A whistle stop tour
The Hindu
A local migrant, the fulvous whistling duck usually inks Sholinganallur marshland in Chennai into its itinerary. Present in good numbers, it is keeping up the chatter there
The Sholinganallur marshland (also called Perumbakkam wetland) is the very image of a Corporation playground on a weekend — it has gotten that way, all of a sudden. Different groups would be playing different ball games at the same time, resulting in temporary holdups. The Sholinganallur marshland presents an analogous situation.
Until recently, vast sections of the waters would often come across as a fiefdom of one species — because the marshland is a largely vacated hall with only a few home-bound species holding court.
A roster seemed to have been prepared for which species could range over the waters at a given time. Sometimes, one would see a horde of Eurasian coot (fulcia atra) bobbing in the waters. Sometimes, a raft of cormorants, vigorously ducking into the waters as if to disorient a shoal of fish. Fulvous whistling ducks having entered the picture, the orderly roster system stands discontinued.
The species seems to have been distributed to many parts of the wetland with some of them taking mid-day siestas in the vegetation lining the waters.
They are also given to sorties.
In these parts, the fulvous whistling duck is a local migrant, its movements dicated by considerations of waters in which they splash into with the right green cover for them to take their food from.
Based on observations, there is a theory that the fulvous whistling duck is slowly but surely putting in the shade, a cousin — the lesser whistling duck which enjoys a greater association with waterbodies in and around Chennai.
he Tamil Nadu Government will take appropriate decision to protect the welfare and livelihood of Manjolai tea estate workers as Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, which is managing the tea gardens for the past 90-odd years, is about to wind up its operations in near future, Speaker M. Appavu has said.