Urban Wilderness Walk - Thiruvanmyur

29th August '21

In July this year, MNS launched a project called Urban Wilderness Walks, an internship for college students, with the goal of creating more nature educators in the city, and creating a kind of snowball effect for increasing connect to urban wilderness in the city of Chennai.  Spearheaded by Yuvan and  Kalpana, it is an amazing initiative.

Kalpana explained in the MNS bulletin -   

"The internship was begun with the aim of creating a community around biodiversity appreciation and study through training people in planning and conducting periodic urban wilderness walks in their neighbourhoods. The 27 interns, mainly from two womens’ colleges in Chennai - Stella Maris College and Womens’ Christian College - attended field sessions at Perungudi and Kotturpuram Urban Forest and participated in activities curated by M. Yuvan as part of their training module. For easy identification of common urban fauna, each intern received a copy of Preston Ahimaz’s “A Guide to Some Urban Fauna of India” as well as the Field Guide for identifying Common Birds, published by NCF.

As a first step the interns checked out their residential localities from the perspective of conducting wilderness walks, chose a suitable trail for the walk and invited people to participate in the walk. Inspired by Yuvan’s activity sheets they designed their own to suit the chosen trail and surroundings. The result - delightful activity sheets and unique activities formulated to engage the walk participants. Fun activities were created and implemented – estimating the age of trees by measuring tree girth, colouring insects and birds on activity sheets, drawing leaf shapes, drawing food chains, urban flora and fauna bingo, identifying birds through calls, making bird sounds, enacting commonly observed behaviour of animals, checklists for biodiversity observed on particular trees, open ended questions...the list goes on......."

This hybrid orientation - online and offline - culminated in a series of walks by the interns in their areas - Pallikaranai, Velachery, Thiruvanmiyur, Adyar, IITM, Mandaveli, Royapettah, Triplicane, St. Thomas Mount, Washermanpet, Madhavaram, Perambur, Ayanavaram, Mugappair, Aminjikarai, Kolathur, Virugambakkam, K.K. Nagar, Ambattur and Avadi.....  I attended the one conducted by Keerthana in Thiruvanmyur, along Kuppam Beach Road.  

Each of the interns made lovely little posters like this one on the left that I received.   

The previous night we had heavy rain, and it was a slushy walk to the starting point which was near Bhavani medai.  It was a small group that started the walk.

It is the end of August and the "Mayflowers" are in bloom, I loved the colours on this one, all washed and bright.  It is unsurprising that the British brought this tree in, so attractive and graceful.  As we were finishing our walk, we also saw one that had fallen in the overnight rain - the shallow roots once again evident.

My big learning was the approximation of a tree's age - Four feet from the ground, measure the girth in centimetres and divide by 2.5!  This Rain Tree near the fish market, was around 90 years old, then! As old as my father!

My next discover was courtesy Usha, who added to the walk with a small detour into Teachers Colony and and ancient Shiva temple there.

What caught my immediate attention was a fig species tree, growing all over and into the temple wall.

The Shiva temple houses the samadhi of Siddhar Bala Ramalinga Nathar who used to worship here, centuries ago.  It is all bricked and plastered now, so it was difficult to imagine its antiquity.  There was a lovely Nandi as well.

Took a picture of the leaves of this fig, which was not a Peepul.  Was it the Rock fig - Kallala tree?  I doubt it, as the edges are not wavy and nor are the veins pink. More like Icchi maram, or Talbot Fig?

The roots below and the temple were supporting this enormous canopy above.

In the compound was the second ancient tree - a Peepul - that we measured, and this emerged as 110 years of age! It was a glorious sight, since it had grown unfettered and unimpeded, with a uniform all-round canopy.

I learned about murungai "Pisin" or the resin from the bark - supposedly a widely used herbal remedy for stomach ailments

The Murungai trees on the road were in fruit, in abundance!

A small roadside guava was in flower too

We continued up Balakrishna road- with its Australian Acacia trees and Bauhinias.  We saw a bunch of sparrows flitting through the trees, a few sunbirds, heard a Koel and some red vented bulbuls. A screechy parakeet flypast up above too.

Cotton stainer bugs species scurried in the undergrowth as also large black ants.

We turned west on First Seaward road, and saw the beautiful Jamun trees.  Of course the area is dotted with Neem trees as well.

It was an interesting and enjoyable morning, and we parted ways, wishing Keerthana all the best for her future walks as well. As  Usha and I made our way home, we were filled with positive energy, as a morning walk is bound to do.  Never mind the sweat of course!

Who would imagine a peacock in the neighbourhood?!

 Aug 31st 2021

Walking past our eastern windows, I look out in my usual post-lunch habit of looking at the teak tree in our neighbour's garden, for the Drone on the hunt, or the bulbul calling, when I saw a large something on the wall of the neighbour's terrace.  I look again, and there stood a peacock, surveying the territory!

While I scrambled to get my binoculars and rouse the family to this unusual sight, it stood on the parapet, gazing down at the dog below, and almost seeming to wonder as to what to do.  It was calm and unhurried and strolled up and down the parapet.

Then it hopped down into the terrace and surveyed the ground for fallen neem fruits, which it seemed to eat.  I noticed that his tail feathers had not grown out as yet and also that there was no other peafowl/hens around.

In all our years at Thiruvanmyur (25 plus), this is the first sighting of a wild peafowl in the neighbourhood for me.  My brother had seen a peahen in May at the height of lockdown.  Through the lockdown, peafowl have been sighted in various TN cities, quite regularly. 

On the 27th, NBR neighbour Rags had messaged that he had seen one in the neighbour's garden - just flew in from nowhere!  We continued to see it in and around our building for the next three days, and then it  flew on.

Doing a walk on the parapet

I learnt that males get their feathers after say 3 years, so this was probably below that age.  I was reminded  of another day, in Manas where I had most recently seen the peacock dance for his mate.

Every forest trip in India for me has a peacock memory, and here was this young chap right at my doorstep!

How well do we know this neighbour?

The Geisha hen, I call it.  Always reminds me of  a painted face.  Now a Geisha is supposed to be graceful and all that....but not this endearing water hen, which clucks around and moves in a. jerky fashion, busy always.  Any wetland, and it is sure to be spotted.  Even in the dirty waters of the Buckingham canal I have seen them, amidst the water hyacinth.

It was nice to read this article by Frederick in the Downtown section on a day which was not at all good, a Happy Teacher's Day, that will now forever be a day we lost dear Keshav.  One more life's lesson learnt from the school  of living.  

The Hindu

Prince Frederick

5/9/21

The commonplace remains unnoticed. It takes unusual circumstances, sometimes a breakdown of the regular order, for it to gain attention. Does anyone have memories of “oxygen” dominating quotidian chatter before the Second Wave?

The white-breasted waterhen is an avian example of the commonplace — ten a penny, as megatick seekers among birders would uncharitably put it.

The bird is widespread in its range. It is easily sighted in its habitat, in striking contrast to some of its painfully attention-shy resident rallidae cousins — the slaty-breasted rail, the ruddy-breasted crake and the Baillon’s crake.

And therefore, it is unconsciously ignored, ironically concealed from sight, and missing from birders’ field notes.

In later part of August, this writer would have looked through a white-breasted waterhen pair if not for how they herded their brood to safety.

Parent-birds of most feathers have a strong gathering instinct, which they use through subtle cues to the young. But this particular pair seemed to herd their young with the efficiency of a Belgian sheepdog. There were five chicks, and a majority of them seemed bent on straggling away from the flock. The scene was unfolding in a pool of water right outside the massive bund of a lake on the winding Gandhi Road in Nedungundram, with the Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road just a walking distance away.

One parent led the pack and the other brought up the rear.

However, the main point of interest is how the chicks helped themselves to safety the next day, when this writer watched these precocial chicks plunge into the same pool of water, alarmed by what they assumed to be intrusive steps, and deftly climbing on to the vegetation and disappear to safety.

The swiftness with which they slipped away was impressive. It was as if they had a claw in each of their wings. That is hardly figurative, because apparently the young of the white-breasted waterhen do possess them. But there is no recorded evidence of white-breasted waterhen chicks putting those wing claws to any use.

A few years ago, Pune-based animal rehabilitator Devna Arora put out an interesting note about wing claws that she noticed in a white-breasted waterhen chick that had been brought into her centre for rehabilitation.

“I just made an observation, because I know that it has not been recorded properly. I have not gone into studying the subject in detail — as I am a rehabilitator, and not an ornithologist. I have made an observation note, in case it is of use to anybody in the future,” explains Devna, whose note can be accessed at her website.

Wing claws should theoretically be a valuable prop to chicks of nidifugous species, particualry those that have much clambering to do. Of the raillidae family, the white-breasted waterhen is essentially a bird of the reeds, though it does not restrict itself to it.

Ornithologist V Santharam points out that use of wing claws by chicks as a safety prop has been documented in the hoatzin, a bird found in the Amazon. He remarks that in the context of wing-claw use, more observation of the young of species like the white-breasted waterhen is required. However, he notes: “Besides the hoatzin, it appears that wing claws in most other species are just a vestigial organ like the appendix in human beings.”

Looking down

 Fresh leaves, dried leaves, I do spy
light green, dark green, brown...
and even a Lemon Pansy butterfly. 

Green circles, pink stars
Brown sand and grey wall, and
Amaryllis lilies, from afar.

 

Through the window

A Common Tailorbird came visiting our little patch of green
More loud tweets to be heard than being seen
I watched without moving as it flitted and called
Now on the branch, now on the wall.

And then today this happy surprise
A single yellow spike
of mustard.
Overnight, did it rise?

 

More on the sand wasp

May/June 2021

 

Covid quarantine

Morning coffee on the patio steps.

Watching the Quisqualis fallen blooms

Being disturbed by a buzzing.

A green and black digger

vanished into a hole

at great speed

in the blink of an eye.

Another one I spied

Hovering and humming

searching it seemed

for its secret entrance.

And then it vanished within.

I take a picture, 

ASK MNS

voila, an id emerges - sand wasp, Bembix species - 

even before the said insect did!

Anyways, the next few mornings

coffee and sand wasp gazing.

Sagarika sent me this link - Bug Eric had seen them in North America.

Which one was mine

Here in Chennai

I still have not figured.

Watched the way she shovels 

so powerfully

front legs flinging the sand

making tunnels

laying eggs

feeding larvae

catching flies.

And this link described the males

buzzing and wasping

patrolling the openings

laying wait for the female to emerge;

copulate.

One track minds

or instinct?

Quarantine ends

My observations come to a halt

generations of wasps

buzz in and out

unseen and unheralded. 

From Mandaveli to Mahabalipuram: How the ashy woodswallow receded from urban spaces - The Hindu

I now need to discover "Newsletter for Birdwatchers" that is quoted here, along with Santharam of Rishi Valley.  

I have seen these birds in the Kalakshetra campus.

I also looked up allopreening - the preening done by one bird on another.

From Mandaveli to Mahabalipuram: How the ashy woodswallow receded from urban spaces - The Hindu

From Mandaveli to Mahabalipuram: How the ashy woodswallow receded from urban spaces
As this bird’s breeding season reaches its tail end, a throwback to the days when nesting pairs could be seen in urban spaces, sometimes atop lamp posts. Despite being more easily sighted in Chennai and other bustling sections within its distribution range, an erroneous notion about the bird persisted for a long time
Prince Frederick
The ashy woodswallow — also known as the ashy swallow-shrike — inhabits palm trees where it chirpily attends to its domestic duties. Where only a smattering of palm trees exists, the bridge arm of a lamp post becomes home. Truth be told, in urban spaces, this adaptation is largely a thing of the past, existing mostly in birders’ anecdotes and ornithologists’ field notes.
Ornithologist V. Santharam had once written about a pair of ashy woodswallows that nested atop a lamp-post at a Mandaveli junction, in the Newsletter for Birdwatchers.
“That was in the mid-1980s, and Mandaveli was relatively busy. Just near RK Mutt Road and the bus stand junction, there was a lamp-post close to the petrol bunk, where an ashy woodswallow pair was nesting successfully for more than a year,” recalls Santharam, spotlighting how they disdainfully rejected a couple of palm trees standing diagonally opposite the lamp-post.
Were those palm trees taken by other pairs of ashy woodswallows; or any other birds? “No, these two were the only breeding pair in that area.”

1. Within its established range, the ashy woodswallow (artamus fuscus) is usually found in good numbers in areas marked by stands of palm trees.

2. Though the species is comfortable occupying power lines and poles, these are no substitute for palm trees.

3. On sections of ECR — for example, Pallipattu — that are marked by a proliferation of palm trees, these birds can be seen perched on power lines

4. Ashy woodswallows are a gregarious species known for their huddling and allopreening rituals, performed as they park themselves on the power lines

5. Both the male and female are a picture of familial commitment sharing nest-building, incubating and post-natal parenting responsibilities.

6. This bird sallies forth from its perch, snatches the prey while on the wing and even polishes it off before returning to the perch.

7. Birder Sidharth Srinivasan recalls a scene from Nanmangallam where waiting ashy woodswallows made quick work of butterflies that gained elevation after a mud-puddling session

8. Sidharth observes that the ashy woodswallow occasionally lets out a harsh call, one that is markedly different from its regular call. The ashy woodswallow is known to mimic other birds, certainly not as prodigiously and markedly as a drongo would, but will certainly slip in an odd note or two now and then.

The presence of the palm trees, within the hearing range of one wheezy call, probably put these birds at ease about the location. Santharam also recalls how in MRC Nagar, “largely an open area at that time”, ashy woodswallows would string the power lines, huddling and allopreening.
With palm trees on the decline even in semi-urban spaces, it takes a long drive to put oneself within the possibility of savouring such “ashy-avian” delights. An unthinking question could be: Aren’t there more power lines within the city now? The ashy woodswallow may find a comfortable perch in a power line, but does not usually see it as a substitute for a palm tree. These birds invariably “test” the strength of power lines found in a place that proliferates in palm trees. The further one drives down East Coast Road, the greater the chances of sighting gaggles of ashy woodswallows on power lines. Just ahead of Mahabalipuram, there are villages where one can make this association between palm trees and ashy woodswallow. As ashy woodswallows have now receded far from urban spaces, and farther still from our collective consciousness, one can take kindly to gaps in the overall understanding of their behaviour.
However, in decades past, when the species was hardly a will o’ the wisp, and put up live shows in residential localities, an erroneous assumption about its behaviour persisted, In retrospect, it looks indefensible.
It was largely believed that ashy woodswallow stuck to their towers and never descended to terra firma. Beyond casual conversations, the assumption was found validated even in some field guides.
Seeking to tackle this erroneous notion, Santharam wrote about in the edition of Newsletter for Birdwatchers that saw the light in January 1981. “I have seen this species on the ground on many occasions. The first such occasion was on 23.3.79 when a pair of these birds were pulling out some tufts of grass probably to line the nest at the open meadow of Adyar Estuary. One bird having collected a beakful of material headed towards some palm trees. The other bird remained on the ground for sometime and then flew in another direction,” Santharam penned his observations.
“On another occasion, I was observing a finchlark nest that had two chicks in June 80. An ashy swallow-shrike alighted on the ground a few yards away. On seeing the bird near their nest, the agitated parents, especially the female vigorously attacked the intruder and forced it to move away.”
Santharam ends his note by explaining what necessitated it.
“While the Handbook (Vol. 5) says that this species has “not been recorded actually on the ground, but may do so.....”, Whistler in the ‘Popular Handbook of Indian Birds’ asserts that this species never visits the ground. It was interesting to note that the nesting materials include fine grass, roots, fibres and feathers.”
Forty years on, Santharam has this to say: “Apart from the rare occasions when it comes down to take out the grass, this bird has no need to come down. It catches insects in flight, and sits on wires and poles. That is the reason why it (the bird’s rare descent to terra firma) was probably not reported. Or people thought it was not significant. Because both these people had mentioned specifically that it is not seen on the ground, when I saw it happen, I wanted to report it.” From past literature about this species, it is staggering to note that the species’ relationship with terra firma has a matter of deep speculation.
In 1951, the celebrated naturalist Charles McFarlane Inglis — who associated with the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Entomological Society in the forms in which they existed then — wrote a note about the ashy woodswallow to The Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, and it got published.
At that time, Inglis was staying at Kenilworth in Coonoor, and he was calling attention to a discovery about the species he had made some years ago.
“Although I have no evidence of this swallow-shrike actually settling on the ground, I have proof of the nearest thing to it,” writes Inglis and goes on to present photographic evidence of an ashy swallow-shrike helping itself to a bird bath, which it shared it with a grey-headed myna. Inglish was “staying with my friend, the late H.V.O’ Donel, on the Huldibari Tea Estate in the Duars” when both made the discovery.
As Donel had a camera at hand, the rare event of an ashy woodswallow setting claws on object just inches above terra firma could be recorded for posterity.
(Uncommon Residents is about the resident birds of Chennai and surrounding areas that are rarely seen)

Takeaway food and drink litter dominates ocean plastic, study shows | Plastics | The Guardian

Takeaway food and drink litter dominates ocean plastic, study shows | Plastics | The Guardian

Just 10 plastic products make up 75% of all items and scientists say the pollution must be stopped at source

Damian Carrington

A turtle tries to eat a plastic cup: consumer items such as food containers make up the largest share of litter origins, the study found. Photograph: Paulo Oliveira/Alamy Stock Photo

@dpcarrington

Thu 10 Jun 2021 16.41 BST

Plastic items from takeaway food and drink dominate the litter in the world’s oceans, according to the most comprehensive study to date.
Single-use bags, plastic bottles, food containers and food wrappers are the four most widespread items polluting the seas, making up almost half of the human-made waste, the researchers found. Just 10 plastic products, also including plastic lids and fishing gear, accounted for three-quarters of the litter, due to their widespread use and extremely slow degradation.
The scientists said identifying the key sources of ocean plastic made it clear where action was needed to stop the stream of litter at its source. They called for bans on some common throwaway items and for producers to be made to take more responsibility.
Action on plastic straws and cotton buds in Europe was welcome, the researchers said, but risked being a distraction from tackling far more common types of litter. Their results were based on carefully combining 12m data points from 36 databases across the planet.
“We were not surprised about plastic being 80% of the litter, but the high proportion of takeaway items did surprise us, which will not just be McDonald’s litter, but water bottles, beverage bottles like Coca-Cola, and cans,” said Carmen Morales-Caselles, at the University of Cádiz, Spain, who led the new research.
“This information will make it easier for policymakers to actually take action to try to turn off the tap of marine litter flowing into the ocean, rather than just clean it up,” she said.
Straws and stirrers made up 2.3% of the litter and cotton buds and lolly sticks were 0.16%. “It’s good that there is action against plastic cotton buds, but if we don’t add to this action the top litter items, then we are not dealing with the core of the problem – we’re getting distracted,” Morales-Caselles said.
Prof Richard Thompson, of the University of Plymouth in the UK, who was not part of the research team, said: “Having [this data] recorded in a proper scientific way is incredibly useful. There can be a reluctance to take action on something that seems very obvious because there isn’t a published study on it.”
The research, published in the journal Nature Sustainability and funded by the BBVA Foundation and Spanish science ministry, concluded: “In terms of litter origins, take-out consumer items – mainly plastic bags and wrappers, food containers and cutlery, plastic and glass bottles, and cans – made up the largest share.”
The analysis included items bigger than 3cm and identifiable, excluding fragments and microplastics. It distinguished between take-out plastic items and toiletry and household product containers.
The highest concentration of litter was found on shorelines and sea floors near coasts. The scientists said wind and waves repeatedly sweep litter to the coasts, where it accumulates on the nearby seafloor. Fishing material, such as ropes and nets, were significant only in the open oceans, where they made up about half the total litter.
A second study in the same journal examined the litter entering the ocean from 42 rivers in Europe, and was one of the datasets Morales and colleagues used. It found Turkey, Italy and the UK were the top three contributors to floating marine litter.
“Mitigation measures cannot mean cleaning up at the river mouth,” said Daniel González-Fernández of the University of Cádiz, who led the second study. “You have to stop the litter at the source so the plastic doesn’t even enter the environment in the first place.”
In May, Greenpeace revealed that UK plastic waste sent to Turkey for recycling had been burned or dumped and left to pollute the ocean. US and UK citizens produce more plastic waste per person than any other major countries, according to other recent research.
The researchers recommended bans on avoidable take-out plastic items, such as single-use bags, as the best option. For products deemed essential, they said the producers should be made to take more responsibility for the collection and safe disposal of products and they also backed deposit return schemes.
“This comprehensive study concludes that the best way to confront plastic pollution is for governments to severely restrict single-use plastic packaging,” said Nina Schrank plastics campaigner at Greenpeace UK. “This seems undeniable. We will never recycle the quantity of waste plastic we’re currently producing.”
Thompson said: “What’s going on in the sea is a symptom of the problem – the origin of the problem and the solution are back on land and that’s where we’ve got to take action.”

Lockdown again

25th May 2021

While we humans struggle with the pandemic, life goes on.

The sapotas are getting ready, and I eye them everyday with delight.

Technically, this is the neighbour's tree, the boughs nicely overhanging on to our garden, inviting us to reach out and pluck a few fruits.  So whats's the ethics of this I wonder - may I pluck or not?  Can I covet these fruits?

And the jasmine blooms every day, and I never get bored of watching them.

Two blooms and a bud.  Gundu mallis.  And see the leaves all washed with the rain.

Under the Rangoon Creeper, an insect buzzed around, and then alighted on the mud, kicking furiously with its front legs, as it burrowed inwards.  

I had not seen one of these earlier.  Lovely green and black markings.  It buzzed as it moved around, and I marvelled as to how far the sand it kicked went.  

My naturalist friends identified it as a sand wasp species - Bembix - but I am as yet unable to figure out which one.  This one's colouring quite different from the other Bembix specimens I found online.

OHB variations

Variation%20in%20Oriental%20Honey%20Buzzard%20%u2013%20Birding%20Beijing%20%u5317%u4EAC%u89C2%u9E1F

Reference for myself - one of the most polymorphic raptors.  

Summer blooms

 

The Hosts lily blooms in the summer heat.  Two stalks, and maybe a third? 

Framed by lily leaves

Two beauties I captured, there are more.