Rare birds show up at unlikely spaces in Chennai on October 15 and 16

The recent Chennai Rains, one marked by the advent of the north east monsoon on October 15, might not have followed the original script, as staged by weather watching professionals, but it followed a predictable course in one sense: throwing birds off course. During this period, two birders had unlikely visitors in their neck of the woods — a chestnut winged cuckoo in Pallikaranai and a lesser frigate bird in Perambur

On October 15, and the next day too, friends would have called off elaborately planned visits. One is talking about known friends. There is no telling what ‘unknown friends’ — an oxymoron but nevertheless a reality to people like Sundaravel Palanivel — would do on days like these. It is just their time under the sun — in truth, under an overcast and costantly dripping sky — to spring a surprise on people. On such days, they love to invite themselves to homes that have not rolled out the red carpet for them. Homes that are not even aware of their existence till they show up at the doorway.

On October 16, Sundaravel Palanivel had an “unknown friend” calling on him, and he is not complaning, in fact grinning from ear to ear. Sundaravel is a birder from Kamakotti Nagar in Pallikaranai, and there is a joke in birding circles that rare birds visit him for a bit of Sundaravel-watching more than he goes to their habitats. bird-watching.

Every time storm clouds gather on the horizon, Sundaravel feels a sibylline tingling behind the ear, a hunch similar to what Malcolm Gadwell discusses in Blink that a rare bird is headed his way. On October 16, Sundaravel spotted a chestnut winged cuckoo (CWC) on a patch of Kamakotti Nagar that is a step away from the Pallikaranai marsh.

At a time when birders are forced to conclude that CWC is not a passage migrant in Chennai but a winter visitor, this sighting considerable significance.

By the duration of its stay in Chennai, the CWC is revising bird guides. Over the last five to six years, a group of birders from Sembakkam-Hasthinapuram have been recording CWC sighting during winter at Nanmangalam Reserve Forest. There is enough data (some of which posted in eBird) that this species is not viewing Chennai as a winter pit stop on the way to Sri Lanka, but a regular winter sojourn. These briders have reported an increase in their numbers, sometimes as many as three CWCs sighted at Nanmangalam.

Sundaravel notes that in an earlier winter season, he has seen a CWC in a reserve forest not too far from East Tambaram.

Sundaravel notes: “CWC is not staying the winter around Pallikaranai — at least for now — though this is the second time (the earlier one being in the winter of 2021) I am sighting this bird in these cirurmstances. On both occasions, rains had brought the bird to Kamakotti Nagar in Pallikaranai.”