Illalur morning

March 10th 2024

Hello said the sunbird!

The sun rose over Illalur lake, and we watched.

The magical shimmer of gold across the water, 

the silhouetted trees, 

Cormorants skidded across the surface,

Dew on the grasses, 

Dragonflies  hovering over the reeds

And I listened, to the

Gurgling chuckle of the White-browed bulbuls

Familiar francolins' call

Coucal hoot

Kingfisher's rattling cry

and the caw caw of the crows.

What's not to love in my morning meander

with others on a similar journey, together

Yet separate,

Enjoying our solitary discoveries 

Sharing our delights, 

and sandwiches!

Later at Mudayathur lake, the Thandri under water, unlike my last visit.

The Yellow Wattled Lapwings - an unexpected delight

An Osprey afar!

Cormorants aplenty

A brain fever bird after ages!

Oriental Skylark shot up from the grass, calling and hovering before descending

Smart and perky Indian Robins 

And a new discovery this time - the hillock near Vembedu Lake.  A lovely scrub area which we visited a little too late - next time we need to catch dawn here.

Returning via Nemmeli, and the flamingoes danced in the salt pans, on their amazingly long legs while the Spoonbills wagged their beaks and bodies, almost in time.  And what were the Northern Shovelers doing dabbling in the saltpans I wondered.  Aren't they freshwater, wetland ducks?

81 species for the morning - by Sagarika, Ramanan, Ramraj and me.  

My Visit of 2023 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.

First record of Greylag in Adyar estuary

 "On 15 November evening while walking along the riverside road in the Theosophical Society at about 5.15 pm I spotted a pair of big greyish coloured long-necked birds at a distance in the Adyar Estuary. There were many other large birds there that day- at least 20 pelicans and several painted storks, but these were distinctly different. It was a hazy evening and the birds were far away beyond the small islands in the river, but through binoculars, I could identify them as Greylag geese by the bulky body, shape of the neck and bill and colouration. They were standing in shallow water and swam away after a few minutes.

Having never seen them in this location before, despite being a regular walker along the river path, and always checking the estuary for birds, I made some enquiries among MNS members and others if there are any earlier records of this species. Both V Santharam who is familiar with the Adyar estuary for the past 40 years and Dr Balachandran of BNHS who is the best bird migration expert confirmed there is no previous record here. 

However, since my observation needed to be corroborated, I requested Geetha Jaikumar to also take a look when she went there. Fortunately, one the birds was still present on 17th Nov and she photographed it with her cellphone camera. Geetha's pictures confirm the sighting as the first record of Greylag Goose in the Adyar estuary.

On 18th November, a group of us again scanned the estuary with binoculars and scope from the same spot at around the same time and Geetha also looked out for them on subsequent days, but there was no further sighting. Perhaps the geese had moved away to the opposite bank where they were not visible, or had left the area. 

Tara Gandhi "

Waders arrive

Experiencing Pulicat in Kelambakkam 

The Hindu

Sept 19th 2021

Prince Frederick

For local birders, the ruddy turnstone is a “Pulicat bird” — period. The winter migrant keeps its date with the lagoon with almost monsoonal punctuality. Birders flocking to Pulicat for its stone-turning performance do not have too many cancelled matches to rail about.

The winter migrant does put in an appearance on a few other sections of the coast around Chennai, but it is just what it is said to be — an appearance, fleeting and unpredictable, on this winter and off for the next three. So, ruddy turnstone occurrences around Kelambakkam are received with the excitement that surrounds breaking news.

In the early hours of September 12, when Sundaravel Palanivel and Sivakumar Shamugasundaram began exploring the Kelambakkam backwaters and adjacent sections that are ecological extensions of it, for signs of early migrants, they did not have the ruddy turnstone on the list of probables.

Not that the species has never before been recorded on sections of these backwaters. However, on the question of being attractive to the ruddy turnstone, Kelambakkam backwaters’ record looks deplorably poor when juxtaposed with Pulicat’s. The chasm is as wide as the difference between Dilip Doshi’s batting averages and Virat Kozhi’s — so you get the picture.

When the day had sunk on the landward side, these two birders were mighty chuffed to have experienced Pulicat south of Chennai. Sundaravel Palanivel uploaded a checklist on which were parked three ruddy turnstones. The surprise did not begin with this species; nor did it end there. The biggest of those wow encounters was a flock of around 60 lesser sand plovers.

It was the size of the flock that made the birding duo feel being whisked away to Pulicat.

“We had the sense of encountering all the Pulicat birds. Besides the ruddy turnstones, terek sandpipers are readily associated with Pulicat. We found three of them on that Sunday trip,” says Sundaravel.

“It is a great pleasure to observe early migrants, especially when you encounter them in an unexpected place. There was much human activity not far from where the birds were. But these waders, not in the thousands that one would expect them to see later, did not seem affected by it. We could observe them go about their business from a good distance. The sand plovers, pacific golden plovers, terek sandpipers, the lone curlew sandpiper, the busy turnstones and the godwits were all a pleasure to watch and record,” is how Sivakumar describes the experience of watching an impressive number of migrants as early as September.

While the list put up on eBird clearly has a whiff of Pulicat, one has to go through the entire season to arrive at a reliable picture of whether the Muttukaddu-Kelambakkam-Kovalam backwater ecosystem can “sustain” the Pulicat experience through an entire season.

In fact, one has to be at least a couple of more winters older to be wiser in this matter. Meanwhile, it would help chew on an observation made by birder E Arun Kumar, who has done synchronised bird surveys at Pulicat for the last three years for the forest department.

Arun Kumar notes: “Sometimes, around the Kelambakkam side, you will get to see the ruddy turnstone because of the presence of the estuary at Muttukadu. Sometimes, the birds regularly sighted at Pulicat during the winter season are sighted around the Kelambakkam backwaters. They use it as the stopover point: At Kelambakkam, you will not see them for a long time. They will stay for just two or three days and then move on to Yedayanthittu estuary and Mudaliarkuppam backwaters or to Pulicat. When they come to Pulicat, they would stay on for months. In contrast, Kelambakkam would be just a pitstop. As Pulicat and Yedayanthittu are relatively untouched by development and are more expansive habitats, the species that are sighted at Kelambakkam will be found there in larger numbers . To give an example, you will see a few Pacific golden plovers in Kelambakkam, and thousands of them in Pulicat. In fact, the Pacific golden plover is also known to head to freshwater lakes which was corroborated by the sighting of 40 Pacific golden plovers at the Mamandur freshwater lake last wintering season.”

The excitement of the hornbill that showed up in south Madras

My first post this year celebrates an unusual event for me.

23rd Jan 2021

A rather interesting start to the morning.  As I desultorily scrolled through the MNS WhatsApp messages, I stopped.  Lakshmi, very tentatively, asks, "Is grey hornbill a usual visitor near Adyar broken bridge?"  Huh, whaaaat?  And then two pictures of pictures in their cameras!

The group was buzzing with amazement and excitement.  Rajaram called the bird Jonathon Livingston Hornbill, out exploring southern climes.  Vikas mentioned that it had not been seen south of Mamanduru maybe.

31st Jan 2021

The feathered celebrity made it to the papers, and of course e-bird.  TS has been such a sanctuary for all sorts of non-human creatures, in the heart of my city, guarded zealously by its members.  

Patagonia Picnic basket?  From Wiki -

The Patagonia picnic table effect (also known as the Patagonia rest area effect or Patagonia rest stop effect) is a phenomenon associated with birding in which an influx of birdwatchers following the discovery of a rare bird at a location results in the discovery of further rare birds at that location, and so on, with the end result being that the locality becomes well known for rare birds, even though in itself it may be little or no better than other similar localities.[1]

The name arises from the Patagonia Rest Stop in Arizona, where the phenomenon was first noted.[2] As of June, 2020, more than 220 species have been recorded there

24th Feb 2021

I am terrace-walking and listening to music, watching the sunbirds and the kingfisher, when there is a raucous frenzy among the crows, and a flash of grey into the Spathodea tree across the street.  Shikra, I think and watch it idly as I continue walking.  (A shikra had been calling loudly and insistently the fortnight before), and as I move, I suddenly stop - that beak looks way too big, and wait, that tail is too long.  

Hello, what - it is the hornbill!  I could not believe my myopic eyes were seeing right.  Call to my husband goes unanswered.  Ring Sheila - she answers, I hiss, come up immediately - bring camera and binocs - the hornbill is here!  I must say that she was up pronto (nothing else would stir us up into such quick action), and I point (without pointing, can't have the bird flying off), and she says yes.  I grab her binoculars, and her hands shake as she tries to put her camera on and focus on it, in the foliage.  The crows continue to caw blue murder all around.  I get a good look through the binoculars.

Almost immediately, it decided it had enough of the bullying crows, and took off with one call, flying east.

The Indian Grey hornbill seen on new beach road, seconds before it took off.  Photo by Sheila

What an unexpected "darshan", and I was so happy I could share the moment with atleast one more person.  I felt a bit sad as well, as to the hostility it had to face from the neighbourhood crows, let alone the lack of its favourite fruit trees.  I wished and hoped it had flown back to the TS.

Tried to upload the sighting on e-bird, but hmmm the bird did not exist or what?  Ah, tripped by Grey vs Gray.  

Soon after, it was not TS, but IIT where it was heard.  Suzy reported hearing calls, but no sightings.  And then on the 27th, Mahathi caught a glimpse.  

Indian Gray Hornbill (Ocyceros birostris) (1)

- Reported Feb 27, 2021 13:01 by Mahathi Narayanaswamy
- Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
- Map: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=p&z=13&q=12.9934334,80.2380896&ll=12.9934334,80.2380896
- Checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S82408913
- Comments: "Flew into the banyan in front of stadium and disturbed 9 of the 14 koels on the tree. As a result it got startled and it flew out. I tried to look for it again, especially since a lot of banyan trees in the area are fruiting but looking at birds on the banyan tree for so long non stop caused my neck to get strained so will go home check the trees around my house take a break and come back once the sun subsides a little to look for the bird to get a record shot.
This individual has been seen in ts and thiruvanmiyur recently and we have been hearing it on campus around the stadium area for the past three days so it may be doing rounds there owing to the several fruiting banyans in the area.
As for description- Size was koel+, flight was in a sense as though it soars before it landed, colour of feathers is uniform grey, tail and wing feathers have white markings which are viable in flight, for the few seconds that I got to see it the notch like thing on the hornbills beak was also visible(dont know what its called)."

I wish you safe passage and haven, and may you make a home and family in our city, or wherever your journey takes you.  Thanks for the visit.  

Palaash Blossoms and Rosy Starlings - by Yuvan Aves

I came across this beautiful essay in the Madras Naturalists' Society, MNS Blackbuck monthly bulletin, and what a beautiful piece of writing it was for me. I wanted to re-read and store it for easy access, and to share the joy of reading this with more people.

The Palaash is a glorious glorious tree, sadly infrequent in my life and Starlings come and go with the season, adding that excitement to the magic of migration.  

Palaash Blossoms and Rosy Starlings - by Yuvan Aves

"From a distance, with some imagination on my part, the tree could well be a titan’s arm reaching up with his palm spread wide, his crooked fingers dripping with magma, having broken through the crust."  Butea monosperma (Palaash) Photo by Yuvan

If not every day, then during every transiting month, the human being who pleasures in taking long walks and communing with the landscape, has something or the other to anticipate excitedly.
March is almost upon us and the Palaash trees everywhere are full of buds, making their branches sag. Very soon, when one looks up one morning, they would have suddenly bloomed altogether, overnight. And the tree would then bear not a sole leaf. Not a tinge of dark green would be seen on its crown, for it would have replaced every single one of them with its tongue like kesari-orange flowers curling towards the sky. From a distance, with some imagination on my part, the tree could well be a titan’s arm reaching up with his palm spread wide, his crooked fingers dripping with magma, having broken through the crust. The roads and walkways below are carpeted. The canopies of the smaller trees around are topped. Its flowers bob all along the shores of a pond or lake, if one is nearby. A tall flowering Palaash is a salient landmark wherever it is.

For a few years I was blessed with the opportunity of walking every morning by a very old Palaash tree, down the road from the campus I taught in. It stood on the bund slope of a village lake. Much of the wood in its ancient rugged trunk had been carved out by insects and the weather, and for much of its height, only a thin rim held up its branches and foliage. How was it managing to convey life to its broad-spread crown? In its shade and across the road were dozens of Palaash saplings of various heights. Some were even young trees at a blooming age, and all were its children. For a portion of the road I had gotten used to the familiar rustle of the flat, wide, brittle leaves of these Palaashes. It wasn’t like the thick gurgling of a Neem tree nor was it like the torrential sound of a Banyan. The sound of the Palaash was like a crowd of paper hands applauding.

Reading Peter Wohlleben and about the Wood wide web, I now think I understand the life of this mother Palaash better. I can imagine its wide roots beneath the road entwined with those of all its children. Maybe many years ago it nourished them, sending down all the surplus nutrition it made in its leaves. Now as it ages and its trunk withers from inside, surely it is in its offspring’s care, which are holding to it and supplying what it needs to keep alive.

Intelligence can extend across larger forms, beyond close fitting skulls, beyond bodies and entities. The Earth, Gaia, has its own inherent intelligence as Lovelock testifies, just as did many ancient cultures much before. And this is not the sum of all its beings and matter. It is a sentient creature by itself. A star cluster may have its own larger intelligence. And a flock of birds have a complex intelligence, unconfined by feathers, flesh and space. How then does one explain starlings and the shapes of their murmurations? Hundreds of birds spiraling and snaking in the sky, a cloud of black masses clustering, stretching, folding and evolving in abstract ways. I have seen a whale, a hook, a boomerang and some other vague resemblances which my mind strives to identify with something of its own world. How then does one explain a whole flock, dispersed across an overgrown pasture, spontaneously taking off together? How also does one explain the settling of the entire flock, all together in the afternoon on a flowering Palaash, or at dusk, on the same leafless tree, as if all were of one mind?  I like the way Robert Macfarlane words this in a poem in The Lost Words - “Ghostly swirling surging whirling melting murmuration of starling flock.”

I speak of Rosy Starlings, the second most common starling I am accustomed to seeing but I might as well be speaking about European starlings or the White-Winged Black-Terns I see sometimes behaving similarly above the wetlands they come to.

Pastor roseus, Rosy Starling on the Palaash - Photo by Yuvan

Rosy Starlings are late migrants into the southern reaches of the country and it is only by mid or late December that I first see little troops of them trickling in. Having not seen them for more than half the year, I always end up wondering what on Earth those birds were which shot over me, when the first arrive. Here during this time in Kanchipuram and much of rural Tamil Nadu, some of the farmers would have ploughed their fields and sowed the Navarai crop (the paddy to be harvested in Summer). But much of the land in dry and semi dry areas is fallow, overgrown with Ban Tulsi, Tephrosia, countless grasses and little shrubs. These untilled fields are where you will find the starlings for most of the day. The flocks will descend steeply from above, swerve parallelly to the ground and in a flicker, would have abruptly vanished into the low vegetation. A second ago there would have been a crowd of nosediving shapes striving to retard their momenta, seemingly a moment too late, and in the moment after, they would have all submerged into the shrubbery as if it were water, with no thuds or squeals. The plants don’t twitch with their activity. I imagine them moving on mute feet, carefully stalking insects hiding by the stems and in the soil cracks. Here and there a starling would jump above the vegetation and land back in. And then one can tell that they are running behind and trying to catch the insects they have flushed. When they decide to, they would all take off in a single explosion.

Rachel Carson calls it the ‘Other Road’, like a lamp of hope at the very end of deeply disquieting and illumining ‘Silent Spring’. In essence, she speaks in this chapter about using wisdom from nature for our means to grow, to feed and to live as opposed to butting heads with the ingenuity of something as old as time, whether it be flooding our food crops with poisons or be it among the countless other practices our contemporary ways of life demand, which has made every stratum of the biosphere less fit for life. 

And while writing of Rosy Starlings one also definitely needs to narate the story of the Xinjiang. This is an agricultural district in China where these Starlings naturally bred every Summer. The croplands here were perpetually under the scourge of Locusts and Grasshoppers, and these phytophagous insects seemed to quickly develop a facile resistance to the expensive quantities of insecticides used on them. It took one sharp observation by a local to discover that Rosy Starlings primarily fed on these very insects as they foraged the fields. The farmers setup artificial nests around their farms to invite the birds to breed nearby and it is reported that in a few years the locust populations fell so low that insecticide use was practically stopped. This success story could underline the importance today of working with nature, aligning one’s efforts along its own principles versus, attempting to subdue it. 

These Starlings also visit the flowers of the Silk Cotton and the Coral tree. Maybe sometimes forage the Babuls and Subabuls (certainly not for nectar). But from what I have seen, the nectar of Palaash blossoms are their single most favourite. The tree is visited also by many other nectar feeders. I would sometimes see Flowerpeckers on it which would have travelled from the nearby hills. One wouldn’t see these tiny tots anywhere near here during the rest of the year. The collective sounds of the starlings emanating from the crown would be like a noisy gurgling stream collapsing on the rocks, drowning out the cackling of the Treepies, the Sunbirds, Barbets, the bawling of the Common Mynahs and also the Bullock carts and Motorcycles passing below. Conversations would briefly pause when we went by this Palaash tree during morning walks. The birds are like a dining hall full of children at lunch break.  

By April the red flowers would have started turning into flat pods and the Rosy starling flocks would have also turned homewards. Yet an old tree, still flowering each year, with its rugged weather worn trunk holds this fragile kinship, a bond between a population of migrating birds and a remote village in the Southern reaches of the country.

Trees have personalities. Some trees behave differently when alone and when in a group of their own company. Mango growers have told me this. Mango trees planted alone succumb more quickly to beetle and fungal attacks than one growing in an orchard. A Banyan on the other hand likes to be a loner and is likely to not let another grow too closeby. Their aerial roots can attach to other trunks, parasitize them and finish them off over time. Quite often an infant Banyan reaches adolescence by choking a Palmyra tree, a very common choice of host given that its trunk is full of crevices, and over many years swallowing it into its trunk and replacing it.  A Palaash is a sought after tree for its flowers. Schools and institutions take home a single sapling to plant in their courtyard. I have come across so many such lone standing trees within paved perimeters which look sickly and which refuse to flower. Or at the most flower reluctantly once in many years. But do witness for yourself in the places where generations of these trees are allowed to grow together as close neighbors. The mature trees blossom punctually year after year.

At a facile level, yes, it is necessary to protect an old tree such as this Palaash, which probably has been by this lake as long as the village has been. It would have seen generations and generations of starlings and other birds feeding from its flowers, chicks growing into adults and flying back with their offspring. Billions of bees, other insects and their larvae would have drawn sustenance from it over the decades. Its flowers would have decorated and sanctified altars and the temples nearby. Its presence would have lent itself, in some subtle or small way, to all those who travelled beneath it. But at a deeper level, an ancient tree offers something else to everything around which is more difficult to put in words. I have found myself at times segue into a conversation or speaking aloud to the Palaash while sitting beneath it alone. A tree can be a patient and non-judging listener, a counsellor even. I have felt healed and discernably more at peace with myself. Sometimes I have stood by it for a long time touching my palm to its craggy trunk and just imbibing the feeling of it. One could say that trees have an energy field around them, as Eckhart Tolle may wish to put it. A field where living organisms thrive but also where one palpably feels thought or any kind of human conflict to be diminished. A pervasive and penetrating space of intrinsic harmony. And if one comes to rest beneath its trunk with stillness one is certainly touched by this dimension. After a while one may walk away with a burst of clarity.

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?

Winter visitor on a wire

Blue-tailed bee-eater (Merops philippinus) - winter visitor

COMB DUCK AT SHOLINGANALLUR

I love this duck, and I am so excited overtime I see it.  I didn't see it this time, but Mr Ramanan did, at Sholinganallur.

Sarkidiornis melanotos - the beautiful wing colours catch the sun. Photo by Mr Ramanan

It's a large duck and shows up in our waters every other year. migrating down for the winter, and they look quite distinctive with their speckled heads and the 'comb' on the head of the male.

Photo by Mr Ramanan - the distinctive comb for the male

Photo by Mr Ramanan

I need to go and pay a visit to Sholinganallur, soon.

Rare Dollarbird sighting

Vikas is a young and serious naturalist and MNS member  with whom we have travelled on several birding trips across the country.  I have never seen anyone with the astonishing speed of capturing record shots like Vikas - if he was in the Wild West he would have been known as Velocious (yes there is a word like that) Vikas! - and this ability of his  coupled with his thorough grasp of the bird books, yields some amazing sightings/ rare gaffes and never a dull moment.

I have an easy formula - on any trip my personal bird sightings will be half of his!

Anyway, he has been on the prowl at GNP, and on 26th November spotted a Dollarbird at the Polo ground.  This is what he has to say -

"Words can't express my astonishment when I saw this bird sitting on a tree near Doctors Road. We were trying to find orange breasted green pigeons when I spotted this odd bird. When Rama Aunty and I took pictures we were dazzled that the bird was blue and had a prominent red bull and violet throat.

Hence we went closer to the bird and it flew to a new open perch where I could confirm it to be a Dollar Bird!"

 Photo by Vikas - Eurystomus orientalis

 This bird is usually seen in the Western Ghats in south India, and it is an unusual and rare sighting for Chennai.  I have not seen this bird as yet.  I am quite sure given my poor sighting skills and my rotten sense of timing, I would have missed the pretty bird even if I had been around Vikas!

Hope you have a good time in Chennai, Dollarbird, and the weather suits you and you find a mate and a family soon.

Salt and Sambhar - a place in need of urgent attention

17th January 2015

We bundled into our cars in Sujangarh, as we reached the last day of our rather interesting week in Rajasthan.

The town seemed to have some south Indian influence, as we saw a familiar gopuram by the roadside.

Lakshmi pleaded that we should have breakfast elsewhere, and so we landed up at Rama hotel, which was a vast improvement to our hotel, and we gorged on parottas, which kept coming from the kitchens.

Our souls were in a better state at the end of that, and we set off on our long journey east to Jaipur.

We were at the fag end of our trip, and it was with some regret, as I realized it would soon be back to work.

As I looked out of the window, I saw the by now familiar lopped Khejri trees, looking forlorn and leafless, standing over fallow fields.

Further east, and the trees were in leaf, as also the mustard fields.

And then suddenly there were these lines of lorries filled with salt.

We were closing in on Sambhar lake, the salt water lake of my childhood textbooks.  I remember our Geography teacher droning on about how it was India's largest inland saline depression.  I also remember never quite having it explained as to why it was saline!

Never did I think that one day I would actually visit this lake, far removed from the beaten track.

(It has always bugged me as to why it is called sambhar, my favourite gravy.  (The same is true for the deer as well.  ))





Located between Jaipur in the east and Ajmer to the west, it is now a designated Ramsar wetland.

We crossed a red brick, shabby building which announced the station - yes the lake has a station - and my sense of anticipation grew.

I thought of Pulicat and Chilika, the other estuarine backwater lagoons, with large expanses of water as far as the eye could see.

We turned a corner, and the cars halted at the edge of what looked like the local garbage dump.

Nabeel our guide said we had to walk past a little bund we saw.  To my increasing shock and dismay, it seemed we were walking into the local village facility, we seemed to interrupt people in their toilet, and there was garbage and feces everywhere.

I still cannot get over it actually, how this could be a Ramsar site, and be so neglected.  More than the birds then, it was the shocking state of the lake that hit me.

There were children playing cricket in these unhygienic conditions - on the dry lake bed, and we spoke to some of them, asking them why it was like this.  They seemed to indicate that the village elders were unconcerned, there was not enough of toilet facilities, etc etc.

On my return I also read that there are two PSU salt companies - Sambhar Salts Limited and Bharat Salts - located here and working the salt pans.  Why on earth have they not taken on the revival of this historical lake that is part of our ecological and environmental heritage?

Even Pallikaranai seems better off when compared to this lake.

From Google maps

A railway line cuts the lake - the side we are in (the western side) is the protected (rather, neglected) lake, left for the birds, while the other side is the salt pans.  There is also a dam further east to regulate the water flow to the pans.

Sambhar city relies on salt mining for its livelihood.  Salt has been mined here from the 6th century AD when the Chauhans ruled, and has continued continuously to date.

How is this lake saline, though?

Greater flamingoes - yes, they were the main attraction and they stood in the middle of the lake, probably in half a foot of water.

A pied Avocet tried to make the best of a bad deal scrounging in the murky waters.

As we watched a train came rattling by on the track.  The track dates back to British India, and was the line for transporting salt out of the region.

The flamingoes decided they were better off in the air at this point, and circled in formation until the train passed.

They came settling back down only after the train had moved on.

At one point in the eighties there used to be lakhs of these birds, I read, not so anymore.  Not enough water is reaching the lake as the frehwater channel/rivers are choked

Lapwigs, stilts and godwits mucked around disconsolately (I thought).

We even spotted a snipe

And a wagtail

We were not unhappy to leave, frankly, a rather strange phenomenon for an MNS group which is always malingering.

I hope that I am able to raise some awareness of the urgent needs of this habitat.

We headed out to lunch and then set off for Jaipur on our way back home.

Further surprises awaited us, as we came to learn from indifferent Air Costa staff that our Chennai flight was cancelled.  Of course they were "generous" enough to give us a full refund.

We then were all forced to book tickets on the Jaipur-Bangalore flight, thinking that it is better to come south than hang around there.

Then the question was how do we move from Bangalore to Chennai?  A KSRTC bus that left at midnight was found by Kumar's enterprising daughter and tickets were booked online, as we raised a toast to the mobile phone and online booking!

So, deplane at Bangalore, rush madly to baggage claim, and a quick bathroom stop before we caught two cabs urging the drivers to drive us with speed to the bus stand in town.

Then we (in one cab) reach the well marked bus bays, and find a couple of people hanging around on the pavement, and asked them about the Chennai bus.  They informed us that it was yet to come, so we hang around with them, while eyeing another bus that was idling ahead of us.

The second cab arrives, with Kumar's daughter, who asks us why we are waiting and not boarding the bus!!  She had received an sms with the bus number, and the gents on the pavement were obviously unaware or spreading disinformation!  Giggling hysterically, we got on, and made our way to the seats.

We continued to laugh until we dozed off fitfully, reaching the chaos of Koyambedu on the morning of the 18th, boarded a share auto and suffered a bone rattling ride all the way home.

A good bath, and a morning cup of strong filter coffee, and all was once again well with the world!

Rajasthan was now a memory.