16. Birding in Alibagh while beach hopping

When the water has receded Alibagh Beach has the largest stretch of sand, with horse-carts giving tourists rides in the water, all the way up to Shivaji’s Kolaba Fort. Lots of food stalls and bathers so the number of birds is less.

Like the famous Orinthologist, Salim Ali, one needs to go to Akshi and Nagaon beaches to do some serious bird-watching. Akshi is about 3 km and Nagaon 7 km from Alibagh beach. The latter being approached through a fishing village will majorly affect your olfactory senses but you can also see the Khanderi and Undheri Forts from here.

Dunlin,  Calidris alpina

Western Reef Heron, Egretta gularis

Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea

Indian Pond Heron, Ardeola grayii

Kentish Plover,Charadrius alexandrinus

Western black-tailed Godwit, Limosa limosa

Common Sandpiper, Actitis hypoleucos

Kentish Plover,Charadrius alexandrinus

Wire-tailed Swallow, Hirundo smithii

Seeing the Wire Tailed Swallows perched, for a change on a dry piece of wood on the Akshi beach, and not circling above, was an unusual sight.

White Bellied Sea Eagle, Haliaeetus leucogaster

The white sands of Kihim beach, 11 km from Alibagh, makes it a popular bollywood movie locale as also that of getaway weekend homes of the rich and the famous of Mumbai. But the Black Headed Gulls are everywhere. They are winter migrants to these parts and are currently in their white headed avatar. Towards the end of their stay they start molting and the characteristic black heads will appear.

Black Headed Gulls, Larus ridibundus

                     Check this for sound effects!

Gull pellet on the beach

The last is the Versoli Beach between the Forts of Khanderi and Undheri on one side and Kolaba on the other. The fishing boats of the Koliwada ie the fishermen’s village are ever present. In the trees growing alongside the Versoli Beach one can see some interesting bush birds too. For instance I always find these green pigeons dozing in the afternoons.

Yellow footed Green Pigeon, Treron phoenicoptera

Hermit Crab

Crab Art !

Fishermen and friends

Birding is great!!

15. A Birders Nature Walk

You can make walking a hobby rather than an ordeal, necessary for good health. One way of walking is to plug earphones and totally obliterate the surroundings and just focus on completing the number of rounds you need to do for burning the calories consumed. The other is to do some carbon neutral sight-seeing while walking. For this you need a good pair of walking shoes and keep your ears and eyes open. Ideally you could carry a small camera. The first proper Nature Walk I went for was in the Borivili National Park organised by the BNHS (Bombay Natural History Society). It was such a lovely experience that since then I have started converting all my walks into Nature Walks. The BNHS Nature Walk was with a group of nature enthusiasts so if someone saw a bird he would point it out to the rest of us or if one saw some insects he/she would identify it for the rest. We were lucky to have a few budding entomologists with us (as young as 11-12 years old) on that trip who kept us from stepping on every little bug or ant. Our Guide was a Botanist so we identified every tree we passed. That day I realised that it is very important to try to name the creatures and flowers and trees you see along the path because that gives your left brain something to do other than the usual worrying and to stay alert and enthusiastic. 

It is during my numerous Nature Walks, (even if it is just around the neighborhood), that I have seen the most beautiful creatures which normally don’t stand a chance of registering themselves on a busy mind working on an overdrive. These butterflies for instance- I truly appreciated their beauty and diversity when trying to identify them out of thousands of varieties, matching every spot and mark and colour.

Precis (Junonia) Almana

 

Neptis Hylas, Common Sailer

 

Eurema Hecabe Hecabe,

 Oriental Common Grass Yellow

Graphium Doson

 

Tirumala Limniace Blue Tiger

 

Papilio Polytes

Oriental Great Eggfly

 

The picture below was contributed by Raka. The female of this species mimics the Pachliopta Aristolochiae, the Indian Common Rose with which I was confusing this one but the body of the Common Rose is red.

Papilio Polytes Papilionidae, Female Common Mormon

       

Incidentally the Euploea core Nymphalidae or the Common Indian Crow pupated in a couple of my house plants. One day I suddenly saw this gem like shining pupa hanging from under a leaf of my potted plant. Then I saw another one. Here I give a series of pictures of the emergence of the butterfly. It took over 3 hours to dry its wings and fly off. Initially it clung to the empty pupa shell for at least an hour before it could bring itself to move away from it.

Not to forget the bugs, which we treat with such contempt.

Green and Black Beetles

 

Stink Bug nymphs and the empty egg shells.

 One baby is missing!

Dragon Fly

Damselfly

The multi-coloured Dragonflies and Damselflies with lovely diaphanous wings used to be the most common insects in my childhood but today’s urban child may never have seen one! They are mostly found near water bodies, specially the Damselflies. One way to know the difference between the two is to see the wings when at rest – the Dragonfly can only hold their wings sideways at about a 90 degrees angle, whereas the Damselflies can both fold the wings up over their slimmer bodies and bring them together vertically, like a butterfly.

My favorite are of course the birds. On our morning walks we discovered a little spot, just off the main road, where some drain water was collecting and some bushes and grass had grown. It had the most amazing variety of bush birds. Here are the pictures of some of them.

Ashy Crowned Sparrow Lark

Red Avadavat

White Breasted Water Hen

Grey Francolin

Little Green Bee eater

Brahminy Starlings flanking their migrant cousins, the Rosy Pastors

Yellow Wattled Lapwings

Red Wattled Lapwings

Common Hoopoe

Little Brown Dove

White Throated Kingfisher

Sometimes when I don’t see anything very exciting there are still the street dogs,  (Rajeev calls them the D-company because they operate in gangs chasing away outsiders, both dogs and sometimes, unsuspecting humans ). Inevitably I find a street dog or two accompanying us on our walks. Earlier I used to think that they know I am a dog lover so they are drawn to me. Now after some close observation I have realized that they are more often than not using me to get into forbidden territory guarded by other dog outfits. They try to show the territory owners that they are with a human who they use as a shield. Many a times I have had to take up cudgels on behalf of the dog who has selected me as the sucker of the day!

Who can resist that look!

Then there are other fellow walkers to catch up with.

Fact File 

• The ancient Greeks called butterflies ‘psyche’. They believed that when the soul left the body, it flew  to heaven like a butterfly.

• Over 70% of the over 1 million species in the Animal Kingdom consists of insects.

• Insects are divided into 30 orders, mainly on the basis of the features on their wings.

• Some insect orders are – Coleoptera (beetles), Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants), Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets), and Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths).

• The colourful wings of butterflies are for camouflage. Specially moths blend into their surroundings and avoid detection by predators. The bottom side of butterfly wings are mostly dull which when closed help the butterflies to suddenly ‘disappear’. Many butterflies have eye spots on their wings, like the Precis Almana above, to mimic the head of large animals. The very brightly coloured butterflies are usually poisonous or distasteful and will leave an indelible memory for the animals eating them the first time.

• Most colourful butterflies have derived and stored the poison in their bodiy as caterpillars by feeding on poisonous plants. 
  

• The Odonata is subdivided into Anisoptera (Dragonflies) and Zygoptera (Damselflies).

• The dragonflies have very large compound eyes made up of as many as 28000 single units (the ommatidia) each with its own lens, giving them excellent all round vision. Their neck is also very flexible enabling them to turn their head from side to side, used by them for aerial pursuit of prey.

   The Stink Bugs are of the Hemiptera order, suborder Heteroptera.

•  They are called stink bugs because they produce unpleasant smells to ward off their enemies. The smelly chemicals are produced by glands in the thorax of adult stink bugs and the abdomen of nymphs.

•  The newly hatched stink bug nymphs cluster around the empty eggshells to resemble a larger creature. Another advantage is that if attacked, their combined chemical defences are almost equal to that of an adult.

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