Kalliveli-A dry baked wetland

After much of dilly-dallying as to go birding or not, myself and my classmates decided to give an open invite to our classmates to go birding to Kaliveli wetland. The last minute inputs from the seniors in college saying that the place is “Papad-dry” and we could not see any bird did not quite dishearten us and nine of us left at 0600hrs from the college only to end up waiting on the ECR till 0700hrs for the bus, generally with blaring music to come by. When one finally came, he asked us to get down at PIMS and said the tank was a kilometer from there. On reaching PIMS, we were told by a local “Chai-shop” owner that the wetland is some 5 odd km from there (it wasn’t so much though!) and arranged a share auto to go there. Nine of us got in and reached the tank by 0900hrs. Having fixed the autowallah for our return trip, we set off into the vast wetland. Where the water was, no one knew!











A small orientation to a couple of new inductees to the world of bird watching was facilitated and the strict dos and don’ts were made clear. The place, as our dear seniors had told, was indeed dry to the core and of the many miniature tanks carved out into the flat wetland only one had water in it, a pair of grey herons, sandpipers etc greeted us. A lone pied kingfisher female sat there for over one hour watching nine of us scampering around watching the birds with just two binocs to spare!
By around 1000hrs, a lone falcon was seen taking off with something in the talons and as it was against the sun, we were able to get only a short glimpse of it before we lost sight of it. A little later, a flock of eleven spoonbills came in from the NW part of the tank and began to descend, before everyone had a good look at them, someone pointed out at another flock of large birds soaring in the sky, soon binocs exchanged hands and the birds were identified as painted storks which were gaining height on the thermal, which I guess were in plenty! By the time the birds were identified, the spoonbills were nowhere in sight! We could not have seen them even if they landed in this huge wetland.
After a frugal breakfast of biscuits and water, we seemed to have made progress by covering some distance only to be stopped by a pair of Kentish plovers among 30 red wattled lapwings in the dry grass. Another good half an hour was spent with this very obliging pair of birds.
By 1100hrs, the sun needless to say, was beating down our backs and the new inductees were starting to squat on the ground whenever the group stopped- the first indications of wanting to return started to show!











Having pestered them to continue walking, we did a loop in the baked, dry tank (don’t know if it was the tank bed!) which was about 1km and reached the place where we were supposed to be picked up by the very friendly autowallah. Having bargained with him, he agreed to drop us to the university and this time, he had got a friend who very obligingly offered to take us to another wetland with lot of birds. Something told me that he was not all that a nice chap and I declined the offer saying we were really hungry and wanted to return. My suspicion came true when we got down, the autowallah a local, living near the wetland offered to take us on a bike the next time we go and also gave us pin point locations as to where to see many birds. On further questioning- “I go there with guns to shoot birds” came the reply. He also told that the place is a bird reserve which attracts a lot of “Paravais” when it is full of water. I am not quite sure if he meant the taste!

A shield tail and an awful stench!

Shield tails or Uropeltids as they are called are one of the few snakes which are rarely seen and easily missed due to the unique character of burrowing into the leaf litter rich soil of the forest floor. These relatively small snakes are evolved to lead a life in the underworld- eyes almost not seen, the head narrow pointed and sharp, the body smooth and glossy and the tail has a shape as if it was unassumingly cut off with an axe and this is how it gets the name as shield tail.
I came across three species of these non-venomous snakes and in two of the occasions, they were seen lying on the road soon after a heavy downpour and on one occasion, it was dug out from the rotting leaf litter when we were in search of snails. The snake which was later identified as walls shield tail was very quick in disappearing into the litter mass while the other two on the road, did not have the evolutionary advantage of burrowing into a thick layer of asphalt!
The snakes one yet to be identified and the other known as the Pied bellied shield tail which were found on the road were needless to say picked up for photo documentation and give them a second life by releasing them into the forest away from speeding vehicles. On both occasions, I ended up having a nauseating feeling due to the pungent scent in the urine of the snake which is known to be an anti predatory trait developed over the years. The smell, strong like that of garlic and rotting meat in addition to a weird smell which cannot be put in words took a bucket of water and a good lathery soap to ward off. So good was the evolutionary trait in those snakes that it effectively worked on creatures which try to save it from death too!