The Perumbakkam lake - A Nature Walk and a Spotted Eagle

The Perumbakkam lake, part of the Pallikaranai marsh ecosystem, is a regular part of our NIFT Nature Walks programme.

We show the students the idiocy of developing a municipal garbage dump on a wetland, and we also show them all the bird life hidden in plain sight.

Water birds are a great way to start birding isn't it, with nice big interesting birds that are easy to spot and are generally seen.

While last term we were treated with flamingoes and ducks, this time it was pelicans and ibis.  The Pied Kingfishers put on a great show for us, and there was much oohing and aahing, as it hovered and then did a direct dive bomb, coming up with fish!

At the Pallikaranai end, it seems as if the water levels have fallen with the grasses and reed growing in abundance, and the little waders have moved far away from the road.

And then there were JCB excavators "clearing" the undergrowth from the roadside, under express orders to beautify the road.  Chithra was trying to tell the supervisor that this was protected forest land, and the supervisor was splitting hairs as the road is Highways land.

I only hope that there is no cement and paving to follow.

The icing on the cake was the large raptor we saw.  Sagarika and her camera were on hand to take these record shots, which were identified as a great Spotted Eagle!

The greater spotted eagle (Clanga clanga) - profusely spotted upper wings.  This was the shot that helped to establish the identification.  Photo By Sagarika

Imagine that, it is here for the winter.  How do they find their way, locate a water body, amazing!
Photo By Sagarika

On the hunt. Photo By Sagarika

Pictures from our November 2019 visit

Pictures from our February 2019 visit

Pictures from October 2018 visit

Rain catcher: on Jacobin Cuckoo - The Hindu

An interesting article about the Jacobin cuckoo, with pictures from Sagarika's sightings this April 2019, around Perumbakkam, part of the larger Pallikaranai marsh area.

Rain catcher: on Jacobin Cuckoo - The Hindu

The Jacobin Cuckoo heralds the monsoon in north India

Abhishek Gulshan

The Jacobin Cuckoo is one lucky bird indeed. At least according to Indian myth. Also known as the Pied Cuckoo or Chatak, this bird heralds the onset of the monsoon in India.

Being an agricultural economy the rainy season is considered one of the most auspicious seasons in the country. And so, the Pied Cuckoo in North and Central India is a welcome sight.

It is a bird with black and white plumage (pied) with a fancy crest on the head. Its scientific name is Clamator jacobinus. The genus ‘Clamator’ literally translates to being a shouter, a bird which is quite vocal, so you’ll hear yourself surrounded by the calls close to the monsoon. The word ‘jacobinus’ relates to pied birds.

Pictures are from Sagarika's sighting in Chennai

There are two populations of the Pied Cuckoo in India. One is a resident in the southern part of the country. The other, according to tracking by birders, makes its way to North and Central India from Africa by crossing the Arabian Sea, along with the monsoon winds. When the monsoon arrives in all its majesty, its sighting also spreads widely.

So this is a resident?  I didn't know that.

The bird is primarily arboreal, which means that it mostly lives on trees but often forages for food in low bushes, and sometimes even on the ground. Considering its arboreal nature, it prefers forests, well-wooded areas and also bushes in semi-arid regions. These birds are primarily insectivores and feed on grasshoppers, beetles and are also often seen feeding on fruits and berries from trees.


The species, like all cuckoos, is a brood parasite. It lays its eggs in nests that belong to other birds, preferring similar-sized birds like babblers and bulbuls, as their ‘hosts’. The hosts are often distracted by male cuckoos, and the females quickly lay their similar-sized and coloured eggs into the hosts’ nests. The hosts then take care of the eggs and the chicks that hatch from them, as their own. The parasitic chicks are fed by the hosts and then leave the host parents once they are ready to be on their own.

A few years ago, birdwatchers set out to test the truth behind whether the bird does signal the coming of the monsoon. We began a monitoring process, collecting data around bird sightings, and other habits. This is being documented online on ebird.org, an Ivy-League initiative for birdwatchers all around the world.

A large number of birdwatchers reported the sighting of the Pied Cuckoo on the online documentation forum, and when these dates of sightings were compared to the monsoon's arrival, as available with the Indian Meteorological Department, the results were fairly clear. Pied Cuckoos did indeed arrive before the monsoon in most parts of central and northern India. In a few areas, it was also observed that wherever the monsoon was to arrive earlier than usual, the Pied Cuckoo also showed up a few days earlier. So the Chatak is not an old wives’ tale anymore.

To join a trail in Mangar, Haryana this Sunday and spot the Jacobin Cuckoo, email ninox.edu@ gmail.com

The writer is the founder of NINOX - Owl about Nature, a nature-awareness initiative. He formerly led a programme at WWF India as a naturalist, and is the Delhi-NCR reviewer for Ebird, a Cornell University initiative, monitoring rare sightings of birds in the region

The snipes of Karapakkam

20th April 2019

I make life difficult for myself.  I have to go and see those snipes, but I cannot take the car all by myself, so I need to find company to justify those carbons in the air, and I am finding low cooperation from the family, and so it has meant that despite Sagarika's constant nagging, bribing (with those lovely pictures), and whining, I did not go to see them.  (She claims she was after me since February, but she loves to be technical and specific about these matters.)

After extracting a promise that I will not malinger or wander or get  a heatstroke, (I am known to do all three), my husband decided to be the other warm body as we set off to see the Snipes of Karapakkam.

In the process we saw the relentless march of construction in the Pallikaranai marsh, as we followed instructions into some interior roads where every few plots were empty and marshy and supporting swamp hens, pond herons and warblers and sunbirds, while multi-storeyed buildings and debris filled more and more of the wetland.

We parked in one of the lanes and walked around stopping at each marshy plot.  Flashes of purple as swamp hens fluttered from one plot to the other.  A watercock walked into the reeds as did a bittern.  A plain prinia flitted among the reeds, calling sharply as it swayed precariously on the slim blade.  A purple-rumped sunbird flashed across heading for the wildflowers that were growing in the edges.

But no snipe did we spot.  We reached the end of the road, and suddenly it was all marsh ahead.  We seemed to have reached the existing boundary of construction,  a road running south-north along the edge.  At the far end, we saw a gaggle of photographers and binocular-wielding humans and we knew that must be where the snipes are!  We hurried across and there they were, several of them, staring balefully and not doing very much.  The Greater Painted Snipes.  My first time.

GK was there and filled me in on some rather interesting aspects.  The female is well marked, brightly coloured and polyandrous.  She does the courting, and once the eggs are laid, it is the male that sits and takes care of the nest and brood while she goes out and forages!  As a result the male is dull coloured. Opposite of the usual rule of brightly coloured males.

This was my first sighting of the Snipes.  We also saw Common Snipes.  Supposedly the Painted Snipes are not "real" snipes", Common Snipes are.  The common snipe (Gallinago gallinago) does not have the role reversal of the Painted ones, and they are also more shy it appears.  They had a long straight bill and a mottled appearance.

Here are the pictures from Sagarika's visit - we did not have a camera.

 The Greater painted-snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) male, which is a duller brown and has that white breast band

The spectacular colourings of the female.  The eye patch looks like the letter P, doesn't it?

Sagarika pointed me to another interesting aspect of this bird.  It is the origin for the word "sniper".  According to Wikipedia, soldiers of British India used "to snipe", which meant they would go and hunt and shoot these plump rather slow-moving birds.  And these "sportsmen" (whats so sporting about it beats me completely), were referred to as snipers.

The Chennai sun was out by now, and the crowd of birdwatchers thinned, and we left too, not before seeing the aerial antics of some green beeeaters.

The slowly vanishing wetland of Chennai still teams with life

Pallikaranai wetland and Perumbakkam lake:  In front of our eyes, it is slowly dying, choking with garbage, and being filled in for development, as we watch helplessly.

And how much of bird life is still there!  Through the winter of 2018-19, my friend Sagarika, visited the wetlands and recoded the comings and goings of winter visitors, the nesting of some of the water birds, the courtship and the territoriality.

Flamingoes crowd around in the little patch of water, buildings all around.

A mixed menagerie, all cheek by jowl - pelicans, egrets, herons, ducks

And all the time, there is this relentless filling in off the marsh.  

The Pied Avocets sharing space with Black-Winged Stilts and the ducks

A Yellow bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis) skulked in the undergrowth, its head feathers all astray.  She spotted several through the course of her regular weekend visits.

Another Yellow Bittern, in breeding plumage.

The black bittern (Ixobrychus flavicollis) also loves wetlands, nests in the reed beds.  Sagarika found this one,
stock still as it waited for fish.

Above the water, in the shrubbery, the winter visitor Blue-tailed bee eater brought a
flash of brilliant colour as it fed on the insects that are a plenty over the waters.

And on the lines above, barn swallows rested in droves

 

This season, the flamingoes have been seen in large numbers.  Pallikaranai, opposite the garbage dump, and in the Perumbakkam side, they have been seen everywhere.  Juveniles and adults.

 

Garganeys visiting for the winter,

... as also Godwits

Ibises aplenty,

Pheasant-tailed Jacanas in breeding plumage and nesting as well.

A Jacobin's cuckoo among the thorny scrub

She spied a Jerdon's bush lark (Mirafra affinis) or Jerdon's lark, something I have not seen, ever.  

While a bush chat seemed to spy her..

And a raptor surveyed its hunting grounds.."it was huge in size.  Huge as in so huge we could see it with naked eye!"  Bigger than a Harrier, so probably an Eagle.

A ringed Plover seemed to pose for her.

Is that a Ruff rummaging in the weeds?

A Northern Shoveler couple swim and feed

The weekend birders 'club' knew the Snipe spots!  Painted?  

They spotted some 15 one day! Common Snipes

And Wagtails together!  Citrine and Yellow.

The Clamorous Reed Warbler clamoured and sang delightfully,

Whistling teals whistled as they flew in formation across the marsh

And many a Swamp Hen preened, fed and called, across the wetlands.

Birders go every weekend, in-beween the apartment complexes.  Every empty plot is still a wetland, and along with the plastic and other human-generated garbage, there is still urban wildlife.

How long until it all vanishes?