Pongal at Pt Calimere – where are all the little waders and the ducks, for that matter?

Continued from The ubiquitous Brahminy Kites

Point Calimere has been one of those places where, one is supposed to see waders, big and small, lots and lots of them.  I think I saw larger colonies of waders in Pallikaranai than I did in Point Calimere, this season.  So, what is wrong?

Could it be the after effects of Cyclone Thane, I wondered.  Seems to be a more deep-rooted problem.

It appears that the Great Vedaranyam Swamp is in need of treatment.

I came across a 2006 paper - The decline in wader populations along the east coast of India with special reference to Point Calimere, south-east India by S. Balachandran of Bombay Natural History Society,

The paper focuses on Chilika, Pt Calimere, Gulf of Mannar and Pulicat.  Here is an extract from the paper about Point Calimere:

The Point Calimere Wildlife Sanctuary (10°18’N, 79°51’E) is situated on a low promontory on the Coromandel Coast (southern Deccan Plateau) in the Bay of Bengal (Fig. 1). The adjoining Great Vedaranyam Swamp stretches parallel to the

Palk Strait for about 48 km, and is separated from it by a sandbank. Its north-south dimensions vary from about 10 km at its broadest in the east, to about 8 km in the central part and about 6 km in its western portion. Five freshwater channels connected to the Cauvery River empty into the swamp. There is a gradual slope from north to south. The total area is about 349 sq. km.

In about two-thirds of the swamp, the habitat varies seasonally. During the monsoon and periods of south-westerly winds, there is a continuous expanse of fresh, brackish or saline water extending to the northern tip of the swamp. At other times, the area of open water gradually dries up from north to south.  During the drying stage, there are exposed flats and shallow pools. The extreme eastern promontory of the swamp,

comprising Kodikkarai and Kodikkadu Reserve Forest, has been declared a wildlife sanctuary. This sanctuary, the Point Calimere Wildlife Sanctuary, supports both littoral and terrestrial life zones (Ali 1980, Manakadan 1992). It comprises 26 sq. km of tropical dry evergreen forest intermingled with scrub jungle and mangrove vegetation, and intersected by numerous tidal inlets and creeks. Exploitation of the Great Vedaranyam Swamp for salt extraction and other marine-based industries is fast growing.

Two private chemical firms have been operating in the leased swamp areas adjoining the wildlife sanctuary. The manufacture of salt involves three stages. Sea water is pumped into reservoirs and then condensed before it is finally allowed to flow into salt-pans, where the salt crystallizes. The reservoirs alter the ecosystem to some extent since they are, in the absence of tidal fluctuation, more or less stagnant. The composition of the littoral communities and microfauna is drastically altered under

such conditions. The condensers have a relatively high salinity and temperature which create an ecological barrier for most marine organisms from April to October. Only the monsoon makes this environment temporarily habitable for marine organisms.

Point Calimere and Great Vedaranyam Swamp are an important wintering and staging area for over 1 000 000 waders and other waterbirds, and are the only site that has been intermittently monitored by bird ringing studies for the last three

decades. The swamp is of great importance as a staging area for migrants on their way to and from Sri Lanka and other wintering grounds.

So, Pt Calimere is on the “South Asian Flyway” – the little chappies breed in the Arctic in the summer, and then fly all the way down for the winter.

Again quoting from the paper –

Most waders migrate to India during early autumn, mainly through the north and north-west. From here, some birds continue on south-west to wintering areas in Africa (as confirmed in the Ruff), while others move south-east to the east coast of India, as demonstrated by a Curlew Sandpiper that was ringed at Bharatpur (north-west India) and recovered in the same winter at Point Calimere (south-east India). A similar migratory divide between birds wintering in India and those wintering in south-west Asia and Africa may also occur in Kazakhstan, as most of the recoveries during autumn passage of birds ringed in India have been from Kazakhstan. The spring passage of waders along the east coast of India is relatively well known (Ali 1981, Balachandran 1998, Hussain 1991).

Now here is the alarming and worrying bit –

The decline in waterbird populations at Point Calimere is very conspicuous not only to ornithologists, but also to laymen in the area. Any local villager, especially anyone over 40 years of age, can recall the drastic changes that have occurred in the numbers of waders and other waterbirds in the Great Vedaranyam Swamp.

The disappearance of the fabulous clouds of waterbirds (waders, ducks, terns, flamingos, egrets) that passed through the villages on their way between feeding and roosting sites up until the late 1980s is a visible indicator of the decline. The appearance of large mounds of salt on the mudflats, which were once thronged

by thousands of waders, ducks and flamingos, is an indication of the habitat loss and degradation.

The ringing and census data from Point Calimere indicatethat there has been a decline of over 70% in certain species of waders since the 1980s.

The most affected species are the two Arctic-breeding Calidris sandpipers, Little Stint and Curlew Sandpiper, which were formerly the most abundant winter visitors at Point Calimere. The reservoirs, inter-tidal zone and other brackish areas at Point

Calimere provided enormous feeding areas for these species, with numbers of Little Stint in the 1980s exceeding 200 000 and those of Curlew Sandpiper, 150 000. During the last four years, however, neither of these species has been recorded in numbers exceeding 25 000. It appears that these two species formerly benefited from the shallow water levels in the reservoirs which carried many littoral organisms (crustaceans, polychaetes) into the environment. The plentiful rains also helped to increase the productivity of these habitats during the wet season. The extension of salt-based industries, the diminishing rainfall and disturbances caused by fishermen have now altered these habitats.

Seshadri KS was there in November 2011 and witnessed how bird ringing is done, with Dr Bala.  He also saw a bar-tailed godwit, the long distance champion in the bird world.  I didn't but Keertana, one of the children in our group did!

2012.  For a first-timer like me, there was the awe-inspiring sight of the sky filled with ducks, captured so well by Rags, as also small groups of plovers performing their aerial ballet.

But for those who had visited even in the '80s, the salt pans and the swamps were bare.

The white dots in the distance were gulls and a few egrets.

These looked like little stints but were too far away.  Every now and then, they would take off in unison, and treat us to this lovely sight of a spontaneous, synchronised air show!

At the salt pans and pump house - 

Black-winged stilts - I think the only ones I saw. Supposedly found in large numbers in Calimere earlier.  Are they all stopping over at Pallikaranai, then?

Egrets in plenty

A mixed flock of little terns, brown-headed gulls and gull-billed terns

Empty expanses, with some pelicans sometimes

Brown-headed gulls were in abundance, flashing their wing "mirrors" at us!

Two of the gulls at the pump house.  They had a long conversation - mostly one squawked and the other listened, like a much-married couple.

The gull-billed terns were also in plenty, tirelessly fishing.

 There were several types of terns, including Caspian, we saw when we went to the beaches, but more of that later.

This ringed plover was busy on the edges of the salt pans.

A females sparrow looked curiously up at Sekar, at the pumphouse.

 We made several forays into the salt pans, enjoyed the wide open spaces and the strong winds which kind of dissipated the heat form the sun.  We would be out close to midday, only returning when we were summoned for lunch at Ramar's mess!

The children went squelching in the mud, and looked like they had indulged in mud-bath therapy at the end of it.  There were shells of a multitude of types that I had never seen, some beautiful butterflies and even dragonflies, but the waders were not that many, and ofcourse I did not see a flamingo.

We also walked the grasslands and the swamps.

A kestrel sat and stared at us - and then flew off in disgust.

This was the extent of birds in the swamp, a small flock here and there.

 There were a lot of wood sandpipers here

This was one large mixed flock we came across - egrets, spoonbills, painted storks, ibises and even a heron

As the heat rose, the painted storks took  to the air, and after a while we could see them, high up, riding the thermals, along with a whole bunch of pelicans.

The grasslands had bulbuls, pipits, starlings and babblers in plenty, and every now and then a kingfisher would swoop by.  Lapwings would call out as also francolins.  Its the wader migrants that seem to be of concern.

A rosy starling poses

I had a strong sense of disquiet on reading Dr Balachandran's paper.  Could it also be that there are issues causing falling numbers in their breeding grounds, in the north?  

As he recommends, a better understanding means studies across countries in the South Asian flyway.  And studies to understand the role of the salt industry and what measures are needed to mitigate their effect?


Up next, beaches and lighthouses

Pongal at Point Calimere - The ubiquitous Brahminy Kites

Continued from the feral horses.

Brahminy kite, with a fish in its mouth.

They were everywhere, on the trees, soaring above in the skies, over the water, in coconut trees, on electricity poles, by the fishermen's boats, and even on roof tops!

I have never in my life seen such a congregation of brahminy kites!

At the pumphouse

Again, with a prey - seems to be a lizard.

Mr Ramanan says:   "They are fearless when they steal fishes from the fishermen which was evident even when an auction of fishes took place among thirty odd people, they pierce the crowd fearlessly and take away the fishes. 


But they really failed when they chased a feeding young one of sunbird as it flew very close to one of the fence made out of thorny materials of a house. Whereas in the pumping house, which pumps sea water to the saltpan, the Brahminy Kites hovers and wait for as and when the river terns catch the fish which comes out of the salt water from the pump, it chases them and using its legs, hit them at the back so that the river tern drops the fish which can be easily taken away by them as it success rate of catching the fish compare to the river tern is less."

Mr Ramanan's photo - at the pump house, the marauders!

Photo by Mr Ramanan.

 Rags captured a brahminy kite flying at dusk, and another fabulous shot of the kite fishing.

Continued.  Next, Waders, where art thou?

Pongal at Point Calimere - the feral horses in the grasslands

Our first views of the feral horses, in the distance across the waters of the wetlands.

Last year, I saw wild asses at Kutch, and I loved them!  I was intrigued at the prospect of the wild/feral horses that are present at the Point Calimere sanctuary.  Sure enough, we bumped into them, on our very first evening outing in the grasslands.

The first herd, had the sun behind them, and we saw them silhouetted, and the scene reminded me of a watercolour painting.

Further along the track, there was another herd, much closer, with the light behind us, and it was so nice to see horses without saddles and stirrups, and the foals, oh they were the best!

A second bunch

Observe the one in the centre right, with the white "naamam" and read on below.

Feral horses are domesticated horses that have either been released in the wild or have escaped.

Mr Ramanan had this to say: "A decade back Point Calimere was known as a small fishing village where one could see only 30 odd fishing boats at the jetty. But now there is a lot of development and the road leading to the village is full of houses on either side of the road and up to the boating jetty. 


The Point Calimere sanctuary situated on the eastern coast of India near the Park Straits, Tamilnadu, is the only place where one comes across wild horses in India. In those days the horses were branded on the back with the initials of the owner and according to the locals whenever their service was required they were caught and utilized for transporting salt from the saltpans!


Once the area was declared as the sanctuary, the owners had no right to retrieve the horses and hence they became free/wild horses. On our recent visit, the owners name was missing on the grazing horses, and so they have became really "wild", which is visible from their characteristic instincts."

 Only the horse with the "namam", seems to still carry some branding on its side.  This herd then is fairly new to the "wild".

Photo by Mr Ramanan - is she pregnant you think?

There are feral horse populations across the world.  The Mustangs of the US are from domestic stock.  Australia has a huge number of these and they are called Brumby.

According to Wikipedia, there is another feral horse population in Assam (they roam in the Dibru-Saikhowa national park), and they are descendants of army horses that escaped during the second World War!

Photo by Mr Ramanan - This was my favourite (and the youngest) foal I saw.  

Census records rise in vulture count in Panna

The Hindu: Census records rise in vulture count in Panna

The results of the vulture census in the Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) will definitely provide wildlife enthusiasts with a reason to cheer. The count in the third annual estimation exercise that concluded on Monday has registered an increase of 39 per cent over the last year's figures.

While the maximum vulture population this year stood at 1797 (as against 1340 in 2011), the minimum number was 1054 (814 last year) while the average count recorded was 1510 (1079 last year).

Vultures were found in 38 of the 39 sites earmarked for counting, as against 21 of 25 sites last year.

The PTR is home to seven vulture species — long-billed, white-backed, Egyptian, red-headed, Eurasian griffon, Himalayan griffon and cinereous. The first four are permanent residents of the park while the last three are migratory.

A significant decline was seen in the numbers of the long-billed (502 from 775) and the cinereous vulture (1 from 6) but that could be because of lack of technical expertise on the part of the enumerators, explained park officials.

97 birds not identified

“Because of the difficulty in distinguishing between the long-billed vulture and the Himalayan griffon vulture, 97 birds could only be identified as “unknown” by the observers due to lack of technical expertise,” PTR Field Director R.S. Murthy told The Hindu.

Based on a public-private partnership model, the enumeration exercise is being carried at PTR for the last three years.

This time, 110 participants from 9 States and two Union Territories, including two foreign citizens, had registered for the exercise. Finally 65 people actually participated in the event.

While the PTR is evidently a great vulture habitat with ample feeding opportunities for the avian scavengers, some areas of concern have emerged recently.

“The use of the banned diclofenac for cattle around the Patori village and the cutting of the Arjun tree, which serves as a good nesting site for the white-backed vulture, are two areas of concerns we have identified as threats to vultures. Efforts are needed to stop such activities,” Mr. Murthy said.

Pongal at Pt Calimere - Kodikarai

Click here, for a photo summary

The map that hung in our forest guest house.  Poonarai Illam was where we stayed.

Kodikarai aka Kodiyakarai aka Kodigeri seems to be a fishing hamlet, but with a strong government presence - there is a naval outpost, a BSNL station (so cell phones worked loud and clear, and everyone in the village seemed to have one!), a Customs and Revenue station and also a coast guard presence.  Just south, and across the Palk Straits after all was Sri Lanka.

This was main street, photographed by Sheila, which ran north to south - the roads were in better shape than in our neighbourhood in Chennai!

Western Union money transfer available!

Kodikarai is a plastic-free zone, but there was plastic strewn everywhere.

Take a look at the tariff card that was up on the notice board in our guest house - and pay special attention to the rates that the elected representatives of the people pay!!

Our guest house.

Its a shame, the way we spend money in this country.  There was an old dilapidated building just behind the guest house we stayed in, and group members who had been there earlier said that that was the old guest house.  This Mark 1 guest house still stands but is occupied by bats and has no doors and windows.  We occupied what should be Mark 2, not very old, all tiled and painted.  But maybe between the 13 rooms, we could have had three rooms with everything working - I mean, take the fan from one room, the toilet from another, light bulb from the third, etc etc.  

The whole weekend we were there (yes it was Pongal I know), there was not a single maintenance staff around - so, no sweeping, cleaning of any sort happened, and only good old Razzak bhai to answer questions and man the desk!  Another couple of years and Mark 2 will resemble Mark 1.

It looks like Mark 3 is also up - a more swank airconditioned guest house behind ours, which was given to an Austrian couple who just strolled in off the street looking for a room.  These were middle-aged, not hippy like or anything and later the man admitted he knew nothing about birds, so what on earth were they doing prowling around Kodikarai, and eating in our "restaurant"?

Ramar's mess was run by a family of four brothers, it seemed.  It was a shack with a couple of tables, wood burning stoves and was obviously the best address in town.  There would be crowds of people always at their door, and a "queue" to get in.

There were vadais with morning tea/coffee, then breakfast was idly with sambar and chutney, lunch was sambhar, poriyal, rasam and kootu and curds.  (Actually, it was meen kozhambu but we got "shaiva" kootu.)  Dinner was always parotta and kurma.  Vijay told us that they had landed a permit to make parottas in Singapore, for the summer of 2012!

Puris made for us on Pongal day! 

It was about 300m south of the rest house, and the first evening we were taken aback at the evening/night life of Kodikarai.  It seems that the street light outside the resthouse was the gathering place for the returning fishermen.  These fishermen come from other hamlets, for the season, and work on a commission basis, bringing larger boats and better equipment.

So, the street light was where they gathered and got into high spirits quite literally.  There was not a woman in sight after dusk, and many of the men, by nightfall, could not walk a straight line.

After the refreshments, dinner was at Ramar's, and they would need that parotta urgently.  So Ramar & Co decided to make them (who were after all their regular clientele) takeaway packs of their parottas and kurma, and we were served inside.  I thought I would get high just off the alcohol on their breaths!!

There was much curiosity as to who we were and where we came from, quite obviously.  But the amazing thing was when we visited the boat jetty or the fishing harbour the morning after, these men would be returning from sea or be busy with their catch, and operating quite normally - no effects of a hangover it seemed!

The story continues - Feral horses.

The Beach Birders at the Fifth Chennai Bird Race

This was the way it was.  No colour filter!  Photo by Rags.  See the entire set of pictures here.

Our Beach Birders team from the coast

decided to bird for half a day, at the most.

With binos and books we took to the Bird Race.

It was the refreshments that set the leisurely pace!

A gorgeous sunrise, such as I had never seen before

but wait, Pallikaranai had much more  in store!

Swamp hens, egrets and stilts galore

the cormorants and ducks creating a furore.

A lone Ruff, Pelicans landing one by one

Stints in aerial ballet, it seemed, just for fun.

Bobbing sandpipers, the prinias chirping

meditative herons and jacanas preening.

Unmindful of the garbage and stench were they

"A poor sense of smell", the experts say.

A news crew arrived in the meantime from afar

and before we knew it, Rags was a TV star!

Watched the spot bills and pintails and teals flypast.

We decided to move on after a coffee-and-sandwich repast.

To Sholinganallur wetlands, past the toll,  we drove

and Fulvous Whistling Ducks we saw, by jove!

Kelambakkam backwaters by midday we did drop by.

Blue waters, a breeze, the sun high in the sky.

It was time for the biggies the thermals to ride

Painted storks and Pelicans, side by side.

A few Terns winged without intent

their low numbers, to me, a disappointment.

But a family of curlews did give us a sneak peek

as they fished in the mud with their overlong beaks.

Happy and hot and tired were we

as we headed home, Sheila, Rags, Ammu and me!

Our bird of the day was the Grey-headed Lapwing
but for the Emerald Doves, an Orphean Warbler did sing!

Bridled Terns logged 121, our tally 59
but with the fun and company, that suited me fine!
************************
The fifth Chennai Bird Race held on Sunday Jan 22nd.

The TOI new report has a few errors.  The winning team of Vikas was Bridled Tern.  And he spotted an eagle not an owl!

The IE report - Students create a buzz at CBR.

The Hindu report - Feathered friends

The Jacana Junkies were at the third edition in 2010.

Birding at Yelagiri, interrupted by cyclone Thane

28th Dec 2011 to 31st, with cyclone Thane keeping us indoors all day on the 30th!

Pied bushchats and bulbuls everywhere.

The mermaid-in-the-lake seemed to point to the white-browed wagtail, which was on the rock to her left!  Poor thing, her arm has dislocated with the effort!

Asian Paradise flycatcher, that flitted in and out of the silver oak trees on the 31st morning.

White-bellied drongos - fascinating aerial swoops and dives as they caught insects on the fly!

My first ever Verditer flycatcher - the blue birdie on the wire.

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Pongal at Point Calimere - a photo summary

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Prawn fisherman, salt pans

Mud flats

Feral horses

The British lighthouse - still works

The ruined Chola lighthouse

Glorious Glory lilies

Crab kolams

Mangroves at Muthupet lagoon

Avicennia marina (I think)

The boat jetty leading to the broken board walk

Our local restaurant

Proprietor Ramar

Ghostrider in the making

A hermit crab says hello

Orange sunrise

Golden sunset

More details to follow!

Continues here.