Cholavaram Tank

About 24km north of Chennai, Cholavaram Tank is one of the largest lakes around the city (following Puzhal, Sembarambakkam and Poondi) and the water from the rain-fed reservoir is drawn for the city supply, through canals to Puzhal Lake.

During 2015 historical rain and flood, the Lake reached the maximum capacity of 595 (mcft) out of 881 (mcft) and on 1^st December 2015, the lake had an inflow of 423 (cusecs) and an outflow of 400 (cusecs). But now, due to failure of Northeast Monsoon, the level of water has went nearly down and its bed has almost turned playground, as you could see from the photos above (and below) – some youngsters are playing cricket on the grasses.

Apart lake, Cholavaram is primarily known for motor racing and racing events were conducted here from early 1960s to the late 1980s, before the Madras Motor Sports Club built a new track at Irungattukottai, near Sriperumbadur, Chennai. The race track near Cholavaram Lake was used to be an air strip during World War II and being a T shaped track it was modified to conduct racing on certain conditions. But having no idea where the race track was, I couldn’t check the place when visiting the lake on my way to Nagalapuram.

Buffaloes grazing on dry bed of the tank/lake

I actually decided to climb on the lake bank road from the south and get down at other end in north, but I missed the road that comes next to the Nallur toll plaza on NH 16, and could only check the lake from the other end where the surplus weir exit. A red soil road comes around the lake partially and only bikes and cars can travel from one end to another. As per agreement with Andhra Pradesh Govt. the Krishna water release from Kandaleru reservoir, is stored in Cholavaram Lake as well as Poondi reservoir for drinking purpose. 

Someone had got the car into the lake... but we had no time to experience such

RGB Monday

Here’s RGB Monday to keep away your Monday Blues and make feel colourful and yet cheerful! And this Link-in feature invites your colourful photos with the content of RGB – Red, Green, and Blue. 

Bottle lids

The red belongs to the bottle of mountain honey brought from Kodaikanal and green is my herbal drink (Able to)’s lid and the immune supporter is consumed for long time now. The blue is obviously the Tupperware drinking water bottle. 

1. Devilish Angel

One fence, two different birds

During an outing last year, on ECR and near Kovalam, I come across these tiny birds skipping here and there on the fence of a farm house. If you remember the Gloriosa Lily, the state flower of TN, I shot along with a fence? It was on the other side of the farm house I found these birds. The little birds have been very active then and I had to click number of shots to get these few shots on the birds. I actually thought, before observing the photos in detail, the birds (in photos below) belong to same species of birds. Though having a shade of yellow, the first two are Purple Rumped Sunbirds (male ‘n’ female) and the last one is a Common Tailorbird.

Purple-rumped sunbird 'male'

The purple-rumped sunbird is an endemic to the Indian subcontinent and like other sunbirds; they are small in size and feed mainly on nectar but sometimes take insects, particularly when feeding young. The males are brightly colored, whereas females are olive above and yellow to buff below. Males are distinguished easily from the purple sunbird by the light colored underside while females can be told apart by their whitish throats.

Purple-rumped sunbird 'female'

Both the genders of the sunbirds are tiny at less than 10 cm long, and have medium-length thin down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues adapted for nectar feeding. Actually I was bit confused with the female Purple-rumped sunbird, which looked alike Little spider-hunter, but I was only sure after studying the detail.

Below one is known as Common tailorbird. I only remember the name of the bird from the school text book and haven’t seen alive before, perhaps due to its tiny shape (size from 10 to 14 cm and weigh 6 to 10 grams) I couldn’t observe or captured well.

The common tailorbird is a songbird found across tropical Asia and it’s popular for its nest made of leaves sewn together. Although shy birds they are (a common resident in urban gardens) usually hide within vegetation and their loud calls are familiar and give away their presence. This passerine bird is distinctive in having a long upright tail, greenish upper body plumage and rust coloured forehead. 

Linking this post for SATURDAY CRITTERS and Good Fences by Gosia at Looking for identity  

காதல் / Love

காற்றை நேசி 
தூய்மை வாயிலாக, காதலை சுவாசி. 

மரத்தை நடு 
அதன் நிழலில், காதல் இளைப்பாறு.

உழுதிடு 
காதல் விதைகளை உதித்திடு

களை எடு 
காதல் கொண்டு, வெறுப்பு கோபம் இதரவற்றை.

கற்றிடு 
காதல் காமம் வேறுபாட்டை

துடைத்திடு 
காதல் ஊற்றி, நோயுற்ற சமூகத்தை. 

மகிழ்ந்திடு 
இனிதே, காதலுற்ற உறவுகளை எண்ணி.

Love the wind
through purity, breath love.

Plant a tree
in its shadow, love repose.

Plough
raising seeds of love.

Pick weeds
with love, hatred, anger ‘n’ others.

Learn
love, lust distinction.

Scrub
by pouring love on diseased society.

Have fun

greeter, counting love ties.

RGB Monday

Here’s RGB Monday to keep away your Monday Blues and make feel colourful and yet cheerful! And this Link-in feature invites your colourful photos with the content of RGB – Red, Green, and Blue.

Pretty colorful Merry go around at Elliot's Beach, Chennai

p.s. Beaches are my favourite pastime perhaps since we live close to sea and Elliot’s beach has many memories to share, and in our earlier days we visit the beach to enjoy the playground equipment’s like siding, seesaw, swings… installed at the beach sand. Elliot’s hasn’t been crowded then and only a part of beach was used much then, and the manually operated equipment’s like merry go around, ferry wheels aren’t available and also any kind of shops exists except the popular eatery Cozee, which is opp. to police booth. My late uncle is a friend of the owner, who’s a Singh (and he has also acted as Rajini’s friend in Basha) and he would take us there and get ice creams from the shop. Every time I pass the Cozee, the moment spent with my uncle at one of the tables there blink at my mind for few seconds.