Remembering Mr. Zafar Futehally

(Photo: Sujesh)

On his 101st birth anniversary, we offer our tribute to Mr. Zafar Futehally (19 Mar 1920 - 11 Aug 2013). We were privileged to have him and Mrs. Laeeq Futehally visit our Puttakere in 2012. 

He had heard of our endeavour and had sent an email expressing his appreciation. We were thrilled to bits and had invited him to visit the lake. He did so with his graceful wife, an eminent writer and garden expert. She was quite frail and waited in the car while he accompanied OPR and me for a short distance asking so many questions about the depth of the lake in summer, source of water, how we were raising funds and more.

Zafar Futehally at Puttenahalli Lake Feb. 14, 2012 (Photo: Sujesh)

With PNLIT Trustee OPR (Photo: Sujesh)

When we told him about the migratory Garganey ducks arriving at the lake, he came to see them, cap on head and binoculars in hand. By then, together with Lesser whistling ducks, there was a flock of over a hundred of them. I relive that moment often – standing beside Zafar Sa’ab and seeing ducks, ducks everywhere in our little lake. Later that year, he brought his granddaughter along to see the Garganeys. That was his last visit. Our association with Zafar Sa'ab and Ma'am was very, very brief but we are so grateful that thanks to Puttenahalli Lake our paths crossed at all. 

Garganeys & Whistling Ducks, Dec 2011 (Photo: SK Srinivas)

Mr. and Mrs. Futehally shifted to Kihim in early 2013. He passed away that August and she followed within a year. We had kept him informed about the lake through emails and he would reply to each promptly and with great happiness. In his last email in July, he hoped that the Garganeys would return to our lake that year. They did. They may return yet again when the lake is back in shape, this winter, we hope. 

Female Garganeys, Dec 2013 (Photo: PNLIT)

Garganeys in flight, Feb 2014 (Photo: Sanjay Mysoremutt)

Usha Rajagopalan

Bird(s) watch update

Visiting the lake today afternoon was delightful with the recent shower cleaning the dust off the leaves and making the trees look so lush. More number and species of birds were seen including the migratory Garganey ducks. A birder had seen some 15 of them in the morning but we saw only nine ... not that we are complaining. :-)

Garganey Ducks, 2nd Jan 2015

The Pied Kingfisher, a recent but regular visitor is almost always seen hovering above the water, diving or perched too far to be photographed. But not today. So obligingly it drove away a couple of white breasted kingfishers and sat on a dead tree we'd planted in the lake bed. 

Pied Kingfisher, 2nd Jan 2015

Several green bee eaters flitted too fast for the camera. Likewise a Grey Heron and a Purple Heron were too far away. All in all, a lovely time indeed! 

Here's wishing that we get to see more and more birds!

Usha

The Garganey ducks are back!

We are delighted to report the sighting of our winter visitor, the Garganey Duck. Today when we went to the lake at 3 p.m. we saw four of them at the lake. Typical of its highly territorial nature, the Eurasian Coot, one of our resident species  was busy chasing the ducks away. The quartet merely flew a short distance and made themselves comfortable once again. We hope they are joined by more of their ilk. To know more about this migratory species, see here.

The Garganey was sighted at Puttenahalli Lake for the first time in 2011, an event which was reported in the Hindu article Ducking It. The birds were here last year too.

Female Garganeys at Puttenahalli Lake, Dec 2013 

We were unable to take any photographs today, however, BTV, a city tv news channel, who had come over for a story and have filmed the Garganeys. 

You are welcome to visit the lake and take photographs of our winged visitors. 

Usha

Being at the Puttenahalli Lake Bird Count

Going to the lake at least once every day, we are apt to overlook or take for granted, the birds at the lake. Those in the water may still get a glance but we often miss the ones flying overhead, hiding in the foliage or even sitting still on a branch. Participating in the Bangalore Bird Count on Sunday, 16th February changed all this - at least for a couple of hours! 

Our team consisted of Gopinath Subbarao, Harish Mahendrakar (the two experts), Indrajit Chatterjee (photographer), Vishnu and Siddharth, 9th std. students and me. We began the exercise at 7.15 a.m. by sighting the birds and counting their number which Gopinath and Siddharth noted separately. We were in agreement most of the time except for the number of Garganey Ducks and the identity of one particular bird. 

There were two flocks of Garganeys at different spots but a loud bang by a passing truck sent the flocks flying! They settled down soon enough but became one large crowd which we had to count again. The "stranger" birds flew constantly and were tantalizing. They were quite plump, seemed to wag their tails while on the ground and showed off a bright white rump in flight. Out came the bird guide book and we pored over the sandpipers and stints (it had to be one of them!). We were clueless and decided to shelve its identity for the present and finish counting the others.

Birds sang and chirped among the bushes but refused to show themselves and be counted. We guessed their identities but did not include them in our list. Some of the morning walkers stopped to ask what we were doing and why. Most of them left us alone convinced perhaps that we were a bunch of silly coots!

One round of the lake took more than an hour and a half. We returned to the Gazebo where Gopinath and Siddharth sat down to compare their notes and to tally the count. 

I had hoped that we'd spot at least 12 species but we had seen 26!! The number of individual birds were 140! All these in our lake? Incredible but true!

Returning home and a couple of hours later, Gopinath called to say that he'd identified the mysterious bird as a Green Sandpiper. Well, they are welcome of course but we'd hoped it would be a Temminck's Stint, a winter visitor and not seen at our lake so far. Perhaps next year we'll be able to see this fellow too at our lake!

Gopinath's list of birds can be seen here. Some of Indrajit's photos are below. 

Any day is bird counting day. See how many you spot! 

Usha

Green Sandpiper

Indian Pond Heron

Purple Heron

Red-wattled Lapwings

Spot-billed ducks, Eurasian (Common) Coot

White-browed Wagtail 

Puttenahalli Lake, a not-to-miss destination for Bangalore BirdRace 2014

The India BirdRaces, supported by HSBC, is the largest and most popular birdwatching activity across India. The current season (November 2013 – March 2014), will see the event in 16 cities.

The Bangalore BirdRace 2014 is on Sunday 19th Jan 2014. Registrations, for teams of 4 members, are currently open. To register and for more information, click here. 

This winter, Puttenahalli Lake has seen the the return of the migratory Garganeys from Europe/ West Asia. Lake visitors were thrilled to see a group of Garganey females at the lake on Christmas Day, and thereafter.

Garganeys at Puttenahalli Lake, Dec 2013 (Pics: Usha Rajagopalan)

The Garganeys were last spotted at Puttenahalli Lake in Nov 2011-Mar 2012. During the BirdRace in 2012, Puttenahalli Lake was one of the few places with Garganeys, so many of the BirdRace teams had made it a point to visit the lake to mark them off, on their checklists. 

With sightings of more than 60 bird species over the last three years, Puttenahalli Lake is surely a not-to-miss destination for this year's BirdRace teams.    

Do support PNLIT's efforts at sustaining Puttenahalli Lake by clicking your support on Gudville. Gudville's Ripple Rewards offer funding every month to NGOs that garner maximum support. Every click is worth upto Rs 50. To support PNLIT, click here to go to the Gudville page. Please check that your click gets registered. Thank you for your support!   

The Garganeys are back!

We are so bursting with excitement!! The Garganeys are back at our Puttenahalli Lake! They are migratory birds moving to India from Europe. Our winged visitors are female which are so similar to the Common Teal that we indeed had thought them to be the Teal when we saw them yesterday evening and again today morning. Thanks to Dr. Subramanya for identifying the bird.

Garganey females on 25th Dec 2013

Garganey females on 26th Dec 2013

We'd last spotted the Garganey at our lake in the winter of 2011, one of the few places, if not the only lake in the city, to where it migrated! We cannot but remember how Mr. Zafar Futehally had visited our lake twice just to see the Garganeys. 

The visitors have not taken the sheen off our resident birds and we're so delighted to see more numbers of Spot-billed Ducks, at least a pair of Purple Herons, many Egrets and of course, the Common Coots and Purple Swamphens. 

Three species of birds

Visit the lake and see them for yourselves!
Usha