Nature walking

 7th July 2022

WhatsApp conversation with G3.

She:  need to see you.
Me:  Am at mum's,  come anytime.
She: ok.  Tomorrow morning?

Me:  Sure!  

She: 545am?

Me:  Whaaat?  No no...Finish your walk and come, no hurry.

She:  LOL!  Ok 6am - for you.  Come, lets explore estuary!  Send address, will pick you.

Me:  (Pleading) - 630pl?

She - Che(with her trademark duck)  - ok 615! 

 8th July 2022

She sends a reminder at 545 that she's coming shortly.  I am saying wait, I have to have coffee, wear shoes....

Thank you G3, for hustling me into the walk, which I thoroughly enjoyed, along with the giggles over God Knows what!

A herd of buffaloes crossed by lazily, reminding us of Yama and a fancy dress competition where G3's classmate came as Yama, astride a buffalo, if you please.  (yes she brought along the buffalo's owner too!)

The scrub was full of bird call.  Ashy Prinias loudly called from atop the highest branches and flicked their tails.  White-browed bulbuls gurgled incessantly within the scrub.  A couple of green beeeaters hawked.  A Francolin's call pierced he air.  A drongo swooped as it caught the dragonflies that hovered.  In the distance I heard the call of the Laughing Dove, even as there was a screechy flypast of parakeets.  Now neither of us had binoculars, and we only had cellphones.  So we enjoyed the sounds and sights and wondered if that brown bird was a Jerdon's bush lark and was that a Jacobin's cuckoo?  A group of ladies were binocularing into the bushes - peering at what they hoped was a pair of Ioras - but no luck.

We wandered onto the sand.  The tide was receding and we walked and explored the shells among the plastic waste thrown back by the sea.

I found a clean patch of sand, water and shells!  Photograph-worthy indeed.  It was a lovely cloudy day, with a beautiful breeze blowing across.

Among the bonnet shells, clams, bivalves and tower shells was this unusual one - the shell of an Ark clam, I was told later.

Arca zebra - Rohith opined.  What beautiful colours!  Wiki says this is called Turkey Wing clam, after the colouring which resembles the wings of a turkey.  Hmm really?

The insides of it.  I loved the hinge of the mollusc that still opened and shut.  The shell housed a filter feeding, hermaphrodite shallow water mollusc, now long gone.  Dead.

https://www.sealifebase.ca/summary/Arca-zebra.html

"Diagnostic features: Shell rectangular, elongate (twice as long as wide), equivalve. Sculpture of about 20 to 30 irregular radial ribs, and fine concentric threads that cross-ribs and interspaces. Byssal gap present opposite to hinge, moderately narrow. Hinge long. Colour: creamy white, streaked with reddish to dark brown wavy bands. Periostracum brown and dense on fresh shells, covering colour pattern almost completely "

Seemed to fit perfectly for this shell.  The only problem with this id is that the mollusc is found of the eastern coast of the Americas.  Hmmm

As we walked through the TS, we argued whether a bush was the idlypoo ixora or not.  The estuary side was all cleared up - but the only water birds we saw in large numbers were little egrets.

A Brown land crab fixed us with a stare - the only one that didn't scurry into its hole.  He must be an outlier, a leader I thought to myself. Large fellow.

We admired the cacti, putting out flowers, the lotus pond with the full lotus lifecycle - bud, bloom, unfertilised seed case and fertilised - all gyaan picked up from G3, our Green Goddess Walking Encyclopaedia!

The mighty baobab was flowering and fruiting.  What an amazing tree it is.  Every time I see it, I wonder at it - the size of its trunk, the magnificence of its branches.  I learnt a new term - Pachycauls - trees with disproportionately stout trunks.

We spoke about the ideals of the Theosophical movement and how they were relevant even today - yeah along with the giggles there were some serious discussions too.  I almost missed the rat snake that slithered into the undergrowth, spotted by G3 - me as usual watching the sky and clouds.  It was a large and magnificent specimen.

And so ended my lovely morning as the coucal flew across our paths and the sunbirds flitted above.  Thanks G3 - appa would have been delighted to hear how he touched your lives, as was I.  He enjoyed taking amma to the TS, even though he was not much into "nature".  

Urbaser Eco Warriors

 10th March 2022

A morning on the beach. Since it was a low tide morning.

Started with the thickets and scrub near 4th Seaward Road.  A hoopoe dug furiously in the soft sand, picking up breakfast.  Flew as I approached, only to be chased by a crow for some reason.

A couple of Plain Prinias flitted through the Calatropis, and I watched them move up and down the branch, before zooming off to the next one.  I admired their beautiful white brows, pink legs and longish tail.  Among them was a Tailorbird, a little stockier, and calling loudly.   Soon the Prinias went one way and the Tailorbird another way.

A Cattle Egret moved in slow motion among the grasses.  

I moved on the the water front, and was horrified by what I saw.

The sea had just deposited piles of waste - I had never seen anything like this.

Just piles of waste - cloth, plastic, slippers, bottles, medicine strips....a veritable tsunami of garbage.

And then suddenly - a broom, a pile of waste...hmm?

Walk a few more steps, more brooms and more signs of a clean-up, and I spied the Urbaser crew!

Hats off to the team who were methodically raking and collecting the waste, and removing them in large bags. We exchanged cheery hellos, and I thanked them for their efforts.

And this was what the beach sands looked like after they were done!  

What a joy and delight!

Today's beach combing

A Torpedo Ray(!!), Tower shells, Razor clam shells... 

Wedge clams a plenty

Sunset siliqua and Towers

White Hammer Oyster and other unknowns

And this strange piece of bone...Mammalian?  

Back on to the road, down to Sparrow Point where I was rewarded with a flock of 20 House Sparrows, chirping and arguing.  A sudden commotion from one of the homes along the wall, a man brandishing a stick and chasing a cat, that was super frisky and obviously had something in its mouth - a live squirrel!  The cat won its catch, as it escaped the man's stick.

Another Urbaser crew cleaning the beach roads.  

A line of two wheelers in queue, performing figures of eight as the RTO Inspector looked on.

Back home, hungry, and I did enjoy those dosais and coffee!

A morning at the estuary

Early start today!  Went off to Adyar Estuary to bird - part of AWC.  Arrived at 630, to find a huge gaggle of bikers, all headed to the Broken Bridge, uhh!  Syed, Sagarika, Gayathree, Gowtham, Rohith - two spotting scopes.  Ran into Yuvan and Aswathi as well - and as a result got myself a copy of the Coastal Fauna of Chennai, put together by them - 160 species that you would commonly find.

The walk on the sand was filled with land mines - defecation free my foot - sigh!  

Some beach combing before arriving at the estuary.  Besides all the human waste (literally), and flotsam, that included slippers, cartons, thermocol, flower garlands and what not, were various fragments of creatures.  Many dead OR turtles too - I saw 3! I believe the SSTCN has suspended their public walks due to COVID.  I hope they are still collecting those eggs.  Now there is only a TN hatchery.  

 

A washed up Spiral Babylon snail shell - A marine gastropod mollusc once lived in it

Another sea snail - Murex tribulus, with all its spines that protect it from other predators, while it happily feeds on other molluscs.

The Common Moon Crab that has no Wiki page, goodness! I love their paddle like feet, supposedly helps them disappear into the sand in a trice.

Japanese sponge crab, with the pink pincers

And then we arrived at the estuary mouth

Regular recreation spot is the broken bridge

Magical morning, with the sun shimmering off the water

Pelicans, egrets, crows and humans a plenty.  Smaller flocks of plovers that were too far away for me to see well.  Spotting scopes very much needed.

While Rohith counted the Redshanks, I admired the waves of sand left behind at low tide.

The crow kept an eye on me while pretending not to, as it fed on a fish. 

This Little Egret balanced on this water weed endlessly meditating on the waters.    Fishermen fished, and shoals of small silver fished jumped in the air.

I was fascinated by the little egrets fishing on the water’s edge.  New behaviour seen in 2022 for me.  I couldn't get enough of them.  As they kind of squawked at each other and the crows - seemed rather grumpy, though they kept feeding!!

Many of them had their breeding headgear kudumis, flapping in the wind, quite cutely. 

A Caspian Tern flew overhead, Pond Herons skulked in the mangroves, and cormorants alternated between drying themselves and periscoping in the water.  And then it was time to head back, and as we walked back, there was a lot more to see in the undergrowth just outside the TS walls!

My first hoopoe of the year, busy ferreting in the mud, with its long beak, White-browed bulbuls in pairs, calling loudly, reminding me of a gurgling stream, bee eaters gliding across, Prinia occupying the high perches and singing, a purple sunbird glinting in the sun, parakeets and spotted doves.  The butterflies were beginning to sun themselves, tawny fosters, a blue tiger, and large Crimson Rose fluttered by.

Sagarika and I malingered as usual and were the last to wind up and head home.  Sun, sea and sand, and I had worked up a good appetite - a Mysore masala dosai was a good way to end it.