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".  

Ocean's 6: Real life Planeteers - Young MNS members learn about the coast and teach us all

 

Gastropods, bivalves

hermits and jellyfish

currents - wind and water

Swales and dunes

fishing and fisherfolk 

Shore Walks for all.

"let the beach teach" - Sara Mohan

"Our textbooks do not tell us about home - the sea next to us." - Yuvan

KYC - Know Your Coast

Saturday excursions - Edianthittu backwaters, whale bone, Kaliveli wetlands and more

 Saturday March 6th 2021

5am - Sheila and I headed to Neelangarai, where we would hop into Ashish's car and head further south on ECR - my first Intertidal survey outing, armed with sandwiches of course.  The MNS Intertidal survey was announced in September of 2020, with a workshop (which I did not attend), for training on the survey techniques.  We were doing the areas around Chennai, with the overall broad objectives being to assess the present status of Important Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Areas (ICMBAs) along the Tamil Nadu coast, 

Edianthittu is one of the survey locations, in Zone 1, which is from Tiruvallur to Pondy, a little less than 160 kms of coastline.  I had missed many - Yashna beach near Kovalam, as well as Pulicat.  So I was happy to be part of this, more as a tourist really - since the core team were into some transect surveying and were busy documenting mollusc and gastropod diversity.  

I had seen some beautiful pictures of the previous trips - razor clams, sea squirt, and some really beautiful shells.

Sunrise over the backwaters, with a tern up in flight

The pin was where we were headed, about 100 kms from home, on the ECR - Azhagan Kuppam road, Villupuram.

First left after the large bridge before marakkanam, and then wound our way on very narrow roads, past a prawn hatchery to the road head on the beach.  Fishing boats were out on the water and everyone seemed busy.

Vikas educated me thus - "It has two species of mangroves and is one of the larger mangrove patches in that district. Mangrove dependent species of crabs have been recorded, along with birds that like the set up like the terek Sandpipier and common Greenshank. In winter it is known to attract various birds such as the Curlew Sandpipier, Dublin, stints, golden plovers and many species of raptors including falcons and harriers. The Grey-tailed Tattler was recently seen there (the second location in the country where this bird is known from, first being Pulicat). Sea grass is found near the mouth of the river, which is well known to be a nursery for shrimps."

We were going to walk along the coast, to the area opposite the Alamparai fort, where the Edianthittu backwaters meet the Buckingham?

715 am - We set off from our vehicles.  There were fifteen(?)  of us, and wonderful to see so many young energetic participants.  It was a beautiful morning, there was a light breeze, the sea waters were clear and the sand was as yet cool beneath our feet.

Ravanan meesai

All along the dunes we found Spinifex littoreus, eli mullu, all spiky and poky.  They are said to be good sand binders

I learnt that the grass had different female and male flowers.  Those longish oblong ones are the male ones, if I heard correctly.

These round ones are female, and they also tumble along and disperse the seeds.

Beach Swales

On the other (western) side of the dunes, there were a line of pools.  

The insect life in the pools including those whirligig beetles going round and round on the surface.

Yuvan explaining how the fresh water gets pushed up by the pressure of the sea water

The masked core survey team noting every insect.  Those pipes being held by Rohith would join to form a square, within which they would survey and note all creatures found.

The casuarina behind was filed with the call of Francolins - I didnt see any.  As we walked some snipes also got flushed out, but of course I did not see them.  Nor did I see an oriole which some members did.  

But Sheila and I saw the Pied cuckoo - four of them in fact - as we walked along the ridge of a sand dune. (Photo by Sheila)

The Jacobin cuckoo (Clamator jacobinus),  the pied crested cuckoo, with the estuary behind.  (Photo taken by Sheila)

It was so picturesque

A lot of the shore life follows....most of which I cannot identify.

Telescopium telescopium, or "Horn snail, I think

A hermit crab in hand

and on the sand

Sea grass!

Alamparai fort at the far shore

We made slow progress walking back on the sand, with the sun high up, but with a lovely breeze blowing, and the sea so blue, with terns and gulls wheeling close to boats.  On a mud bank, we saw a bunch of bobbing brown-headed gulls as well.

Every few metres, Ashish would pick up a lovely looking shell, each one with a design more intricate than the last.  Each one that I felt compelled to take a picture of.

Sunetta meroe?

wonder if this is Sunetta scripta?

Duck clam shell?

Dardanus crassimanus, the mauve-eyed hermit crab

Grey bonnet snail - a sea snail?

Is this a Chinna Mulli Sanghu?  Bufonaria crumena

And then there was much waving and shouting by the group ahead of us, and as we approached we saw this.

Like a huge block of cement, it was the vertebral column of a whale - sperm whale maybe - and it was massive.  Just four of the vertebrae, and it was sobbing, the mind boggled as to the size of the whale.

We reached the fishing village, and north of us a Pallid Harrier moved inland, majestically.

The complete Yedianthittu bird list is here.

We then drove on to the Kaliveli wetlands - the first time I was going there.  It is a nondescript turning off the Pondy road, and we bumped along past paddy fields.  Palm swifts above, and red wattled lapwings were resting on the bunds.  We drove on further and the fields gave way to wetlands that were more like empty marshy land, rather than filled with grassy vegetations.

Some buffaloes cooled off in the shallow waters.

Ashy crowned sparrow larks watched us from the wires above.  Photo by Sheila

There were the regular water birds - Ibis, OBS, herons, a few sandpipers, kingfisher, beeeaters, and even a pipit.

A booted eagle circled in the skies above.  Photo by Sheila, with the "landing lights" clearly visible.

The complete Kaliveli list from that morning is here.

We drove back via Nemmeli on the Thiruporur road, and didn't see to much there, and then headed back home.

The Intertidal Survey led to the Young Naturalists - Suneha, Nandita, Yuvan, Vikas, Aswati and Anooja - putting together "A guide to the coastal biodiversity seen along the Chennai coast and neighboring districts. Featured species are those that have been recorded by the team from Madras Naturalists’ Society, as part of our documentation of the Tamil Nadu coast."

I was happy to experience part of the survey, and it was a lovely morning out with Sheila and Ashish, and we missed Chithra, this time.

It is May now, and Covid rages all around us, and we stay home.  It feels good to relive these outings we did earlier this year, even if it was with masks and social distancing. 

Beach walks

 

Creamy mallows, and blushing Ipomoeas.  Blue skies and a bright sun.

The waters glimmer and shimmer.  I look hopefully.  No dolphins sighted.

But hello, what is this?  The waves washed over it and it moved tentatively.  that one claw looked a bit disjointed.  Actually it looked "dirty".  See the pink and the brown cover.  Yuvan wondered if it was a Decorator Crab. Eh?

And so I learnt about decorator crabs which cover themselves with all sorts of things as part of camouflage - from seaweed to coral bits, to even moss and sea anemones.  Who would have thought!  

I also got a response from Vardhan patankar, via Manish Chandi that this is a spider crab, genus Doclea.  "Quite common across the Indian coastline, he said.  Seen it on the Goa coasts.

Bivalves were all over the intertidal area - Siliqua radiata - all empty shells.

This tower snail (Turritella),  seemed to be alive and on the move - see the trail behind it.

This Plough Snail was alive too.  The snail foot was moving.  Such beautiful texture and delicate colouring of its shell.

Ipomoea pes-caprae - a beautiful sight in the mornings.  

A Chalky Percher rested on the sands.

I almost missed this ghost crab - it was a brave one - stared at me and didn't vanish down its hole.

Pretty dishes, facing the sun.

With their two lobed thick leaves

Can't seem to get enough of them.

More, next time.