Bird Race 2011

It was dark all around and a fine mist creeped into my vision, as I drove down the road, attempting to reach Velachery station at 5 in the morning.It was Bird Race 2011 and we had just started.

My teammates were a mixed bunch. A guy studying Zoology in Loyola, Asiem. My bird race teammate from last year, Pritika, and of course our captain Hopeland, (yes there were a LOT of 'hope' related jokes that day =D ), a birdwatching God =D

We started from the station and walked till the Pallikaranai Marsh, all the while scanning the skies and surrounding trees/marsh for birds of any sort. The first birds we sighted were Little Cormorants flying in the sky, Cattle Egrets and Moorhens.We tried peering into a dumpsite to spot what we could, but we were rudely interrupted by a bunch of guys who apparently owned the land (how someone could own a bit of the marsh and also the garbage stumps me. I wanted to tell them that the garbage was probably ours, but decided not to when one particular man couldn't stop glaring at us.)

We then continued walking down the road along the Marsh and spent atleast an hour trying to spot various wading birds, especially the Plover which Hope spotted in a minute and I took ages to find (The face that he can identify birds just by glancing at them is amazing! He can do that even down to what precise species the bird is, based on a little ring around it's eye or some sort of thing).

We then went on to spot Godwits, Ruffs, Ibises, Kingfishers, Pelicans,Black Kites, Red-wattled Lapwings and Black winged Stilts galore!(all you non-bird watchers definitely missed something!) The marsh is such a beautiful place and only once you notice the variety of birds there,do you realize how sick humans must be to destroy such a place with all our garbage.

Back to the story. We went on to spot some 40-50 odd species of birds in that area. We spotted a Gull out there, far away from the sea, too!

After a few hours of walking around we decided to move on and caught a bus to Nanmangalam Forest. Located in Medavakkam, a little bit from Tambaram, this place has a relatively undisturbed forest.

We slyly entered the forest and trekked up a little hill. The climb was quite tough as we had to climb through thorny bushes and crawl on rocks, all the while looking out for birds and also making sure that we didn't step on a snake or anyother creature underfoot. When we finally reached the top the only bird we sighted was a Kestrel, a large bird of prey, and that too somewhere far off. We were all pretty dead by then, but with only a few more hours of the race left we had to trudge on.

We walked around a few more hills, went into a few
quarries and spotted a few dozen birds. Shrikes, Bulbuls, Koels, Crow Pheasants, Larks and Robins were some that we saw. (My memory is not brilliant enough to recall the precise species =P).

By that time we had walked around in the heat so much, that we had run out of water, and all of us had a few dozen thorn scratches all over our arms and faces.

We got out of the place and took a small break, re-hydrated ourselves and went to MCC located in Tambaram. That campus is so much cooler and shaded (phew) when compared to Nanmangalam.

The first bird we saw was a Shikra, perched right at the entrance to the college. We walked a bit and saw a Brainfever Bird (called so 'cause of it's call that sounds like 'brainfever'. Listen carefully next time). Hope spotted many birds that eluded us. No surprise there.

A few Pittas and Paradise Flycatchers later we had walked half the campus (maybe around 20 kms since morning) and we were DEAD! However, Hope gave us hope (lame I know) by pointing out a Black-naped Oriole that doesn't exist anywhere else in Chennai.The bright flash of yellow spurred us to move on and we did.

Hope and I also waded through the paddy fields, in the campus, looking for Snipes (the Greater Painted Snipe is another bird present only in this area).Just as I turned my head, a Snipe flew past my head and I missed it =( But luckily I spotted a few more just a bit later =)

We then headed back, and on the way, when we stopped at a water body, we saw a checkered keelback coiled on a branch that was halfway submerged in the water. Such a beauty!

Understanding that we couldn't do much more and that time was running out (we had till 6.30 pm to report back with our final bird count), we caught a train and then a bus and reached our final destination. Our bird count turned out to be 116 and we were optimistic about bagging some sort of prize. Unfortunately the winning team spotted 120 birds! We were a green team(meaning that we used only public transport for birding) and we thought that we might win a special mention for that, but THEN
we forgot to mention that we were a green team on our logbook and so,lost out.

But that's alright.The day was brilliant and I learnt so much! Compared to last year (where I had to captain a team and I know NOTHING about birding) this year was so much more fun, interesting and also so damn tiring. When I got home I didn't really care that I was a wreck after walking around so much, as I knew that Bird Race 2011 was memorable and always would be =)