The greatest headbanger of them all

Having just seen all those woodpeckers in Parambikulam crazily banging their heads, I thought this article was very well-timed!

Woodpecker's head inspires shock absorbers

"A woodpecker's head experiences decelerations of 1200g as it drums on a tree at up to 22 times per second. Humans are often left concussed if they experience 80 to 100g, so how the woodpecker avoids brain damage was unclear. So Sang-Hee Yoon and Sungmin Park of the University of California, Berkeley, studied video and CT scans of the bird's head and neck and found that it has four structures that absorb mechanical shock.

These are its
hard-but-elastic beak;
a sinewy, springy tongue-supporting structure that extends behind the skull called the hyoid;
an area of spongy bone in its skull;
and the way the skull and cerebrospinal fluid interact to suppress vibration."

Read the article for more details.

The Parambikulam poem

Frogmouths and hornbills I hoped to see
but the forest teaches you
that what will be, will be.

Parambikulam was our destination,
in our MNS Pongal peregrination.
Up in the Western Ghats is the sanctuary,
a hot spot of floral and faunal diversity.
A 450 year old teak called kanimara
A Southern Birdwing, I marveled at. The shola
Do we realize we have this treasure,
Its worth to us, beyond measure?

Lost New Yorkers and Naturalists seasoned,

a doc on sabbatical and a writer of fiction,

researcher retired, the children enlivened,

our MNS "herd', a local attraction!

Roshan amused us with snake lores galore

Rohan wanted idlis and puris, some more

Uttara yelled in the cold shower with "delight"

and Vish thought she was in a big fight!

Then, Selvam guided us to the frogmouth pair,
An endemic to the ghats, in their lair.
What an endearing sight they made
Leaf-like, in order to detection, evade.

That large, strange gape helps them hunt at night,

Below the forest canopy in quiet flight.
This Youtube video shows you the frogmouth, Sri Lanka
As also this post in my favourite blog from Gallicissa.

While Pranav continued his quest for crawlies,

Vijay thought we would have leech difficulties,

But instead, Mini had ticks more than forty!

Which her dad picked out, before they turned warty.

He also removed the dead rat from our loo

While Dhruva was revealing sides to us we never knew!

Meanwhile, Raji & Raji discussed music and dance

with Kamini, in this most unlikely ambience.

Outside the dorm was the Malabar Whistling Thrush
Its plaintive call heard from the brush.
An Asian Fairy Bluebird, and woodpeckers a plenty
Nut Hatch, treepie, barbets and hill mynahs, more than twenty!
And boars sporting mohawks, their snouts a-twitching
And Nilgiri langurs, their black coats, so fetching!

The gaurs and hornbills decided to keep away

though we looked hard, day after day.

Sheila was fascinated with all the scat

Porcupine, bear, boar and cat!

Mr Sivakumar's record shot did not help resolve the debate

was that Wagtail grey or yellow, my mate?

Shantaram and me made bird lists, meticulous

In this way, it was not left ambiguous.

Eighty two bird species in all we sighted

And tree names also were noted.

Memories of those vistas, I will carry with me

friends, family and happy camaraderie

forest, flower, bird, animal and tree

how I wish we could all let them be.

Let me learn to consume wisely

be responsible and not exploit blithely.

Clean air and freshwater free

For our children and grandchildren and all eternity.

Ten bird species I had never seen before -

• Pompadour green pigeon - what a lovely, musical call!
• Sri Lanka Frogmouth - I was so looking forward to this, and when I think about them now, it still amazes me. If the guide had not actually told me where to look, I just would not have seen them!
• Brown capped pygymy woodpecker - there were actually a couple in the trees just outside the dorm, so one morning I had my heart's fill of viewing them zipping from tree to tree.
• Great black/white-bellied woodpecker - what an amazing, spectacular looking bird!
• Heart-spotted woodpecker - brought a smile to all of us I remember, as he/she pecked furiously and went round and round the trunk, hanging upside down at some point, but still pecking away.
• Small minivets - brilliant flashes of colour
• White-bellied treepie - The white nape and belly, striking when it flew past
• Velvet-fronted Nuthatch - out in the forest, it kept disappearing around the tree trunk, but I had a good look in the trees outside the dorm as well. When my son first heard the name, he heard it as "natraj", and was amazed that the bird had such an Indian name!!
• Asian Fairy Bluebird - It posed for us, like some fashion model on the Vogue cover! With the sun falling on it, it was a brilliant view!
• Chestnut Tailed Starling - there was a tree full of them one evening.

Memorable butterflies

• Southern birdwing
• Jezebel
• Gladeye bushbrown

Parambikulam, here we come

Off we go, with the usual chaos of waitlisted tickets.


View Larger Map

Map of Parambikulam Willife Sanctuary

Here's what the Official Website of the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary has to say:

Tucked away in the valley between the Anamalai ranges of Tamil Nadu and the Nelliampathy ranges of Kerala on the majestic Western Ghats is the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary.This virgin valley that is the pride of Palakkad district is a glorious tribute to untouched nature.The reservoir harbours several varieties of aquatic fauna including mugger crocodiles that are often seen sunning on its banks.

Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary is the most protected ecological piece of Anamalai sub unit of Western Ghats, surrounded on all sides by protected areas and sanctuaries of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the sanctuary is endowed with a peninsular flora and fauna which are excellently conserved due to total protection and minimal human interferences. The sanctuary being a major ecological continuum from Peechhi to Eravikulam through Anamalai aids the large viable populations of wildlife. It is the home ground for different races of indigenous people who are as well an integral part of the prevailing harmonious ecosystem. The thick, opulent habitat of the sanctuary with ample water supplys make it an abode for wildlife and there by for tourist who can have treasured memories of animal sightings and that of being in the lap of mother nature

Western Ghats is one of the world’s 34 bio diversity hotspots. While considering the abundance of Wildlife and the adorable beauty of Nature, Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary is perhaps the most attractive piece of wilderness in the entire stretch of Western Ghats. Thus it is popularly revered as ‘Nature’s own abode’. It has a total area of 285 Sq. Kms.

I am looking forward to catching a glimpse of the broad-billed roller, hornbills and please oh please a frogmouth. The sanctuary is also home to the Tarantula spider, which doesn't live in a web, but in a burrow in the sand or in trees. I hope Pranav our insect wonderkid helps us spot one.

There are also 34 species of butterflies classified as "rare and endemic".

Lets hope the Pongal weekend works well!

Satish "Batagur" Bhaskar

Every now and then, the Blackbuck e-group of MNS throws up a wonderful link, story and/or discussion. About a fortnight ago, Santharam posted this link about a personality, which I read with fascination and increasing astonishment. If you do read it, you will share my feelings as well!

Indian Ocean Turtle Newsletter

Satish "Batagur" Bhaskar

Rom Whitaker (as narrated to Janaki Lenin)
Email: kingcobra@gmail.com, janaki@gmail.com

In the early '70s the Madras Snake Park became a local hangout for young folks from nearby campuses like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), AC College of Architecture and Madras Christian College. Thirty years later I run into some of these guys, sometimes in strange places. They're now mostly as paunchy and balding as I am and we trade a few stories and get into laughing fits over "the good old days".

One of the characters who showed up back then was a soft-spoken engineering student named Satish Bhaskar. He was a teetotaling non-smoker, a real ascetic compared to the rest of us. His passion was the sea, and he spent more time swimming than in the IIT classroom. It's not for nothing that his hostel mates called him Aquaman (privately)!

I was concentrating on crocs at the time, and whenever I could get away from Snake Park it was to survey gharial, mugger and saltwater crocodile habitat across India. At the same time, we also wanted to know sea turtle status: which species come to Indian shores, where, when and in what numbers. So, we really needed a full time sea turtle man.

Opportunely (for the turtles), Satish was getting disenchanted with his IIT course (after finishing most of it) and yearned to be a field man with a mission. The Snake Park had a tiny research budget, but it was enough to hire Satish as Field Officer (Rs. 250 a month, approx. US$ 28 based on exchange rates of that time) and get him out on his first few survey trips. When the fledgling WWF-India saw the good work he was doing for endangered sea turtles, Satish landed his first grant which really set him in motion.

About this time, the Madras Crocodile Bank was being born and Satish was its first resident. He helped to build the place (in between the sea turtle trips) but funds were so tight and sporadic that there were times when he had no work. So what did he do? He kept in shape by filling a bag of sand, carrying it to the other end of the Croc Bank, dumping it and starting again! Villagers still remember Satish hoisting a 50 kg sack of cement over his shoulder casually as if it were no more than a sleeping bag. This was the training that made him so tough in the field; it enabled him to walk most of India's entire coastline, more than 4,000 km, over the next few years looking for sea turtles, their tracks and nests! He loved going to remote places which few Indians have the stamina or stomach for. "To him, swimming in shark infested waters was the most normal thing to do," declares Shekar Dattatri, who has known him since the early Snake Park days.

Old Jungle Saying: Satish is incredibly kind to people. If he has anything that someone wants, he gives it away.

In 1977, Satish conducted the first surveys in Lakshadweep and zeroed in on an uninhabited island, Suheli Valiyakara, as the place for a focused green sea turtle study. The only problem was that the main nesting period is during the monsoon and no one goes there when the sea is so rough. In 1982, Satish left his young wife and three month old daughter, Nyla to maroon himself on Suheli for the whole monsoon, from May to September. It meant making elaborate preparations, like calculating the amount of food he would need. We sat with Satish and talked about things that could go wrong during this isolation - chronic toothache, appendicitis, malaria were just a few sobering thoughts. The Coast Guard provided some signal flares and there was talk of a two-way radio but eventually Satish just set sail and that's the last we heard of him till September.

Actually that's not true. A few months later, his wife Brenda back in Madras, received a loving letter from him. He had launched his message in a bottle on July 3rd and 24 days and more than 800 km later it was picked up by a Sri Lankan fisherman, Anthony Damacious, who very kindly posted it to Brenda along with a covering letter, a family picture and an invitation to visit him in Sri Lanka. The 'bottle post' was very romantic, but of course Satish's spin was that he was trying to see if he could study ocean currents using this technique!

An emergency situation did arise on the deserted isle, and one that none of us could have predicted: a huge dead whale shark washed up on Satish's little island and started rotting. The nauseous stench became so overpowering that our intrepid sea turtle man had to move to the extreme other end of the tiny island to a somewhat precarious, wave lashed spit of sand.

That year the monsoon abated late. So though Satish was packed and ready to go home by September 1st, (after 3 ½ months with only turtles and a radio for company), the relief boat from Kavaratti Island, over 60 km away did not arrive. Satish had run out of rations and legend has it that he survived on milk powder, turtle eggs, clams and coconuts for weeks. Fortunately, the lighthouse on neighbouring Suheli Cheriyakara needed servicing and a Lighthouse Department ship, the MV Sagardeep, arrived on October 11th. As Satish clambered aboard, Capt. Kulsreshta's first words were, "Take him to the galley!"

For a person with a gargantuan appetite, Satish could live on very little. On a trip to the Nicobars, Indraneil Das and he ran out of rations and water and they still had a day's walk ahead of them. The former was half-dead when they ran into a party of Nicobarese who tried to feed them but Satish politely and firmly declined saying they had just eaten and didn't allow Neil to eat either. Later he pointed out that they had nothing to repay the poor people's kindness! (This trip yielded five new species - two frogs, two lizards and a snake.)

On another occasion, on Little Andaman, Satish had again run out of rations and was surviving on "only biscuits and vitamins for 4 days." He came upon an empty Onge tribal camp with some freshly barbecued turtle meat. He took some of the meat and left two biscuit packets in exchange mainly to avoid a spear through his back! Just counting the number of times he ran out of food in remote areas, we suspect that he deliberately starved himself to see how far he could take it.


Photo: The village of Kondul, Great Nicobar (2001). Satish first visited the Great Nicobar island in 1979, and then subsequently in 1981, 1992 and 1994.
Photo courtesy: Kartik Shanker

Old Jungle Saying: Satish always travels with a kerosene stove and a pressure cooker. The former is to avoid burning wood as it is bad for the environment and the latter for cooking efficiency. He also carries an automobile inner tube to raft his supplies from canoe to shore and vice versa.

Through the 1980s, again thanks to WWF and other funds, Satish visited many of the islands of the Andamans. His were the first recommendations on sea turtle nesting beach protection. These helped give the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Forest Department a solid conservation basis to resist the efforts of big business and other Government Department interests in "developing" beaches for tourism.

Amongst all this serious work, he had time for research of another kind. Writing in Hamadryad, the Croc Bank Newsletter, he wonders if the sea krait was attracted to light, feigns dismay that this may be true and proceeds to try to make one climb his leg by playing with his torchlight!

By this time, Satish's work was being appreciated by sea turtle biologists worldwide. Papers on the species inhabiting this region were very scarce indeed and his publications helped to fill that big gap. In 1979 Satish was invited to give a paper on the status of sea turtles of the eastern Indian Ocean at the World Conference on Sea Turtle Conservation, in Washington D.C. In recognition for his contributions to sea turtle conservation, Satish received a fancy watch and award from Rolex in 1984.

When Ed Moll came to India to do a freshwater turtle study, Satish became a key collaborator. He surveyed extensively for a highly endangered Batagur baska which nests on coastal beaches along with olive ridleys. Sadly the Bengalis have eaten the terrapin to near extinction and there are no known wild nests in India. It was at this time that he was nicknamed "Batagur Bhaskar".

Old Jungle Saying: Satish has no sense of direction. He gets lost easily.

He spent many months, over several years, studying the hawksbill and green turtle nesting biology on tiny South Reef Island on the west coast of North Andaman. He described this island as "one of ten sites most favoured by nesting [g]reen turtles in India". Saw Bonny, a Forest Department Range Officer stationed on Interview Island, regularly risked his life ferrying supplies to Satish on South Reef Island, even during stormy monsoon weather. Bonny deputed a department staff member from his camp to assist Satish who was working alone. Emoye spent a few days on South Reef, got fed up and wanted to return. Since the currents were strong and Satish was an accomplished swimmer, Emoye requested him to go along with him.

Over the years shark fishermen regularly hauled in sharks from this very channel. The sea was rough, it was after all the monsoon season. Being a modest and understated narrator, Satish rated his swimming skills as "below par" and claimed that his snorkeling flippers gave him confidence. To keep warm during the more than two kilometre swim, he wore two shirts. Emoye rested frequently on Satish to catch his breath and together the two of them swam across the channel.

A party of shark fishermen were camped on the beach in Interview when our intrepid swimmers landed. One of them remembered meeting Satish earlier and enquired, "Still loafing around? Still jobless?" He thought Satish was an ambergris-hunter. It was already dark when Satish and Emoye set out across the island to the forest camp. Half way, a bull elephant in musth trumpeted his warning from just 30 metres away and started to chase them. The two men ran for their lives. Later Satish would recount, "I had done some distance running in college but the penalty for losing was never as dire." Already exhausted from their long and arduous swim, they couldn't continue running and the elephant showed no signs of relenting. Remembering a Kenneth Anderson story, Satish threw his shirt down while continuing to run and was gratified to hear the pachyderm squealing with rage moments later. With the animal distracted, the men could finally stumble onwards to the forest camp. They made a pact - if the shirt was intact, it was Emoye's; if not, then Satish's. The next morning they found the shirt in three pieces completely smeared with muddy elephant footprints, while one bit had to be recovered from a tree. He later posted the pieces back to Brenda with a reassuring note.

Old Jungle Saying: Satish trusts people implicitly and they, in turn, don't let him down.

In the mid 1980's WWF-Indonesia contracted Satish to study the huge, intensely exploited leatherback sea turtle rookeries on the beaches of the Vogelkopf, the western most peninsula of the island of New Guinea, in Irian Jaya. This was a logistically tough place to work. First of all, there was no access from the landward side and one couldn't even land a boat on the beach. This was why it had remained protected for so long. Then the people from neighbouring areas started taking tens of thousands of leatherback eggs. People swam ashore with jerry cans and sacks and floated the eggs back to boats.

However, Satish found a way to keep in touch. He would swim 100 m out to a passing longboat that was headed to Sorong, and hand his letters to someone on board with enough currency for stamps. There was one boat every 20 to 30 days. By late Aug 1985, he had tagged about 700 leatherbacks almost single-handedly.

Rather uncharacteristically, Satish never wrote up his report for WWF-Indonesia. I have no explanation why this happened nor did we ever discuss this. After a year had passed and there was no sign of the report, I was embarrassed as I had recommended him for the job. The document was sorely needed to put some laws in place very soon. I had my sense of justice as well so I wrote the report in his name.

Sadly, the 13,360 nests that he recorded in 1984 was probably the highest ever in recent years. Ever since then, the average number of nests has hovered way down around 3200. And this has resulted in yet another 'Satish myth' - the local people believe that Satish tagged the female leatherbacks with metal tags, and using a giant magnet drew all the turtles to his country! The local elders have refused to permit any more tagging of turtles on this beach.

Old Jungle Saying: He doesn't like to crawl into a sleeping bag on cold nights; instead he wears all his clothes. Sometimes, he buries himself, except his face which is covered by a mosquito net, in the sand to get away from inquisitive island rats, mosquitoes and sand flies at night. He usually sleeps out of sight of others at camp, after playing a few riffs on his harmonica.

In 1993, while chugging past Flat Island, a small spit of land off the west coast of the Jarawa Tribal Reserve in the Andamans, Satish and his companions saw a pair of human footprints emerging from the sea and disappearing into the vegetation. Satish had evaluated this island as a prime green turtle nesting beach, and despite the others cautioning him of Jarawas (the hostile tribe who routinely finished off trespassers with arrows), Satish swam ashore. His companions watched in horror as he followed the footprints into the forest. While his friends feared the worst, he emerged from another side crouching behind a green turtle carapace, holding it like a shield. The fearsome tribals never showed themselves and Satish returned safely.

On a subsequent trip, some Jarawa came aboard the canoe. Satish later recalled admiringly that the Jarawa were powerful swimmers and he had been very impressed by the bow-wake their breast-stroke created. Everyone else cowered in the back while Satish calmly interacted with the tribals. The crew had already hidden the machetes and other metal objects that the Jarawa coveted for making arrow heads. Eventually the tribals left without harming anybody but did take some spoons.

Old Jungle Saying: Satish likes to catch everything.

Local intelligence was that the Galathea river, Great Nicobar, had a lot of crocodiles. After dark one night standing on the bridge spanning the river, Satish played his torch over the water. Suddenly his flashlight caught some small eye shines along the waters' edge and he got very excited thinking they were baby salt water crocs. So he crept down to the edge of the river to catch them, but they turned out to be large spiders!

But he did have encounters with crocodiles. Once while lying asleep on a beach on Trinkat Island, Nicobars, he woke up to a rustling noise. He found a young croc looking at him through the mosquito net. In mock seriousness he later wrote, "I'm overlooking it this time but if the crocs that wake me get any bigger I'm headed back to Madras."

The Karen of the Andamans are particularly fond of Satish. He earned their respect by treating young and old with courtesy and respect, and also with such exploits as swimming from Wandoor in Middle Andaman to Grub Island (a distance of about 1.6 km) and back, walking the entire coastline of Little Andaman even crossing swift streams such as Bumila and Jackson Creeks and doggedly surveying beaches no matter how big the obstacles. But that didn't stop the Karen from teasingly nicknaming Satish, Cheto (Karen for 'basket', as it rhymes with Bhaskar!). Several older Nicobarese remember "the man who came looking for turtles" even today, many years after his last visit. He was perhaps the only man to ever find a reticulated python on the tiny island of Meroe (between Little Nicobar and Nancowry). The Nicobarese, who frequent the island, had never seen this species there before and were duly impressed. This python was later handed over to the Forest Department in Port Blair.

Satish notched identification marks on the carapaces of turtles that came ashore to lay eggs. Later, a bunch of titanium tags was sent by the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service for tagging hawksbills on South Reef. In Vogelkopf, he tagged more than 700 leatherback turtles. There is no information on tag returns from any of these turtles. One reason may be that subsequent night surveys (after Satish left) were inconsistent on Andamans, Nicobars and Irian Jaya. Secondly, the English lettering which provides the return address means little to local people. Karen tribals have mentioned finding tags on turtles they ate but not knowing the significance of the metal, simply threw it away into the bush.

For not being a religious person at all, he has the morals of one. He doesn't like anyone to tell him what to do, which made my job as boss difficult. (But he was conscientious about sending reports so he didn't need to be reminded.) I clearly remember once when I suggested that he store his things in a tin trunk as they were being destroyed by termites, he took umbrage. "Would I tell you what to do, Rom?" he asked in his low pitched gruff voice with a touch of menace. I never made that mistake again! He is a perfectionist - wanting to do everything right and better than anybody else. He also has an exaggerated sense of justice - always rooting for the downtrodden (probably why he got along well with tribals, villagers and field people). In many ways, he is very un-Indian.

Old Jungle Saying: Nothing is useless; anything "useless" was just something for which you haven't yet found a use.

Once while running to catch a bus to Mayabunder, his chappal broke. On being asked if he'd like to buy a new pair, he responded, "Only one broke - surely another one will wash up with the high tide". He tried very hard to keep South Reef clean of trash. On one occasion, he arrived in Madras with two sacks stuffed with rubber chappals that had washed ashore on the island. Legend has it that he took it to the recyclers.

After twenty years of doing some of the first baseline sea turtle surveys in the country, Satish retired to spend more time with his family. Soon thereafter, an UNDP (United Nations Development Program) - Wildlife Institute of India project did a more extensive survey of turtle nesting beaches. But since then, the 2004 tsunami has changed the profile of many Andaman and Nicobar beaches and we don't yet know where new beaches are forming, or how the turtles have responded to this change. We desperately need a new Satish Bhaskar to continue the work.

Satish now lives in Goa with his wife Brenda (who was by the way, the Snake Park and Croc Bank's secretary for many years!) and their three children (Nyla, Kyle and Sandhya). Satish is the man who kicked sea turtle conservation in India into high gear. There's a strong lesson in all this and an inspiration to young naturalists who wonder, "What can I do to help?" Satish's single-minded quest for sea turtles in his quiet, often unorthodox way, set the stage for the major conservation efforts being made today. Here's a prime example of how one person's passion for an animal and its habitat can help make the difference between survival and extinction.

Inputs from Aaron Savio Lobo, Allen Vaughan, Arjun Sivasundar, Atma Reddy, Manish Chandi, Manjula Tiwari, K. Munnuswamy, Nina and Ram Menon, Shekar Dattatri are gratefully acknowledged.

And the man actually exists. Thyagu remembers that he would casually run from IIT Madras to the beach, go for a swim and then run back to campus!

Two stories

This last month I read two rather different books, each in a very different way dealing with nature and the environment. One was set in Kenya and the other in an imaginary futuristic US. One was joyous and heartwarming and the other bleak and foreboding.

I shall not go into the stories or plots of each, as you can read that on Amazon, instead here's what I thought of each of them.

The Kenya book was borrowed from Chitra, and is called A Guide to the Birds of East Africa. It was a delightful, charming read, with the central character, gentlemanly Mr Malik being challenged to a bird race by the more racy Harry Khan. I think I enjoyed it all the more because of the bird descriptions that I could relate to, the vagaries of a bird race that I have also experienced, and the familiarity with descriptions of Kenya, so similar to colonial India. But above all, it was uplifting to read a book where no one is really bad, if you know what I mean, and people make ethical choices and ambition takes a back seat. Nicholas Drayson is the author. There's this bit where Mr Malik strikes it rich finding so many birds around a sewage pond, and it reminded me of our trips to Pallikaranai, and our wonder at seeing so many birds so close to garbage and polluted waters!

Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood was a completely different reading experience altogether. I picked it up from the library. So bleak, it was like being among the Deatheaters I tell you, peopled by greedy, unscrupulous, fickle characters. And yet, I could not put it down. It's one of those apocalyptic future books, where a group of committed eco groupies are fighting the system, with an alternate way of life. Why is it that every future scenario is imagined with humans at their basest character, with the only advances being made in technology? Dystopic rather than Utopic? There is no change in human thinking at all. Atwood takes our current socio-political structures to its logical extreme end, with gated communities and governments run like corporations and everything artificial - gene splicing, cloning, all kinds of new creatures.

I don't know why, but I am greatly affected when women characters are so badly abused....it just bothers me to read about women so powerless and exploited, as they are in the Atwood book. I found it completely joyless, the book I mean, and even the eco groupies (called God's Gardeners by the way), seem to have no sense of joy or wonder, more a sense of "this is my duty, and this is what I have to do".

I would readily recommend the Drayson book to all, but not the Atwood. Besides the bleakness, the plot itself and its resolution is all too pat and disappointing.

But, it is the Atwood book that had me thinking for days....does it really need us to believe in the cause of the environment like a religion to make a change? Do we need to create new gods and saints, like Adam One does in the book? Why does the Asian psyche not lead to such future-scenario books?

Spreading shade

The Hindu : Life & Style / Society : Spreading shade


Planting, nurturing and protecting trees…Nizhal, an NGO, is committed to transforming Chennai into a green city

Every morning, Vasanthi Rajiv goes for a walk along with her pet dog. And while they fill their lungs with fresh air, Vasanthi also takes time to remove the advertisements nailed on the trees.

A member of Nizhal, Vasanthi says, “This is part of our organisation's ‘ Free the Tree' campaign. I used to pull out the ads on Sundays but they would be back on Mondays. So I decided to make it a daily activity.” And with the aid of a long custom-made claw hammer, she goes about her job.

“As a result, there are no ads on trees in Alwarpet, Mandaveli and R. A. Puram,” laughs Shobha Menon, one of the founder members of Nizhal, an NGO that plants and cares for trees and promotes concern for them in the city. It is about empowering people to speak for trees. Established in 2005, by a group of five tree lovers, the organisation's first activities included planting and surveying trees.

Tree walks

With expert advice from Shekhar Raghavan, Director of Rain Centre, and G. Dattatri, their chief advisor, they then came up with the idea of tree walks where people were taught about trees, their properties, and the abuse of trees in urban areas. “The first walk was organised in Besant Nagar with around 30 participants. Ever since, we have only seen the number growing,” says Shobha. Such is the popularity of this activity that apart from corporates, even parents want to make it part of their child's birthday party!

Shobha feels that most people don't even look at a tree till the roots damage their compound wall. “Trees are our lifeline; should we not do our bit for them? If you see a tree being abused, and can't do much, just inform the Corporation about it,” she says. She nostalgically points to a tree which stands about 7-ft tall and smiles, “I remember it being knee-high. Look at it today. It feels so good to see a tree grow.”

We are in the PWD Tree Park where Nizhal is currently working along with the State Public Works Department to commemorate the park's 150 years. Four acres of barren land that was a dump is now green with grass and 240 trees belonging to 200 different species. Keeping them company are birds, multi-hued butterflies and spotted deer.

The purpose of the park apart from providing a green canopy is to educate children, who may reel out videogame names but may not be able to name more than 6-7 species of trees. The park is expected to be ready in three months' time. According to her, planting saplings has become a fad these days but it is not about the number of trees that are planted but about choosing the right species, planting them properly and ensuring there is enough space for them. One must also take care to see that after they are planted, the trees are tended to and nurtured till they can survive on their own.

Working with prisons

Into its fifth year, Shobha attributes Nizhal's success to its committed core team and volunteer network. Nizhal's other projects include school and college programmes, neighbourhood initiatives, gardening and growing vegetables as occupational therapy for patients in the IMH, and working with prisons across Tamil Nadu. It started with ‘Puzhal and Nizhal,' a campaign that helped green the prison grounds. Prisons in Cuddalore, Pudukottai and Tiruchi, and now the Palayamkottai and Madurai prisons, have been covered by the green brigade.

They are given seeds, panchakavyam and vermicompost. Dr. Dayanandan, an expert, educates them about what to plant and when. At the end of the year-long programme, the prisoners are given a certificate. So, when the vegetables and fruits grow, there is considerable excitement and gleeful shouts of “Takkali, vendakkai valandirukku… ingay avarakka valandirukku!” Says Shobha, “This way, we heal not only the minds of people but also the environment.”

WHAT'S REQUIRED

* Regenerate biodiversity

* Plant local and natural species

* Report / stop abuse of trees

For details, log on to www.nizhaltn.org

Keywords: biodiversity, Nizhal

Save as WWF, Save a Tree :�Home

The New Scientist in an article titled as File, save - the planet: Hello green Computing says,

The latest way to save the planet isn't to install solar panels on your house or drive a Toyota Prius - it's to save your computer files differently.

The conservation organisation WWF has launched its own file type. So now as well as saving documents as .docs or PDFs, you can also save your work as a WWF file. It's just like the humble PDF, with one key difference: it can't be printed. It's a simple way to try to curb the amount of waste paper created in offices around the world.

Users can decide which of their documents don't require printing, and then save them using the new format. When these files are distributed to colleagues or friends, they won't be able to hit "File, Print", so reams of paper will be spared. That might annoy some, but it could also save hundreds of trees from the clutches of the paper mill.

With the quest to become environmentally friendly so complicated, a simple step like this towards the utopia of the paperless office can only be a good thing.

To use the file type, you need to download a small piece of software. WWFs are currently available only on Mac OS X, but a Windows version is due for release soon.

I just downloaded it and it works!

Save as WWF, Save a Tree :�Home

Truth About Tigers

YouTube - TruthAboutTigers

MNS member Shekar Dattatri's 40 minute film is now on Youtube.

Saving Chembarakkam lake

Petition - Kuthambakkam

Please do go and take a look at the linked page. The petition gives details of a proposed plan to locate a solid waste landfill project close to Chembarakkam lake. The lake is one of Chennai's important drinking water sources.

Experts from Anna University and the Supreme Court Committee for solid waste management have warned against the long-term consequences of this project. But the TN Pollution Control Board has not yet turned it down. Public protest against the project needs to be raised.

Deepavali at Rishi Valley - Eight legs & six legs

I always thought the spider was an insect. (Really, what did they teach her in school, you say?) Well, what did you think, huh...huh..go on tell me.

Its quite simple really, spiders have eight legs, insects have six. So spider not insect, ta-da!

So the spider is an arachnid. And guess what, so are scorpions and ticks, arachnids I mean.

And if you are wondering how this great insight dawned on me, it was because of our recent trip to Rishi Valley, some pictures I took of this gigantic "yettu kaal puchi", and then coming back and finding no mention of it in the book called Satpada, Our World of Insects!! I mean, its there in the title staring and screaming at me - SIX LEGS - and I still dont get it. (I can imagine Pranav, the wonder-insect-kid of MNS shaking his head in despair.)

Arachnid aesthetics first

These huge webs are those of the Giant wood spider, and I saw them for the first time in the Rishi Valley campus, and immediately the next day, up on Horsley Hills.

Oh yes look closely, there's the spider to the left and all those white lines...that's how big the web was!

The spider herself. The male is really tiny. Oh, to be a female spider!!

Trying my best to get the spider and the web together

Attempts at art photography. This web survived a really heavy downpour. You can see the water droplets glistening on the web

And this below is what we saw all over the grass, little dew patches I thought, but no, its a spider's web that has caught the morning dew. Check out the tunnel in the middle. its made by an arachnid called a tunnel spider, commonly, a type of wolf spider. I never did see this spider, but I believe its sitting there waiting in that tunnel/funnel, and will emerge as soon as its web vibrates!

If you click on the picture, you will see the funnel in the middle of the sheet-like web.

Insecta next

Lepidoptera - butterflies & moths

I saw -

Tawny costers

Blue Mormon - I wish could have photographed it

Common Mormon

Grass yellows

Plain tiger

White orange tip

And a Common Cerulean

Common Bush Brown

Hymenoptera - bees

The hard working honey bees, were hard at work making honey. I try to reduce the amount of honey I eat or buy these days, (its not making any difference to my waistline), they have a tough enough life it seems, without us eating up all their honey.

Apis dorsata at work

Heteroptera - bugs

Bugs feed on liquid mainly - so they suck, not chew, are quite a nuisance, and also smell foul!

We saw jewel bugs, water skaters, water scorpions and giant water bugs too. The water scorpions and giant water bugs we saw in the stagnant pools of water just off the RV campus, up in the rocks. The water scorpion is quite tiny, maybe an inch long, and I would have missed it, if Thyagu and Murugavel had not lifted it up on a stick and pointed it out. The "tail-like" appendage is actually a breathing tube, I discovered from the Satpada book!

Jewel bug - a shield-back bug, so attractive to look at, but pretty destructive to the plant, sucking out their sap.

Water skaters we saw in plenty at Madhinaiyanicheruvu, the freshwater body, about 20kms from RV.

Odonata - dragon and damselflies

There were so many, but they rarely sat still for me to take a good look, let alone photograph them. Dragonflies are my latest wonder-of-the-natural-world type creature. The glider is the insect with the longest migration....from India to Africa and back, if you please! 14,0000 kms in all.

A Ground Skimmer. Skimmers are found close to the ground and rarely fly more than 1m up. I saw several of these just hovering over the ground.

A Ditch jewel. Seen mainly near sewage ponds, so was this one lost?!

Orthoptera - grasshopper

Just click on the picture below, to appreciate all the colours and markings of the innocuous grasshopper. Take a look at those long legs, ready to put in a loooong jump!

Quite the agricultural pest these insects.

Cataloipus cymbifera is what I thought. But Pranav believes that "it is one of the Migratory Bird Locusts- most probably Schistocerca gregaria, a species that is very well known for its infamous gregariousness (as the name suggests). This is a grasshopper that trims foliage a little too enthusiastically, in the company of hundreds of individuals of its kind".

I made the mistake of asking him why he thought so and he gave me details about the size of the head, and markings on the pronotum, which all was too much for my middle-aged brain to process!! So, i shall just take his word for it. Thanks Pranav!

Coleoptera - beetles

Here's one longhorn beetle that Murugavel found, and placed lovingly on the tree to be photographed.

Longhorn beetle, with their extra long antennae

Hymenoptera - wasps

This looks like a mud dauber wasp of some sort...but all the references I came across show them with yellow legs....so what is this?

It was busy burrowing in the sand just outside the guest house, as the rain started. These wasps paralyse or tranquilise their victims, and then carry them off to their nest, where they are stored for their young ones!

Wasp

I also saw stick insects and mantises, paper wasps and I think even a hornets nest....but I do not have photographs of these.

All in all, a significant improvement in my knowledge of the insect world, in three days, dont you think?

Deepavali at Rishi Valley

"Lorek", my teenage son reports on the weekend. All picture credits to him as well. Taken on a Nikon FM film-roll camera.

The name Horsely hills will not ring an audible bell for the common man. But for members of the MNS, it is synonymous with paradise and filter coffee. And so to view this paradise and other assorted wonders along the way, 15 of us MNSites set for the Rishi Valley School, which was our base camp. I was jerked awake and zombied my way to the car, which would carry me, my mother, Pritam uncle, Vijay uncle, Tara aunty and Shashank to Madanapalle. Amid discussions of where the Pitta had been spottedin Chennai, I zoned out to the sound of Iron Maiden.

A short food stop at Arusuvai and we were well and truly on our way to the promised land. I made the most of the next leg to catch on some much needed sleep. Another food stop and several birds later, we found ourselves nearing the village of Madanapalle. 'Rishi valley?' for directions led us onto the bypass road and to the school.

At the school, we met up with the man with the plan and the everlasting smile, Mr.Shantaram. He led us to (yet another) midday meal at the school mess. The campus in itself dwarfs any other school that I have seen. It is around 150 acres or so. Just walking to the guest house found the most serious birders rubbing their hands in glee at the number of bird calls and the overall greenery!





After tea, we set out with Mr.Eversmile, Shantaram sir for a small walk. We walked up the nearby hill and got some fantastic views of the surrounding area. The birds were also in abundance and the bird watchers had a field day. We were introduced to the various rock formations around - Cave Rock, Sliding Rock, Windmill and what have you. At sunset, we sat around trying to keep quiet, and were rewarded with the call of the pitta, a nightjar and an owl too! Somewhat hungry we returned to a good dinner and sleep.

Day 2

I was awoken by Axl Rose singing about Hollywood, (my alarm!) and enjoyed some fresh tea, before we set out to scale Horsely hills. The trek started out through the fields and slowly went steeply uphill. Birds were out in hordes and there were sightings every few steps literally. If I remember right, the hunt was on for the yellow-throated bulbul, whose calls were everywhere.

The ascent was steep at first and gradually unsteepened. The climb was punctuated by a breakfast break and innumerable other inexplicable rest stops.

At long last we got off the trekking path and hit the road and Shashank, Jeyanth and I pulled away from the pack. We were later joined by Vijay uncle to be the first men to reach the top. While lunch was being arranged, I journeyed to the edge to get a better view and found the whole valley spread out like a carpet on a slightly bumpy floor. The lunch was Chettinad-spice hot, that had been mysteriously absent all this while. Fanning our burning mouths, we stormed the ice cream parlour, just as the skies opened up.

Those of us with rain gear triumphantly produced said gear and starting downhill. Three steps later the rain stopped and the smug others joined the caravan downhill. Fighting a wet shoe, a severely aching foot sole and the need to urinate. I sped downward, using all available shortcuts with Shashank and arrived at the village at the base of Horsely. The forward guard, waiting for the rear guard to show up indulged in a cup of tea and some butter cookies(yum!!).

After the whole group had regrouped and started tea, a bus with KA license plates came by and claimed it was completely legitimate. Hitching a ride on this illegality, we arrived at the Rishi valley turn off point, to find a squadron of cars summoned from the school by Mr.Shantaram! (Calculations made by the group estimated that we had walked approximately 17kms that day, starting at about 7 in the morning, and finishing by 5 in the evening.) That concluded the day for the Seniors, with Jeyanth, Sekar uncle, Shashank and I heading over to a nearby hamlet for hot coffee and shopping at the mall, which was in reality a small pottikadai.

Day 3

The next dawn, the "coffee boys" headed to the village again for the now guest house renowned coffee. Coffee done, we headed out to another of the abundant nearby hills for some lip smacking bird watching. Tiring, the journey, was, but a large horde of birds placated the ever hungry mob and breakfast saw a beaming many persons. A blue rock thrush sat, well, on a rock.

We were free, much to my delight, for the rest of the morning and a part of the afternoon. Each person headed their separate ways to do what interested them most. I headed to the terrace to capture those moments of beauty on a film negative.

Rested, birded or peeved, everyone headed for lunch with a slightly different opinion of life. I met up with Mr.Shantharam's son and engaged in a 20 minute session of guitar playing. The rest of the afternoon was spent half asleep and reading about how “bleedin' 'orrible them Nazi's were”. Tea saw some familiar fare with chikkis being on the menu.

Having done good justice to them, we headed to 'Madhunayanichiruvu'(try saying that with 3 candies in your mouth) a lake well revered for water birds. A "sniper scope" in tow, viewing of birds was plentiful, and it took the sun to forcefully tell us to move along for us to go back.

After a great dinner of noodles, I packed and read and vowed not to wake up in the morning.

Day 4

Next morning, I refused to go for a pre-breakfast walk and the rain gods obliged with showers.

After a breakfast of dosais, the Innova gang crammed into the car and headed back home and to various relatives. Along the way, we were hit hard by 'Jal', both literally and metaphorically, though Pritam saar was unfazed by all this and kept the humour and car along the right track.

In the end, we saw what we had come to see, the Yellow throated bulbul and a lot more. We enjoyed our stay, the campus, the food and the general craziness that comes with MNS. We saw, heard and smelled 100 odd species of birds and other assorted creatures. I hope the other MNSites are happy.

All thanks to our publishing team at madras wanderer, MNS and Mr.Shantaram!

*******************

Thanks Lorek!

My complete list of birds is here. This is a list of birds I saw, does not include the ones that I heard but did not see.