Little ringed Plovers: the motorized toys!!

Little ringed plovers are diminutive wading bird found around tidal mudflats, shallow flood pools or river banks. I found these at Pulicat lake (-located at an hour’s drive north of Chennai. I took a bus to Red hills-contrary to the name it is quite a desolate place. Funny part here is nobody knew where this place was even the co-passenger in the bus, after much deliberation and I trying to figure out what exactly is the word for lake in Tamil- I tried a mix of rudimentary Tamil- Malayalam-Sanskrit…words like thadakam, perishu thani edam etc were some starters, finally found that pulicat is actually pazhavilkadu!!. The route was spectacular and climate very agreeable having rained heavily a week earlier. Unfortunately the place turned out to be quite dirty with fishes strewn around haphazardly to dry, clumsy buildings and human wastes. The chaos was accentuated by the construction of bridge across the lake. It’s only when you walk few Kms to the outskirts that the beauty of nature unfolds. Most people must have seen Pulicat in movies- the shallow lake stretches to ocean, it is an amazing sight. I saw some painted storks fishing…some pics are posted in my photos link.
Little ringed plovers have distinctive yellow eye-ring around the eyes and one or two black bands (“rings”) across the breast. These are active birds that are suspicious in nature and quick to give alarm calls and take flight. They were found scampering on the mud bank then stop, peck and scoot, giving an impression of motorized toys. I read that they also do “foot trembling” that is standing on one foot while rapidly vibrating the toes of the other foot, this vibration is supposed to disturb prey and so betray their presence. They nest in shallow scrape and like stilts are known to fake ‘broken wing’ to distract the predators. In some countries their numbers have declined and they are included in the Red List where they were previously abundant, their breeding sites are affected by man-made changes.

This a poem by Pablo Neruda (translated), frankly this not really my favorite of Neruda but some lines are spectacular. Like this one “How out of its throat, smaller than a finger, can there, fall the waters, of its song?”

Ode to Bird Watching

Now
Let's look for birds!
The tall iron branches
in the forest,
The dense
fertility on the ground.
The world
is wet.
A dewdrop or raindrop
shines,
a diminutive star
among the leaves.
The morning time
mother earth
is cool.
The air
is like a river
which shakes
the silence.
It smells of rosemary,
of space
and roots.
Overhead,
a crazy song.
It's a bird.
How
out of its throat
smaller than a finger
can there fall the waters
of its song?
Luminous ease!
Invisible
power
torrent
of music
in the leaves.
Sacred conversations!
Clean and fresh washed
is this
day resounding
like a green dulcimer.
I bury
my shoes
in the mud,
jump over rivulets.
A thorn
bites me and a gust
of air like a crystal
wave
splits up inside my chest.
Where
are the birds?
Maybe it was
that
rustling in the foliage
or that fleeting pellet
of brown velvet
or that displaced
perfume? That
leaf that let loose cinnamon smell
- was that a bird? That dust
from an irritated magnolia
or that fruit
which fell with a thump -
was that a flight?
Oh, invisible little
critters
birds of the devil
with their ringing
with their useless feathers.
I only want
to caress them,
to see them resplendent.
I don't want
to see under glass
the embalmed lightning.
I want to see them living.
I want to touch their gloves
of real hide,
which they never forget in
the branches
and to converse with
them
sitting on my shoulders
although they may leave
me like certain statues
undeservedly whitewashed.
Impossible.
You can't touch them.
You can hear them
like a heavenly
rustle or movement.
They converse
with precision.
They repeat
their observations.
They brag
of how much they do.
They comment
on everything that exists.
They learn
certain sciences
like hydrography.
and by a sure science
they know
where there are harvests
of grain.

Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) real name Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto was one of the most influential 20^th century poet and writer from South American country Chile. He was very popular in his country and when he died Dictator Pinochet (yes the same scoundrel who also happened to be personal friend of Thatcher) didn’t allow public funeral but people disobeyed the curfew. Few months after Allende was toppled (famously supported by US) when soldiers came to search his house he is famously have said “look around—there's only one thing of danger for you here—poetry”. I like that!!. To be fair one need add Neruda did slide into regressive form of communism (even praising Stalin at one point, nearly came to blow with Octavio Paz over this). A trivia about Neruda: he always wrote in green ink because it was the color of Esperanza (hope). His love poems had measure of eroticism, that was considered controversial (this blogger though liked it when I read it more than a decade back). Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1971 (incidentally the year I was born!!). Neruda’s favorite poet was Whitman (anyone who reads Whitman will love him), so much so that he used to keep a framed photo of his!!. There is a mention by Borges "We did meet forty years ago. At that time we were both influenced by Whitman and I said, jokingly in part, 'I don't think anything can be done in Spanish, do you?' Neruda agreed, but we decided it was too late for us to write our verse in English!!”