A man called Cutlet

One of the founding members of the Madras Naturalist Society was Mr RKG Menon. It was a name that I had heard, but I had not really bothered to find out more. He passed away a year ago, and I came across this interesting tribute to the man, his mission, passion and kindness.

Lone palm tree, Sir! | eco logic

Here's a colourful quote from the man, in the article.

“Write it down. If you think its all in your memory, it is not worth it. It’s just kaka-pee [crow-shit]“

There's a whole website now dedicated to his papers, jottings and observations. Its a stupendous collection of work on The Blackbuck.

A wonderful way to remember him and salute his work, and a great reference tool for greenhorns like me.

Blackbuck and Chital at the GNP - a favourite subject for Cutlet

The "ambitious" keelback and the climbing perch

Baby olive keelbacks got eaten by a kingfisher at Vedanthangal, and now a checkered keelback is caught on camera trying to eat a humungous fish, at IIT, in front of forty kids on a birdwatching outing!

Read about it here!  Keelback steals the show

So many questions from this incident.

What was the snake?

A chequered keelback was the general opinion.  Its a common water snake supposedly and non-poisonous. But, folks, and this is an important but, it is an agressive, bad-tempered snake!!

I'm glad it was busy with the fish when the kids came across it!!  Its bite can be quite painful, and it also does not let go until its jaws are forced open.  Yeesh, all that does not sound very nice.

Chequered Keelback Snake
Originally uploaded by Naseer Ommer

What was the fish?  

A climbing perch, opined some.  I had heard of these fish, which supposedly "walk" on land, and IIT does have them.  Reportedly these fish can survive out of water for a while, and move with the aid of their fins and tail!

Why was the snake unable  to eat it?

Preston Ahimaz said, "In the case of snakes, the jaw bones are hinged with elastic ligaments which simply stretch to enable the jaws to swing way beyond any bone pivot would permit."

So, despite this elasticity that all snakes have, the keelback could not swallow this fish, and gave up after an hour, reported the observers.

Maybe it was not a full-grown keelback?

PS:  It seems to make a habit of biting off more than it can handle.  A search on Flickr, revealed various pictures of the snake with a huge fish in its mouth!!

Animals of IITM - there's a book now

All pictures from Bhanu, who led a nature walk in IIT, for MNS last month
The article below was seen in The Hindu.

P. Oppili

CHENNAI: As part of its golden jubilee celebrations, the IIT–Madras has brought out a second publication, animals of IIT–Madras.

The book was released recently by Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Science and Technology. It presents the most common animals on the IIT-M campus, which incidentally is one of the last refuges for native biodiversity in South Chennai. The 150 species described in the book cover the following groups: mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and select number of invertebrates. The description includes details such as the common and scientific names of the organisms, short notes on morphological features, pointers that facilitate easy identification and their distribution and status within the campus.

Conservation planning programme
The book was part of an overall conservation planning programme undertaken by IIT-M in the recent years.

In view of the fact that conservation within the campus had to be a necessary factor in the continuous presence of a significant number of human beings, the book would contribute to the formation of a well-informed pool of stakeholders, said a spokesperson of Care Earth, a biodiversity research organisation.

A team of dedicated ecologists and biologists assessed the extent and quality of the critical habitats that supported the biodiversity on the campus and the pocket guide was prepared by Care Earth.

Little Grebe, Indian pond heron, Asian Openbill stork, cattle egret, grey francolin, black kite, shikra, white-breasted waterhen, purple moorhen, redwattled lapwing, chestnut-winged cuckoo are some of the birds one could spot at the campus. Reptiles such as Indian cobra, chequered keelback, bronzeback tree snake, common vine snake, star tortoise and animals such as Golden jackal, common palm civet, could be sighted at the campus.

A great place to go birding, I had written about it in Tracking the Indian Pitta at IIT

Here are some pictures from the IIT Walk.

Bhanu, by the way is rather multi-faceted. Read about her puppetry initiatives here.

Now to find myself a copy of the book

Tracking the Indian Pitta at IIT

November 25, 2007

The IIT Chennai campus is, in a sense, part of the Guindy National Park green lung for our city. I have many visited the campus over the years, and though there has been construction over the years, it is still a delightful place, an oasis of calm for us city dwellers.

6:30 am, and the place was abuzz with bird calls. A pair of chital crossed the road ahead of us, and continued to look at us curiously from the side of the road. We were a small group of four, and it was my first time in the campus with binoculars.

Padmanabhan, the IITian among us, took us to the lake, which was full of water. The reason for the trip was P's reporting of the arrival of Indian pittas. This bird is a winter visitor to Madras, (and for some reason has made the cover of Salim Ali's Birds of India and also features on the back cover of Birds of Southern India by Grimmett and Inskipp). Curiosity piqued, Sheila and I had to go!

The sun wans't out as yet - it was a cloudy day. Drongos on the tree near the temple, as also a lovely coucal. So shy, it immediately hid behind some branches when it spotted us.

The cool crispness of the morning kind off removed all the cobwebs from my brain and the sleep from my eyes. It was all so frustrating initially, as the foliage was dense, the birds were calling and darting about, but we couldn't see any of them. I mean really see. A shadow here, rustle of wings there, fading calls, but for a beginner like me, it was all too quick to really spot anything.

Suddenly, sitting silently on a branch above us, we spotted a lovely orange bird. What was it? Thrush, came the urgent whisper, and we trained our binoculars on it. It just sat there for us to get a good look at its orange head and chest, and the blue of its wings. About half a foot high. The Orange-headed thrush

Immediately thereafter, we did see The Indian Pitta! On a distant branch, and I'm sure I would've missed it, but for Arun and Padmanabhan, who pointed it out. Long legs, a yellowish underbody with a hint of a red vent, is what I saw. But I think what struck me most was its eyes - like a kohl-lined eyes of a bharatanatyam dancer. It shifted position, to allow us to see the greensih body as well. Quite a multi-coloured chap!

The pitta, I learnt is a hopper - we then did see the bird hopping about among the foliage on the ground, upturning leaves and looking for worms. Padmanabhan said these birds only call at daybreak, and so we missed the musical call of this bird.

We then walked across the campus to the wall adjoining the Guindy National Park, and there saw the bird in the picture - a blue-faced malkoha. We saw Arun taking out his camera, with deliberate, slow movements, and so went up to him and asked him what is it he saw. Without looking up, he hissed, "In the tree straight ahead look, a malkoha." (I was wondering about all this stealth, but later realised that if birds see you staring at them, they get all flustered and fly off! And no pointing either, please, as I learnt later) The Malkoha is a shy bird, which I think has no call. Anyway, all the stealth resulted in the picture above. A striking bird, and rather distinct eyes, isnt it?

It was an eyes and brows day, or so it seemed, since our next sighting was a White Browed bulbul . I've seen all kinds of bulbuls now - red vented, red-whiskered, yellow browed and white-browed!

Four new birds, one outing. Not bad huh?