Watch out for those geckos!

 

A walk in the urban woods of TS

Butterfly Walk for MNS Members – The Theosophical Society – July 29, 2023

By Sagarika

It was a nice and sunny Saturday morning, 20 of us gathered in TS for the Butterfly Walk led by M. Yuvan. Theosophical Society post rains is an amazing place; we could notice butterfly activities the moment we stepped into their premises.

The ‘Butterflies of Chennai’ booklet by Palliyur Trust and a sheet on depicting all the key Butterfly Behaviour – from nectaring to mud-puddling to chrysalis was distributed as we waited for everyone to join in.

Under the Premna tree, with the morphs of the Common Emigrant being shown by Yuvan.

Yuvan started his briefing by sharing how he has been following butterflies and insect for last few weeks, and how the onset of the SW monsoon leads to a migration not only of butterflies but also of various other insects towards the Eastern coast.

He asked us to try and observe the different behaviour of the butterflies, going beyond just the name/ id. ‘’Know the name and then forget the name’’- that really set the tone for the Walk.

We started off by observing activity around a Premna tree, the group quickly spotted Lemon Pansy, Common Leopard, Tailed Jay and Common Jay. Yuvan went on to show the eggs and caterpillars of Emigrant as well as Tawny Coster. A floating Great Eggfly distracted some of us for few seconds before disappearing into the tree canopy.

It didn’t take much time for us to realise that the patches of Tridax had maximum congregation of different butterflies, the so-called weed is truly a butterfly magnet.

Through the Walk, Yuvan pushed us to observe more - observe the wings, the flight, the antennae, the height of flight.

I was surprised to learn that butterfly’s flight is very different from that of bird. Butterfly wings clap above to generate thrust, unlike birds who get majority of the thrust from the downstroke.

The Walk was filled with many interesting observations and discussions about various aspects of butterfly behaviour. Some key learnings were:

– Tawny Coster - male butterflies utilize a mechanical tactic – a mating plug or copulatory plug to reduce female re-mating.

Turnera subulata - White buttercups, favourite plants of the Tawny Coster, a more recent adaptation.  We saw the Coster female looking to lay eggs on its underside.

– Multi-generational migration of butterflies – each stage carried out by new generation of adults.

– Poisonous butterflies – Common Crow, the Tigers, the one which we see commonly around are all poisonous!!

– ‘Time compensated sun compass’ of butterflies which help them to understand their location in the world.

– Older generation of Crimson Rose migrate to Sri Lanka, never to return. Usually migration is round trip, in this case it seems to be dispersal enmasse post breeding boom.

Besides butterflies we saw many other insect like robber flies, stink bugs, spider hunter wasp, cricket hunter wasp, blue banded bees, beetles, ants, and grasshoppers of various kinds. The masked crab spider with a wasp hunt took many of us by surprise.

The Little Clown grasshopper nymph was my favourite.

What looked like a wasp - Oreumenoides edwardsii - sitting on a flower...

...was actually a prey captured by a Crab Spider about a quarter of its size.  Basically the spider just sucks out all the living juices off the wasp...quite gruesome to visualise this.

Indian Green Lynx Spider and spiderlings

On our way out, we saw Lime Swallowtails mud-puddling on a patch between the bushes. Some of us went on to spend few moments admiring the giant Sterculia apetala before calling it a day.

And just when we thought that we are done with the sightings, a Great Orange-tip floated into the Periwinkle for nectaring, and we all gasped at its sheer size. What an exciting finale!

The Walk lasted for close to 3 hours. We spotted 37 species of butterflies and umpteen other insects.

We are grateful to MNS member Geetha Jaikumar for all her support, without which this wonderful Walk wouldn’t have been possible and to Yuvan whose passion for nature made this Walk so much more meaningful.

BUTTERFLY LIST

Papilionidae

1. Common Jay

2. Common Mormon

3. Crimson Rose

4. Lime Swallowtail

5. Tailed Jay

Pieridae

6. Common Emigrant

7. Plain Orange-tip

8. Great Orange-tip

9. Psyche

10. Common Albatross

11. Common Grass Yellow

12. Small Grass Yellow rose

13. Three spotted grass yellow

14. Indian Wanderer Lycaenidae

15. Small Salmon Arab 16. Common Gull

Nymphalidae

17. Common Crow

18. Blue Tiger

19. Plain Tiger

20. Striped Tiger

21. Lemon Pansy

22. Yellow Pansy Hesperiidae 23. Angled Castor

24. Tawny Coster

25. Common Leopard 26. Great Eggfly

Lycaenidae

27. Common Pierrot 28. Zebra Blue

29. Lesser Grass Blue 30. Indian Sunbeam 31. Tiny Grass Blue 32. Forget-me-not

Hesperiidae

35. Indian Skipper

36. Oriental Straight Swift 37. Marbled Skipper

More photographs of the butterflies here.

eBird India Checklist - 30 Jul 2023 - Shaheen Falcon - Viewing Point [Leela Palace IT Building West Facing] - 10 species

eBird India Checklist - 30 Jul 2023 - Shaheen Falcon - Viewing Point [Leela Palace IT Building West Facing] - 10 species

GK's observations

Quite a productive day to observe every behavior of a Shaheen falcon in detail. 

6:20AM: (ROUSING) When I had reached, the Falcon was perched in the right most edge of the Leela building at the top deck. Falcon was quite relaxed and preening, occasionally looking towards the Jains apartment/Somerset building. It once did a rouse, with raised feathers followed by a quick shake to dust of loose feathers and a poop. Falcon wasn't showing any signs of an hunt this day. 

6:25AM: (SOARING, PURSUIT ATTACK & FLAPPING FLIGHT) Falcon took off from the perch, did a short soar between Leela & Jains apartment. This made the Pigeons perched in the Jains apartment fly west. During the second half circle towards Leela, its flight pattern changed from soaring to active flight, with deep wing beats and flew steadily towards Jains apartment, a pursuit attack for sure. Vanished from the view for 5 seconds and returned through the same path with Pigeon in the talons, must have picked in between Jains & Somerset. Flew straight to the base of its favorite pillar perch. 

6:27AM: (NECK SEVERE) Usually the prey get killed when the Falcon landed on its perch, but today as soon as the Falcon landed all of a sudden the Pigeon started flapping heavily which startled the falcon for a few seconds. It took a well over 5 seconds to gain control of the Pigeon and the falcon hoped twice heavily holding the prey by its neck, followed by severing the neck with its bill. 

6:30AM: (PLUCKING & FEEDING) Falcon started to prepare its meal, defeathering the neck feathers of the pigeon and nibbled small bits of flesh with strong pulls. After 5 mins of feeding, Falcon moved the kill towards the corner closer to the pillar and started defeather again, now bigger chunk of long feathers flying off in the wind clearly indicating those are the flight feathers of the prey. Feeding continued for next 10 mins with 20-30 seconds pause to gaze around its environ. 

6:45AM: (GRIFFON POSE, CACK & WAIL VOCALIZATION) Couple of Black Kites appeared over Leela and one of them sighted the Falcon with its prey. As soon as the Kites started soaring over the side of the Falcon, it turned over to the ridge side and moved to more an horizontal posture, started giving loud "cack" calls. One of the Black Kites, flew quite close to the Falcon's ridge as if it tried to snatch the kill. The Kite then flew right over the Falcon's head, dive bombed in an attempt to make the Falcon fly with the kill or abandon the kill. Now the Falcon transformed into "Griffon" posture, with its back feathers roused + half open wings in mantling posture + well spread tail + open bill and started giving loud "agonistic wail" calls. Its call reverberated the entire open area below the Leela building. After a couple of attempts, the Black Kite moved SW towards the estuary. Feeding resumed only 5 minutes after the Kites had vanished. 

6:55AM: (TOMIAL TOOTH) 3 more Black Kites appeared over Leela, 2 flew south and one happened to see the Falcon. This time few "cack" calls from the Falcon were enough to deter the kite away and the feeding continued. Now the Falcon had moved closer to the edge of the pillar facing West which gave good views of the feeding. The pigeon now was held to lie on its back and the Falcon fed from the flanks as the feet of the pigeon was clearly visible. The Falcon nibbled the flesh at first, then held a good chunk with its bill followed by a tilting of its head on both the sides to rip of flesh from the bones. The tomial tooth must be of great help here to tear small pieces of flesh from the pigeon.

7:10AM: (GUT ELIMINATION) Feeding continued with big chucks of flesh been gulped by the Falcon. The intestines/gut are pulled out carefully and been set aside, not eaten. One of the Pigeon's feet along with the tibia portion been detached and swallowed whole after about 1 minute of struggle to push the entire piece in. Few small pieces of flesh & feathers struck to the Falcon's head & bill were carefully removed by a head-rub over its shoulder feathers. 

7:20AM: (CACHING, SCRATCHING & FEET NIBBLE) Feeding came to a pause now. Falcon picked the remaining (around 30%) kill in its beak, carried it closer to the wall of the pillar and dropped it there, cached it for later. Did a short hop to come back to the edge of the pillar base now. Feet nibbling continued for about 2-3 mins accompanied with some scratching of the bill with its front facing talons. Then and there the Falcon will look at its feet, gaze around the habitat for a few seconds and once again relook at its feet. This behavior continued for quite some time until it walked along the ridge of the pillar for a few feet and settled facing the wall. 

7:30AM: (RESTING) Falcon moved to the left side of the Pillar base, started resting and gazed around looking at the flying Crows and Pigeons. Couple of Rose-ringed Parakeets ignored the presence of the Falcon and landed few metres below the pillar investigating the crack in the wall. 

7:35AM: (AGONISTIC CALLING & TERRITORIALITY) Two Black Kites flew in to the Leela building's terrace where the House Crows interrupted them and started mobbing them at all sides. Falcon now turned away from the wall, started giving the "cack" calls looking up. When one of the Kites came closer to the pillar Falcon took off, made a quick climb and started mobbing the Kite. As the Falcon started to circle around the open ground next to Leela, "cack" calls continued with the Falcon trying to soar over the Black Kite. When the second Black Kite too moved towards the Leela west side, Falcon moved towards NW and didn't return. 5 mins post the Falcon had vanished, House Crows appeared next to the pillar base and took possession of the remains of the Pigeon cache.

******

My learnings

Tomial tooth?:  A protrusion that is quite sharp on the upper mandible outer edge - used to kill their prey and I guess also eat.