teeming with birds, who were busy feeding among the reeds and in the mud.

A couple of Black Kites dozed in the sun, while others soared and circled above.

White-cheeked barbets called from the canopy, lapwings stood stock still and morose, and a bunch of wood sandpipers were too busy to acknowledge my presence.

Sunbirds could be heard in the trees and Coots were noisy and vocal in the water.

A flock of Jungle Mynas came into the trees and caught me by surprise.

It was time to leave, but not before I saw the Powder Puff tree.

The reptiles at Kalyani dam and other reptilian moments

21st October 2023

Sekar and I joined our fellow MNS friends for a weekend driving trip to Talakona in AP, as part of the MNS' 45th year celebrations.  We were car pooling and driving.  A 5am start, and a halt at PS4 Tiruvallur for breakfast, and we were on our way, when there was a decision to go to Kalyani dam, close to Tirupati.

Bhuvanya and family were in the front car and sending directions and locations. Forest Office permissions are needed to go to the dam.  We reached the dam around 1030 in the morning, passing through a large Police Training College at Rangampet.  I loved the boards - Mess, squats area, Dining, Garden, Hand Stands....there was an interesting array of fitness and training apparatus!

Through the rear of the Academy, and into the area around the dam.  members who had come a decade ago remarked that there was no Academy at that time.

The dam is built across the Swarnamukhi river and is one the main sources of water for the town of Tirupathi.

It was warm and sunny, as we ambled across the bridge listening to bird calls and watching the stone formations all around..

The reservoir was not full.  Little Cormorants skimmed low over the waters.  

Members who had been here a decade ago mentioned that there were many accessible trails all around.  now it felt like these were all closed.  Sudhakar reminisced - "Kalyani Dam is the entry to 'Pulibonu' There is an old well near which Kenneth Anderson camped when he went on search of a man eater  and the  entrance to the thickly forested Shyamala valley. There used to be a  rest house with beautiful views situated on a hillock overlooking the reservoir.  You needed a Jeep to drive to the well. There is a  lovely camping spot near Nacharamma Cheruvu by the side of a lake surrounded by wooded hillocks."

We walked along the dam - listening to white browed bulbuls gurgling, and drongos calling.  

Every one was suddenly peering at the wall.  And this was the reason!

Granite Half-toed Gecko (Hemidactylus graniticolus) - Yuvan announced.  The poor thing seemed frozen in fright, and seemed not to want to go into the crack, which would be the first thing we thought it would do, given a group of curious MNSers peering from a distance - some through binoculars and others through their long lenses.

Finally, it kind of gingerly crept in, right at the edge, just out of reach.

We discovered the reason - in the crevice was a much larger Bengal Monitor!  What gorgeous markings on the body! They could prey on the gecko, which would explain its reluctance to go into the crevice.  We moved away, to "not cramp its style", and the two continued to co-habit the crevice, until we left. 

We wandered back to our vehicles, only for Sunil to discover he had a flat tyre.  Some of us moved ahead to the Police Academy gate - only to discover a chameleon!

Aaditya took this nice picture of the Indian chameleon in full glory.

On to Talakona, then!

Oct 23rd - and Padmaja spotted movements amidst the rocks at the base of the watchtower.  What camouflage -  this (I think) rock agama!  

We were just coming down after some fabulous views of the Seshachalam hills (that requires a separate post), a sighting of a Short-Toed Snake Eagle, and the most amusing incident of young Harshid doubting and dubious that "Older" Sekar could have a mother.  Doubts were only cleared after a phone call to the said mother were made.   Bhuvanya's consternation was even more amusing. 

The snake among the bushes

And then there was the time when I, (yes I) saw a snake in the undergrowth and no one else did.  I was meandering along the path behind the men's dormitory along with the others, when something rustled in the leaves to my left - I expected a skink or an agama, and stopped to stare.  Instead I saw this long slithering body of a snake, brown and green with markings on it, now gliding soundlessly.  Since snakes do not have ears, I decided to shout -Snake!! Sekar, Bhuvanya, Tara and Sunil came hurrying back to where I was.

And now ensued a moment of comic, lost in translation and excitement type conversation

They - Where?
Me - Among the leaves!

They - There are leaves everywhere!

Me - See the stick going perpendicular

They - there are many sticks

Me - That one!!

They - Is it moving?

Me - No - Its super still...frozen.  Look there is the head.  (I try to show them via my phone camera, but not luck)

Sekar - OK I see it.  its brown with markings.

Me - Thinking Phew - finally one person sees it!

Sunil - Yeah I see the tail

In flash its gone...without a sound without disturbing a leaf.

I come back and check with Yuvan.  We play 20 questions - 

Yuvan - rat snake?

Me - No!  it had markings.

Yuvan - Well did you see the face, and did it have stripes?  (He's gesticulating around his own face, and to me it looks like he's asking whether it had a moustache or beard.)

Yuvan - Round pupils?  

Me - (Crossly) I dont know!  I was busy trying to make these others see the snake.

Yuvan - how long was it?

Me - about 3 feet long

Sunil - What?  Half a foot and Bronzed - says he who saw only half a foot near the tail.

Sekar (being a good husband) probably two feet I would say

Yuvan - hmmm..Cobra?

me - No!! I didn't have a hood

Yuvan - (Rolling his eyes) It does that only when threatened. (grumbling and looking to Vijay to save him) - One is saying bronzed and another is saying brown and green.  One is saying long, other is saying short....

Me - (Protesting) but it's not Cobra colour!  it was more like Russel viper markings without a Viper face - the face was plain.

Vijay (helpfully) - Checkered Keelback probably - near the river?

Yuvan agrees quickly, wanting to the end the conversation, me thinks..

The id remains undecided, until I return and look up the Snake book and the internet.

Checkered keel back Indeed!  Fowlea piscator

And now I know where Yuvan's questioning was heading - Stripes on the face, round pupils...

And I should have said "Checkered pattern"....

Next time.

PS - There was another Bark Gecko I saw one night on a tree (Thanks To Hrishu and his torch wanderings).  It is so well camouflaged - that I can't find it in my pictures now.

Learning about Jamal Ara

Thanks to Sagarika, for sharing this article with me.  What a sad, poignant story - a story as much of gender and communal inequities, as of personal tragedy. Madhuca

Mystery of India’s first Birdwoman

Jamal Ara was a fascinating personality beset by tragedy: she overcame her lack of education to publish scientific papers on birds in top journals, but disappeared abruptly in 1988

Mystery of India’s first Birdwoman

Jamal Ara (1923-1995). Sketch/Uday Mohite

By Ajaz Ashraf

In these fraught times, it is elevating to read about Jamal Ara, India’s first ‘Birdwoman’, a title none less than the iconic Salim Ali bestowed upon her for scientifically studying birds of the Chota Nagpur plateau, Jharkhand. Her story was lost to us until researcher Raza Kazmi recently rediscovered and narrated it, with poignancy, in The First Lady of Indian Ornithology, a chapter in Women in the Wild, a book edited by Anita Mani.

Jamal Ara’s accomplishments dazzle as she had studied only till Std X. She wrote prolifically from 1949 to 1988, contributing over 60 papers and articles to the journals of the Bombay Natural History Society and Bengal Natural History Society, and the Newsletter for Birdwatchers, which catered to both amateur and professional ornithologists. She wrote Watching Birds, a guide for children, now in its 13th edition.

Hold on, she also worked as a journalist for a while, did a programme on birds for All India Radio, wrote fiction, and translated stories of litterateur K S Duggal, who remembered her, in his autobiography, as a “lonely woman” with a flair for writing in English.

Ara was just the person who should have been serenaded post-Independence, if not for anything other than as a riposte to Pakistan’s dire predictions regarding the fate of Muslims who stayed behind in India. But that, sadly, did not happen.

She suddenly disappeared, in 1988, from the Indian ornithology scene. Nobody wondered why she had stopped writing. The address she gave in the letters she wrote to journals was that of Doranda, Ranchi, where Raza Kazmi, too, resides. He made it his mission, in 2018, to search for the mysterious Birdwoman of Doranda.

Her address no longer existed, but Kazmi stumbled upon a 2006 story on Madhuca Singh, a celebrated basketball coach of Ranchi, who credited her achievement to her mother Jamal Ara, “a bird lover.” The search ended only last year, when Kazmi met Madhuca, who was named after Madhuca indica, the scientific term for the mahua tree. Madhuca narrated her mother’s story to Kazmi.

Born in 1923 in a conservative Muslim family of a police officer at Barh, Bihar, Ara was married to Hamdi Bey, a cousin and leading journalist in Calcutta, much against her opposition. Madhuca was born to them. But the marriage soon broke down. Ara and Madhuca could have been on the streets but for Sami Ahmad, a cousin and an Indian Forest Service officer of the 1940 Bihar cadre. A bachelor, Ahmad shifted them to his official residence in Ranchi.

Posted to different forest divisions of Jharkhand, then a part of Bihar, Ahmad would take Ara on his trips to the jungles. In her was kindled a deep love for the flora and fauna of the area, inspiring her to spend hours observing the avian life around her. But her skills as a writer were not honed. She found a teacher in Mrs Augier, wife of P W Augier, an IFS office senior to Ahmad, who also encouraged her to keep birding notes. As she began to chisel out good prose in English, Ahmad and the Augiers encouraged her to turn her notes into articles—and these began getting published. 

Theirs was an old world where companionship meant more than engaging in chitter-chatter.

But this old world was also encountering a challenge from the emerging post-Independence culture of corruption and impunity. The sparks the clash of the two worlds engendered singed Ahmad, after he arrested the son of K B Sahay, a powerful politician who later became the Bihar Chief Minister, for poaching at Palamu. The political system retaliated: Ahmad was suspended. His sorrow became unbearable after he was asked to serve, on his reinstatement, under an officer junior to him. He died in 1966.

Ara and Madhuca, then in college, were financially stricken and emotionally hollowed out by his death. But help came from the old world: a friend of Ahmad heard about their plight and became their safe harbour. His name: Jaipal Singh Munda, the man who had led the Indian hockey team to a gold in the 1928 Olympics and was now an Adivasi leader fighting for the rights of his community. He found a groom for Madhuca—a Gurkha army officer’s son.

It seems Ara turned to translating Duggal’s work, in addition to her ornithological writings, to overcome the emotional trauma the death of Ahmad had been for her. In 1988, she brought her semi-paralytic sister to live with her in Ranchi. But after the sister began walking, she left Ara. The abandonment shattered her; psychotic breakdowns plagued her. 

One day, she made a bonfire of all her writings, notes, and photographs. “It was useless,” Ara muttered. In 1995, seven years after having stopped writing, she died, unnoticed and unsung. 

After Women in the Wild was published this year, Kazmi went over to the residence of Madhuca. Since an irreparable retina scratch has severely impaired her vision, he read aloud his essay on her mother, who winged an arc as unique as that of migratory birds, with an end as tragic as that of those shot down before their return flight home.

The writer is a senior journalist

Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

********

I found this article in the TOI, with more about her writing, it kind of complements the previous essay.

Jamal Ara, cited as India's first 'birdwoman'

Sharmila Ganesan Ram / TNN / Oct 19, 2023, 20:19 IST

"With his large body, bald head and scraggy bare neck, he is not a pretty sight, but he is unrivalled in the perfection of flight." That's how the vulture found itself described in 'Watching Birds', an adorable Rs-55 children's booklet which cost Rs 2.50 when it was written five decades ago.

As keen a weaver of words as she was a viewer of birds, its author Jamal Ara—who was often mistaken for a man because of her name—was a rare, early bird who stood out amidst the flock of pioneering male ornithologists such as Samir Ali and Zafar Futehally.

Despite her prolific, seminal surveys of the fauna of Bihar spanning four decades, the late Ara would remain a sighting as rare as the pink-headed duck.

Her legacy remained unrecorded till Raza Kazmi—a young environmentalist—met her daughter and only living link, Madhuca Singh, in Jharkhand for an essay in the recent book on female biologists titled 'Women In The Wild'.

Born a century ago in 1923 Bihar to a cop father, Ara was one of seven children, two of whom would later migrate to Pakistan. After being deserted by her journalist husband Hamdi Bey, the young mother would find support in her cousin Sami Ahmad, an upright Indian Forest Service officer from the Bihar cadre.

'Akki'—as Madhuca called Ahmad—would put her through school and in the villages where he was posted, the little girl would grow up eating climbing trees, plucking fruits and devouring ant chutney.

Even as Ahmad gifted her books on birds, Mrs. Augier, wife of the nature-loving Anglo-Indian forest officer PW Augier, honed her English-language skills as she had studied only till the tenth standard.

The field notes that Ara took in the unexamined forests of south Bihar soon became articles in the journals of Bombay Natural History Society and Bengal Natural History Society.

Her 1949 piece on the rich wildlife reserves of undivided Bihar was not only the first of its kind work in the region but also remains a seminal peek into the natural bounty of present-day Jharkhand.

The first and possibly the last to look closely and record the birds of Kolhan in Singhbhum—an under-explored landscape in the state—she kept watching, waiting and writing.

When her quest for the rare pink-headed duck—which had last been spotted in Darbhanga in 1935—hit a dead end in 1953, she resolved to resume searching the following winter. Her keen ear for mating calls and hawk eye for the courtship habits of winged creatures, translated into a series of meticulous notes bolstered with graphs and tables.

"It is time the government of India stepped in and curbed the waste of public money. If the forests are not saved, we will be creating a desert. Let us not forget the examples of Babylon and Nineveh," she wrote in a letter published in TOI on September 2, 1961, which questioned and demanded details on the state government's claims of afforestation.

At a conservation conference in the US, she presented a paper on the near-extinct rhinos of Bihar and other vanishing herds of mammals then called 'Big Game'. "She had never been a hunter or came from a hunting/royal family background, and thus her approach towards conservation was solely focused on the preservation of wildlife rather than balancing out 'sport hunting' and preservation," says Kazmi to TOI, comparing Ara to the fierce American naturalist Rosalie Edge.

"Ara's prescriptions for preservation, just like Rosalie's ideas, were far ahead of their time—be it in her recommendation for the establishment of a separate wildlife department, recommendations for creation wildlife sanctuaries, banning of carrying of any arms by any person (irrespective of whether they are private individuals or even government or police officials except for the forest department itself), and so on. These ideas would gain mainstream currency in the Indian conservation sphere only from the 1970s onwards, while Ara was prescribing these remedies from the early 1950s itself," he says.

On All India Radio, listeners heard her swoon about the birds of Ranchi and present-day Jharkhand. Outside ornithology, her writing skills manifested a range of short stories and translations of partition-themed works such as a Punjabi novel titled 'Nahun Tere Mas' by Kartar Singh Duggal.

Her articles revealed her lyricism. "Two of her essays made me go wow when I first read them," says Kazmi, citing 'Sylvan Trails in Chota Nagpur' and 'Just a Weed', both published in a little-known journal called 'Thought'.

He quotes a small sample from the latter piece: "It has been said, “See Naples and die”; I would alter it to “See the Strobilanthes flower and die”. It is no exaggeration; there will certainly be no regrets....The shaded hill slopes and valley bottoms for miles on end are smothered under it and one motors along the forest roads as if in a blue haze assailed by the heavy camphor-like aroma of the flowers. If some Wordsworth had seen it, he would have promptly consigned his poem ‘Daffodils’ to the trash-can, and written another about the Strobilanthes.”

At a time when it was rare to find Muslim women in North India travelling, working and excelling, Ara did it all but when her cousin, Ahmad, died in 1966, she lost a pillar.

Later, her mental health collapsed. One day, she took all that she wrote and photographed to the verandah of her house and set the pile ablaze.

Birds continue to visit her Bihar housing board home, the only one in the street overridden with creepers, climbers, plants and flowers.

*******

Looking forward to reading her book.

Beautiful nature writing

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyXaxVgoFM4/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Who else but Yuvan. 

" I have discovered for myself how a Hornet eats bees. I am feeling child-like excitement about it. It's the funniest and most laborious way to feed. I saw it happen last month and have been seeing it again and again since. A lesser banded hornet once it grabs a bee, flies to a nearby peaceful leaf and hangs upside-down exactly by one hind leg, hooking onto its surface one of its tarsal claws. Dangling around, it wraps and squishes the bee with the rest of its five legs and buries its mandibles into it. A friend sent me a photo of it first, then I saw it twice by a river few days later, then in a park, then in a brinjal field. Hornets hanging upside-down on one leg, eating bees.

The southwest monsoon has recoiled herself into the ocean. And now October heat is here and heavy. Its humidity hammers on the skull, feels sometimes like embers on skin. The sea wind is felt only in the mornings and evenings. A few dusks ago I went to my terrace to feel the breeze through my clothes, see the orange sun setting and the kites and storks returning to roost. But from the North Barn swallows were streaming in. Most flying towards Pallikaranai marsh, and some just dawdling in the sky. Seeing them after months, these cheery way-farers, boisterous pilgrims, brought lumps to my throat. I whispered 'welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome….. ' to each one which passed. Then sky reddened, pinkened, purpled. Blue-tailed bee-eaters glided through the colours, back to roost. They are visitors too making their way here from other parts of the subcontinent as winter settles. Their soft-trilling filled the glowing sky, their spaced silhouettes - slender-billed, tender-winged, needle-tailed - made my neck clamp, scalp tingle unbearably. All of existence, for a while, was bee-eaters trilling.

Over the last week my 4th batch Urban Wilderness Walks interns at Madras Naturalists' Society have been mapping trees in their localities, investigating how trees shape human socio-political life around them, and collecting tree stories. 30 stories from 30 neighborhoods of Chennai..."

There's more in the Insta link.