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Pelican place
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Nelapattu: if you fancy a date with pelicans, says PRINCE FREDERICK
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THE FIRST showers of November bring the grey pelicans to Nelapattu, a sleepy village located 95 km north of Chennai, in Nellore district. These large squat greyish-white birds set up colonies on the Barringtonia trees that look like floating islands of green in the placid waters that fill up Attigunta and Neredugunta — two irrigation tanks that cover 202 acres.
We know Nelapattu as a pelicanry, but these pelicans are gregarious. They share the trees with the open-billed storks and little cormorants, without so much as a squawk. As binocular-and-camera-toting tourists walk the earthen ramp shaded by trees whose twisted branches clasp each other, it appears as if these winged creatures are striking a pose for them.
Get a close view
I borrow a pair of binoculars from a worker employed at the Environmental Education Centre, which provides information on the resident and migratory birds of Nelapattu, and zoom in on the pelicans. It is clear that these birds have paired off. They appear so close that I can even feel the twigs in their nests, crunching and snapping under their feet as they shuffle now and then, while waiting for the eggs to arrive.
How these birds found a winter home in Nelapattu is a story in itself. Until the 1960s they were making year-end visits to Kolleru, a village north of Nelapattu, to build their nests on sun-drenched palmyrah trees and enact the magic of regeneration on life's grand stage. Everything went well for the pelicans till the locals developed a taste for their flesh. In April 1970, the last flock of pelicans took wing, never to return.
Six years later, they discovered the tanks of Nelapattu, which ever since has been home ground for them. The Andhra Pradesh Government was quick in according sanctuary status to this water body and the scrub forest that lines it, ensuring that Kolleru did not repeat itself.
Aquatic birds
A dozen black buck and a barbed-wire enclosure constitute what passes off as a black buck park. There is a children's park as well; but, except for a name board, there is little to suggest that it is one. The piece of land that has been parcelled out for the purpose has just been planted with trees.
Nelapattu is not just about pelicans. When you least expect it, you could be surprised by the sight of a crow pheasant sitting on the spindly arm of a eucalyptus tree. Many other terrestrial birds show up as well. What is true of earth is equally true of water. Apart from the big three, the tanks are shared by night herons, shovellers, pintails, pond herons and many other aquatic birds.
Even after leaving the tanks behind, the birdsong persists. My mind races forward to April when silence will spread its wings across Nelapattu as the birds would have flown with their young ones to cooler climes. But on the heels of this thought, comes a more cheerful one — the first showers of November will bring the grey pelicans back to Nelapattu.
How to get there
Take a bus to Dora Vari Satram, and walk two km on a dusty sandy trail to reach the sanctuary, which is open everyday till five in the evening. The best you could do is to arrange your own conveyance.
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Madurai
Mangalore
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
|
