Taking stock of the green cover in Chennai
The Hindu
Nizhal has extended its tree survey to various neighbourhoods and wants residents to sign up as volunteers
The tree survey carried out by Nizhal, a trust that promotes concern for trees in Chennai, has got bigger this time. Residents from 10 neighbourhoods including Anna Nagar, Gandhi Nagar and Nungambakkam are currently part of the tree census that was started two months ago. “We had earlier carried out tree surveys at Thiruvanmiyur, Gandhi Nagar and areas that come under the jurisdiction of Ward 176 of Greater Chennai Corporation. Using Geographic Information System Mapping, we recorded tree surveys in Kotturpuram Urban Forest and Panagal Park,” says Shobha Menon, founder, Nizhal. In keeping with the challenges posed by the pandemic, this time the exercise seeks to engage residents to keep count of the trees in their respective localities.![](/newspic/picid-1269750-20250217064624.jpg)
When fed into Latin, pusilla comes out denoting “very small”. The Baillon’s crake can be missed in the field, when it is at a distance, as the magnification of the human eye is woefully short of what it takes to pick up this tiny creature. The other factor is the Baillon’s crake’s predisposition to present less of itself: it moves about furtively and slides into the reeds at the slightest suspicion of being noticed. But if you are keen on observing the Baillon’s crake or the ruddy breasted crake in the field, in Chennai, this would be the best time to put in efforts towards that end. These birds live amidst reeds, the bulrushes, which are likely to lose their density now as they would shrivel and go brown, leaving wide gaps, thereby reducing the cover for these tiddly birds to stay inscrutable.