Finally, the monsoon has arrived here in Madras. After a wet and rainy week, I see the sun today! The trees are all green and washed, and the birds and butterflies are zipping around making up for lost days.
Before the monsoons, we sneaked in a walk to the Adyar Poonga. A huge battalion of MNS members, (some of them becoming members at Adyar Poonga!) descended on Preston and the Poonga, at 6:45 in the morning. We were delighted to see the huge progress in tree planting and recharging of the water holes that have happened in the past six to eight months, and look forward to its moving forward and playing a dominant part in restoring the estuarine ecosystem of the region.
Preston took us around the 53(?) acres and of course we did not stick together and of course we straggled, but he dealt with all this with great fortitude!
Its a surprise that the birds were still around, given the racket we were making. The water had attracted cormorants, little grebes, coots and water hens. We even saw a pair of black-winged stilts, lapwings, Pond and night herons lurking in the undergrowth. White-throated kingfishers were there in plenty, as also parakeets and pigeons.
And then there were butterflies, dragonflies, spiders ...and a mystery caterpillar and cocoon. (Check out the slideshow above for more details.)
Husbands are very useful, I realised (yet again!) on this walk. As we watched and oohed and aahed about the strange cocoon and caterpillars, there was a quiet tap on my shoulder. Look out for the ants, he said pointing down to an ant's nest just maybe three inches from where I was, and I hastily jumped the other way. Of course, I quite forgot to tell the stragglers who came in to see what all the fuss was about, and they were all promptly bitten by some very enraged and angry ants who had been stepped upon.
The sun was climbing in the sky, and we had to cycle back to Thiruvanmyur - we decided to be "green", and bike there you see. A delightful morning, with the added bonus of seeing some MS members I had not seen since our Kanha trip, many many moons ago.
Very beautiful description of a lovely Madras morning. I miss Madras!!!! Inspite of the filth,dirt and our numerous sulking, Chennai is the best. Thanks for updating and please update with a few photos of the rains in Chennai.
ReplyDeleteChitchat
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Hey! Cool slideshow. The swarm of those flying thiges are all over me though. I am happy for you that the rains have arrived. Too bad the deadrubber was dead and gone without even a ball being bowled.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that husbands still have some use!
ReplyDeleteMs Chitchat (I really dig your pseudonym by the way!), glad you enjoyed it, and I've enjoyed perusing your ruminations.
ReplyDeleteYeah Amila, too bad about the Mumbai match, though I'm sure Sunita (urban gardener) will be pleased with the rain. I hope we do a bit better against your boys than we just did! Anyways, those are test and my favourite two - Dravid and Lakshman are there, so there's hope!!
Yes Anonymous, I find them very useful in odd ways!!
cool, you got close shots of the caterpillars. what colours!
ReplyDeleteYes, Dravid the wall should come good....hopefully.
ReplyDeleteIt should turn out to be an interesting game, the way things stand now.
Yes, husbands can be surprising at times, can't they?!
ReplyDeleteI love Madras when it is freshly washed after the rains. Lovely words and pictures.