Birds, Pelicans, Storks, Lakes.

UPPALAPADU - BIRDS OF A KIND

Bird watching is a passion, and if one is engrossed in it due to the inclinations of the heart, others are drawn to it by the head to make head and tail of the whole scheme. I straddle them both, uneasily too. So, whether it is in the head or in the heart there is no denying of the fact that birds take a great deal of our time – especially that of leisure. Therefore when Shafaat asked if a trip to Uppalpadu was in order, the heart and the head concurred. This saw a lot of good hearted souls turn their heads Guntur wards beyond which lies the fabled Uppalapadu.

The magic of Uppalapddu lies in its smallness; its simplicity in getting there; and its complexity is to have survived at all. It’s a rather small tank as tanks go, only about four and a half acres in extent with trees crowding in the middle. The trees are crowned with twig platforms that these birds call nests and painted white with their droppings.

It is a simple matter to get to it. Get into any public transport system and say the magic word “UPPALAPADU” and you are transported there almost in a trice.

The complexity lies in that when the call went out to save this tank; as it happens in so many cases when the call went out for help to save this wet land, most didn’t turn up at all, some turned up their noses but a few turned up their sleeves and got to work. But we are not here to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly. We are gathered to witness the wild winged waterfowl that call Uppalapadu their home, - even if they have ruffled the feathers of their featherless human neighbours.

Uppalapadu; a mud and thatch and brick and mortar and tiled little village whose tank is the talk of the town. And for good reason too. For herein are over a couple of thousand Grey Pelicans several hundred Painted Storks and Night Herons, Egrets – some Cattle, some Little, some Median and some Large – rubbing shoulders – or might I say pinions with each other. The White Ibises are there too whose black legs and necks and heads are lost in a tangle of sunlight and shadow and look like apparitions showing only their white bodies. Four Garganey Teal were swimming too in the tank, must have forgotten that they needed to get back somewhere to the Northward.

The Grey Pelicans were all over, some flying, others balancing themselves on astonishingly thin branches, their ponderous bodies atop their stubby webbed feet, while others were doing a parents’ duty diligently of feeding their young. The feeding above invited others to gather under the table – here called a nest – to squabble over sprats that fell over them. The many White Ibises and Painted Storks made it their very lucrative profession with the murderous crows ever watchful and ever thieving!

At that time of our visit – Shafaat Ulla had decided along with co-conspirator Mryuthanjaya Rao (MJR) that the birders needed a taste of Guntur – in April with the moist heat and the hot cuisine so popular to Guntur, and in fact the entire coast. The cuisine was great and with our bellies full, we almost refused to stir out. Ali Font even went so far as to ask Humayun to get pictures of birds – no matter which ones.

We finally un-stuck ourselves and got out into the not so unpleasant outside. MJR and Ramana and a few forest department staff succeeded in hijacking a bus to take us to Uppalapadu. Arrived, we were busy with birding. The pelicans looking more like little aircrafts; MJR and Ramana cajoled the bus driver while Shafaat enticed him with a generous tip. That sealed the pact. At sundown there was the bus to take us back from where we started.

The water body of Uppalapadu is a grandiose place. Several Pelicans were riding the thermals in ever increasing heights and slowly drifted away to yonder sea. The Painted Storks seemed to be going to the River Krishna for their fishing, while the black and white storks with a gap between their bills were flapping about – Openbills I am told.

Yours truly had a pair of binoculars and a scope mounted on an old rifle stock. The people at Uppalapadu were aghast to find a ‘black sheep’ amongst the rest of the flock. Their worries were however laid to rest after a long deco through the ‘gun’.

At Uppalapadu one really does not need a telescope. Any decent binoculars would do admirably well. That is unless one wants to count the spots on the Spot-billed Pelican’s bill which is apparently the other common name for the Grey Pelican. Then for those like me who would rather lug a scope there were several juvenile Night Herons under thick covert and in the Hyacinth masquerading as bitterns!

The breeze changed direction and began wafting from the east towards us. We had taken a strategic post with the Sun to our back giving the best possible light to show the birds by. We then caught scent of what the Uppalapadurens must put up with every day, nay, every hour of their lives. We took our hats off to their gallantry of putting up with such awful smell!

Each one of us – almost thirty strong – felt that this place needed to be saved. Not only the birds; but the people too; and from each other. MJR has done a great deal in bringing the plight of the people and the birds into prominence. For once, here at least man can do without the birds, but it will be a sad place, never mind the stench and the raucous calls of the birds. And it goes to the people of this hamlet to have put up with a lot of apathy to protect these wild-winged waterfowl.

Birders would give an arm and a leg to see these waterfowl. So all may not be lost yet, if the villagers can be trained as guides this could become one of the hotspots when Grey Pelicans are to be considered.

But as for us, we enjoyed our outing, notwithstanding the stench. The graceful glide of the pelican, the lazy flapping of the painted stork, the always downward looking sombre open-bills riding the thermals and the sudden appearance of several tens of egrets of all denominations, the lone Indian Moorhen and a White breasted Waterhen livened things which was followed by a feather collecting expedition with Deepti having collected several.

Panna, Dr. Sharmila’s young son was quite a sport to have braved the trip. The group was as cosmopolitan as could have been. There were software pros, hardware pros, engineers, doctors, an army officer, a banker, housewives, editors, students and businessmen. To cobble such diverse people into one is an art in itself. To have organized such a wonderful trip goes to Shafaat.