The Beach Birders at the Fifth Chennai Bird Race

This was the way it was.  No colour filter!  Photo by Rags.  See the entire set of pictures here.

Our Beach Birders team from the coast

decided to bird for half a day, at the most.

With binos and books we took to the Bird Race.

It was the refreshments that set the leisurely pace!

A gorgeous sunrise, such as I had never seen before

but wait, Pallikaranai had much more  in store!

Swamp hens, egrets and stilts galore

the cormorants and ducks creating a furore.

A lone Ruff, Pelicans landing one by one

Stints in aerial ballet, it seemed, just for fun.

Bobbing sandpipers, the prinias chirping

meditative herons and jacanas preening.

Unmindful of the garbage and stench were they

"A poor sense of smell", the experts say.

A news crew arrived in the meantime from afar

and before we knew it, Rags was a TV star!

Watched the spot bills and pintails and teals flypast.

We decided to move on after a coffee-and-sandwich repast.

To Sholinganallur wetlands, past the toll,  we drove

and Fulvous Whistling Ducks we saw, by jove!

Kelambakkam backwaters by midday we did drop by.

Blue waters, a breeze, the sun high in the sky.

It was time for the biggies the thermals to ride

Painted storks and Pelicans, side by side.

A few Terns winged without intent

their low numbers, to me, a disappointment.

But a family of curlews did give us a sneak peek

as they fished in the mud with their overlong beaks.

Happy and hot and tired were we

as we headed home, Sheila, Rags, Ammu and me!

Our bird of the day was the Grey-headed Lapwing
but for the Emerald Doves, an Orphean Warbler did sing!

Bridled Terns logged 121, our tally 59
but with the fun and company, that suited me fine!
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The fifth Chennai Bird Race held on Sunday Jan 22nd.

The TOI new report has a few errors.  The winning team of Vikas was Bridled Tern.  And he spotted an eagle not an owl!

The IE report - Students create a buzz at CBR.

The Hindu report - Feathered friends

The Jacana Junkies were at the third edition in 2010.

Birding at Yelagiri, interrupted by cyclone Thane

28th Dec 2011 to 31st, with cyclone Thane keeping us indoors all day on the 30th!

Pied bushchats and bulbuls everywhere.

The mermaid-in-the-lake seemed to point to the white-browed wagtail, which was on the rock to her left!  Poor thing, her arm has dislocated with the effort!

Asian Paradise flycatcher, that flitted in and out of the silver oak trees on the 31st morning.

White-bellied drongos - fascinating aerial swoops and dives as they caught insects on the fly!

My first ever Verditer flycatcher - the blue birdie on the wire.

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Pongal at Point Calimere - a photo summary

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Prawn fisherman, salt pans

Mud flats

Feral horses

The British lighthouse - still works

The ruined Chola lighthouse

Glorious Glory lilies

Crab kolams

Mangroves at Muthupet lagoon

Avicennia marina (I think)

The boat jetty leading to the broken board walk

Our local restaurant

Proprietor Ramar

Ghostrider in the making

A hermit crab says hello

Orange sunrise

Golden sunset

More details to follow!

Continues here.

The baobab at YMCA

Adansonia digitata - the African baobab.  I believe there are only four specimens in Madras.

I did not see flowers, but it was in pod.  They are velvety, covered with fine hair, and look a bit like the gourds of the sausage tree.

The baobabs grow in water scarce areas, have this massive trunk and sparsely leaved branches, and I believe can live to a thousand years!

Siruthavoor, for the first time

I added these three species to my life list, in the first fortnight of December -
Rufous-tailed Lark
Black-headed munia
Oriental Skylark

At Siruthavoor.

A necklace of terns - gull billed?

Bee eater enjoying breakfast

Find the Oriental Skylark

Rufous-tailed lark?

Barn swallow.  Not the streak-throated swallow, sighted here just the previous week.

Do some bird watching, and tell me how many species you see.

The munias

Kambha stays unaffected by cyclone Thane

We were out of town when cyclone Thane crossed the Madras shores.  There were strong winds - one of our sea-facing windows worked open and broke with the constant banging - and a lot of rain.

The composting kambha of mine sits on the terrace under a ledge, but open in the sides.  I was worried that I would come back to find a soggy mess.  Went to take a peek today, and was much relieved to see that it was doing fine.

Things look a bit more moist than when I left, but no troubleshooting required.

Looking forward to some compost in 2012.

Spotted! Owlet at Children's Park.

Dec 18th - Children's Park - Nizhal Marghazhi walk

Had a delightful stroll with a large bunch of adults and kids through the Children's Park, Guindy.  Everytime I visit the park, I love the walk through the trees, and despite the hordes of people and buses in the car park, they all seem to go to other parts of the park!

A spotted owlet, spotted because it "blessed" one of the walkers right below!

The soapnut tree with lots of nuts.

The inky marams were in fruit too.

Ouch!  And why do they have to nail the boards, so?

Still more walks coming up:

Semmozhi - Dec 25th - Sun 10.30 am and Jan 7th - Sat morn 10.30 am


Children's Park - Dec 31st - Sat 10.30 am and Jan 8th - Sun 4 pm.


Panagal park as well - Dec 24th - Sat 4pm and Jan 1st - Sun morn 10.30 am


Dont miss them!

The Nizhal Marghazhi walks are on

Nizhal has a whole bunch of tree walks planned for the month of Marghazhi.  The first one at Semmozhi Poonga was today morning.  It was led by Arun-of-the-turtlewalk-now-afforesting-Tiruvannamalai fame, and there were around 20 of us, several children.

The weather was fabulous, and the poonga not too crowded.  The nux vomica was in fruit and the ducks have had babies.  So if you missed today's walk there are several others to attend.

The tree walks are in three of the city's parks, and here are the dates and times.

Semmozhi Poonga - RK Salai

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Dec 25th - Sun 10.30 am

Jan 7th - Sat morn 10.30 am

Children's Park - Guindy

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Dec 18th - Sun morning 10.30 am

Dec 31st - Sat 10.30 am

Jan 8th - Sun 4 pm.

Panagal Park - T Nagar

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Dec 24th - Sat 4pm

Jan 1st - Sun (new year) 10.30 am

My lunar eclipse

10th December.  Chennai, from our balcony.

6:57 pm

7:20 pm

7:40 pm

8:48 pm

9:48 pm

It was lovely to see the moon fully eclipsed, like a cheese ball, all reddish brown and yummy.  Or was it more like a gulab jamun?!

Next one in India - 2018.  

Composting diary - troubleshooting

Just as I was feeling smug about my trouble-free khamba debut, I ran into my first "trouble".  I had not checked on the bottom-most, empty (thus far) pot, since it was well empty, no?

With two pots filled with composting garbage, it was time for the semi-composted middle pot to move to the lower pot.  When I peered into it, it was far from empty - it was filled halfway with water, and there were maggots swimming merrily in the watery sludge - EWWWWWW!  The water was rain water, which I should have realised would have entered via the side openings when we had our monsoonic depression and heavy wind and rain last week.

Emergency action!  Take the pot down slosh it all out, clean well and sun!

That was yesterday.  So, today I went and refilled it (dry and clean) with a little sand at the bottom.  This is Unit C.  Moved the dry, semi-composted Unit A stuff into it and moved Unit B above it.  With all the rains, Unit B is more wet than I like - it will definitely breed more maggots, so I have added more dry leaf.  Let me see if this works.

Should add even more dry leaf tomorrow I think.

Roadside tree planting

Preamble

The residents of New Beach Road felt the need to plant more trees at the eastern end of the road, that leads on to the beach front. The western parts of the road are tree-lined and shady, while the eastern end has looked bare.
So, there was discussion and dialogue as to how to go about this and what follows is our experience in planting trees on the road, for the benefit of anyone else looking to do so.
We decided to do this just before the rains, rather than in the summer, so that the saplings would get a head start with good water and cool weather. Little did we realise that our chosen date would work to a "T" - the monsoons broke over Chennai, the morning after we had done our tree planting!

Pitting

Saplings were sourced from Nizhal.  We got five punnai and five pooarasam saplings - both of which are expected to do well in coastal areas, with sandy soil, harsh sunny climes, and they are both native species as well. Oct 23rd, a Sunday was agreed upon as several of teh residents were available, post Deepavali.

Then to figure out costs - we need sand and red earth/manure, plus labour to dig pits 2ft by 2ft, and 2 ft deep too.  One of the residents got in touch with Malathi Nursery in the neighbourhood, and we worked out costs as Rs 250 per tree planting, with sand/manure and labour.

Next question - how do we share these costs?  We decided that each tree would be "sponsored" by a child of the road, who would then be responsible for keeping an eye on it, watering it in the dry season, and reporting if the sapling was not doing well.  Overnight, we had ten "sponsors" and the money question was answered!

We then spoke to the Additional Engineer, Chennai Corporation Thiruvanmyur, informed him, then got the permission of the AC, Adyar division, who promised us tree guards too.  I was sceptical that the tree guards would arrive in time, but lo and behold, come 22nd Oct evening, and a fishcart trundled up to our flat and disgorged the tree guards!

Planting

Sunday morning dawned and we gathered at 8am, deciding on the spots where we wanted to plant.

Soon, the gardener and the sand and manure showed up too, and he began pitting,  digging the pits for our saplings.  The young men of our road also added their muscle power.  The nursery had packed ten bags of manure and ten bags of red earth, so we just had to empty one packet of each into each pit.
The kids enjoyed planting their saplings, placing them in the middle of the pit, and filling up the space around with manure and sand, making sure it was firm and well-packed.

Tree guards
Then, it was time for the tree guards.  The tree guards that we were supplied with had these long, spindly legs, which had to be buried in the pit.

This was done diligently, and the kids wrote their names on the little blank bits of metal that you see.  They are the designated caregivers for each sapling now.

I underestimated the need for the tree guard.  A couple of days later while walking to the beach, we were dismayed to see that one tree guard had disappeared, and the punnai which it had protected stood bare, exposed and covered with plastic refuse.

Then, just ten days ago, we noticed that the garbage truck had obviously banged into another one, which was then all bent out of shape.

Watered

The saplings were all watered well, as we hauled water in some empty drinking water dispensers to the saplings.  The plan is that during the dry season, we will just carry water in a 2-litre bottle, and each family will take care of the one sapling in their name.

One of the pooarasam saplings - all done!

It has been raining heavily ever since, and we hope this has given a good start to these saplings. We also uncovered other pooarasam saplings among the weeds, obviously from some previous planting efforts.  Lets hope these saplings grow, along with our kids, into lovely tall, shady trees!