Indian Licorice - Black-eyed beads of death

The red-and-black seeds frequently used in the indoor games of my childhood, I learned recently, are deadly poisonous. Introducing the pretty and dangerous Rosary Pea or Indian Licorice. Now chew on that!


Back when I was a kid visiting my grandparents, dinner would generally be over by 7 pm. The lack of a television at their place meant that we had to spend time together, playing indoor games seated on the cold, red-oxide coated cement floor. Usually, it was a game called "ottayo-irattayo" (roughly translated, it means "Odd or even").


Granddad had a box full of  lovely red-and-black seeds (known in Malayalam as kunnikkuru), which he would distribute equally among the players. The game was to grab random handfuls and make the opponent guess if the count was even or odd. A correct guess corroborated after counting the seeds, would be rewarded with the entire handful being "won" and added to the guesser's pile, and a wrong guess would mean surrendering the same number of seeds to the opponent. The game goes on till one player is out of seeds and becomes a pauper. 


Granddad warned me the first day he taught me the game that at no cost should I eat the seeds or even put them in my mouth. I would vomit blood and die if it was ingested, he warned. Even though I didn't believe it completely (my grandparents carried on about a lot of superstitious beliefs) I was never tempted to chew on one after hearing that.

Even or odd? 

Another memory of this seed is tied to the famous Guruvayur temple in Thrissur, Kerala. Inside the temple premises is a wide-brimmed vessel filled with these seeds. They are there for an interesting ritual: Kids are to grab a handful and drop it back in - this was believed to make them more mischievous. I was really disappointed that they made me drop the colorful seeds back into the vessel; I would have loved to carry some home!

A pod that has already burst open

About 25 years later, I came upon a creeper at Polachira wetlands (near Thiruvananthapuram) that carried a pod that was just splitting open. From within peered five or six of those red peas. I came home immediately and tried to read up on the seed. I realized it was the seed of a creeper called Abrus precatorius, otherwise called the Rosary Pea or Indian Licorice. And my Granddad's warning of toxicity was spot on. The seeds contain a toxin called abrin, which is very harmful to humans even in very small quantities -- it can stop protein synthesis at a cellular level and cause death within 3-5 days. Incredibly, despite its toxicity, it was very popular among children of my generation who played games like ottayo-irattayo. The current XBOX generation would probably never get to even see one.

A small vine, already carrying numerous seeds

Compared to my grandparents' superstitions (among them -- whistling at night invites snakes, and owls hooting at night are harbingers of death), this one turned out to be a piece of local wisdom. I wonder how many more would be proven true with reading and experience. 


Text and photos: Sandeep Somasekharan

Raptor Friday - The Lesser Fish-Eagle

Formerly thought to be a resident of the Himalayan foothills, the Lesser Fish-Eagle has pleasantly surprised us by nesting along rivers in southern India

Formerly thought to occur only in the Himalayan foothills, the Lesser Fish-Eagle has now been confirmed as a resident breeder along the Cauvery River in Karnataka as well as river islets in Kerala, both in southern India

The Lesser Fish-Eagle (Ichthyophaga humilis) was believed to be a resident of the Himalayan foothills until recently when there has been a flurry of sightings along the Cauvery river in Karnataka. Other recent reports also confirm that the bird is a resident in southern Kerala (see notes below).


Let me tell you before I begin that 'lesser' is a relative term, to be taken literally only when comparing this raptor to the Grey-headed Fish-Eagle (Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus). In no way should this bird be mistaken for a diminutive creature as it is more than two feet tall when perched, with an impressive wingspan.

All of my three sightings have been in the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary near Mysore. The bird would perch on a branch overlooking the river, appearing pensive. On all three occasions, when our boat drew close the bird took off, never to be seen again that day. To watch it fish remains a dream unfulfilled.

The extent of white in the Lesser Fish-Eagle's plumage are a distinguishing mark to identify it against the closely related Grey-headed Fish-Eagle

As its name suggests the Lesser Fish-Eagle feeds on fish and is hence found mostly along riversides. The head is grey, the chest brown and the wings are a deep brown. The belly and thighs are white and the tail is dark. In the field, the primary distinguishing feature to tell it apart from the Grey-headed Fish-Eagle is to observe the area where the white parts of the bird end. In the Lesser Fish-Eagle, the white area ends abruptly at the beginning of the tail. In the Grey-headed Fish-Eagle, it extends all the way to the tip of the tail where it terminates in a thick, dark band. 


Both the Lesser Fish-Eagle and the Grey-headed Fish-Eagle are listed as vulnerable (VU) in the IUCN Red List.


Notes:
1. The latest issue of the journal Indian Birds (Vol. 7, No. 1), April 25, 2011 carries a comprehensive report on the breeding of the Lesser Fish-Eagle in Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka, India. The report is authored by Dinesh Ramarao, Dipu Karuthedathu, Mohanram K, Prakash H L, Raju A K, Sreekumar H, Srikanth Kumar and Vinay Das


2. A separate report in the same issue of the journal, by C Sashikumar, C K Vishnudas, S Raju, P A Vinayan and S Kannan, informs us that the Lesser Fish-Eagle is a breeding resident in Kerala including reservoir islets in the Parambikulam and Periyar forest areas.


Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan
All rights reserved

Encounter - What's black and white, and hovers?

Ogres Sandy and Arun recollect their encounters with the common but lovable Pied Kingfisher

Black, white and eats fish

Sandy: The first time I saw the Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis) was in Thekkady, Kerala, in my fledgeling days of bird-watching. As a kid I had read that kingfishers were of many kinds and this one was called "pulli meen kothi" - literally, the "spotted fish-pecker" (in Malayalam). The book carried an illustration of a bird with a large head and a larger bill -- it wasn't very far off the mark when I first noticed this bird perched on an embankment. Then it did something that amazed me. With a sharp call it rose from its perch, flew a few feet into the lake, and hovered. It didn't move left or right, forward or backward - it just hung stationary in the air, wings beating furiously. Then came the typical kingfisher dive, cutting into the water, and a moment later the bird emerged with a tiny fish struggling in its mean-looking beak.

Seconds before the dive, the pied kingfisher straightens its wings

Arun: I used to watch Pied Kingfishers in the fields near my house in Kerala. It was a pleasure to observe them early in the morning as they hovered in the mist, their black-and-white bodies flickering in and out of sight. They are generally hard to miss as they are always on the move and active unlike other kingfishers, which rely mostly on the patient 'wait and watch' strategy. The Pied King, as I nicknamed these true kings of the kingfisher world, are the only kingfishers I have seen that are capable of true, sustained hovering. The others can fly and dive and at most manage to hover for just a couple of seconds.  I last observed these birds at Madiwala Lake in Bangalore. A pair was continuously fishing along the entire length of the bank. I'm not sure why they preferred to fish in this way. Maybe the vegetation along the lake shore darkened the water with their reflections and shadows and helped eliminate the sky's reflection to aid better views beneath the water surface.

A Pied Kingfisher hunting in Madiwala Lake, Bangalore

A resident bird of the Indian subcontinent, the Pied Kingfisher lives on fish and crustaceans unlike its cousin the White-throated Kingfisher, which prefers easier prey like amphibians, reptiles and insects. It is always found near water bodies and nests in burrows on the embankments. The call is a shrill 'kri kri kri.' 

Male and female birds can be easily distinguished by their breast bands. The male has double unbroken bands across its chest while the female has a single broken band.

A male, easily identified by the double-banded "necklace" on its breast

In the female, the single breast band is broken

Unlike other kingfishers, which prefer the convenience of open perches near water bodies to dive down after prey, the Pied Kingfisher's modus operandi is somewhat similar to the Common Kestrel and the Black-shouldered Kite (whom we have met previously in our Raptor Friday series). It hovers in the air above water bodies, looking for prey, head down. Upon locating the prey, makes a vicious plunge and emerges with the kill. This fishing strategy could be one of the reasons why this kingfisher has a black-and-white coloration. As the bird hovers over a water body, its white underside blends in with the background of the sky, effectively camouflaging it as it is fishing and improving the chance of a successful hunt. Other kingfishers stalk by waiting and watching for signs of prey movement, so they have darker colouration which would blend in with the surrounding foliage.

A hovering male shows off its largely white underside

Hovering moments...

Sandy: My latest encounter with this bird was at Polachira, a wetland near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Summer had set in, and the water body was turning shallow, leading to fish shoals being concentrated in the deeper patches. On a misty, breezy morning a pair of Pied kingfishers was flying about, hovering, diving and coming up with catches nearly each time. I spent almost an hour photographing them against a rising sun.

The dive...

Text: Arun Menon and Sandeep Somasekharan
Photographs: Sandeep Somasekharan. Additional photos by Arun Menon
All rights reserved

Encounter - Common Albatross, a butterfly with civic sense!

I always thought only humans queued up, and that too occasionally when they have no choice. Ah... and ants. But on our very eventful tramway trek in Parambikulam, Kerala, we experienced an epiphany. And the evidence of such orderly behaviour came from an unexpected group of insects: Butterflies. 


Halfway into our tiring 18-km walk along the abandoned tramway used by the British to transport teakwood, we decided to stop for lunch at the rocky edge of the Chalakudy River. As we wolfed down the humble idlis packed from Hotel Lakshmi (Parambikulam's answer to five-star dining) we saw a train of white butterflies fluttering by upstream in a very orderly sine wave, one behind the other. One group would constitute the crest, the other the trough, alternating the altitude as they moved ahead. Soon, we found that it was by no means a small group. The sine wave seemed to be unending as the flow of butterflies continued until we finished our lunch and got up to walk the rest of the trail.

The sine wave 

As we walked downriver we saw more butterflies moving in the same orderly sine wave or hovering over rocky islands in chaotic congregations. We still could not identify them as they were constantly on the move, not even stopping to feed. We continued on our walk to the guest house that would shelter us that night. After dumping our backpacks there, we walked down to the river to freshen up.

Chaos theory in practice!

Here, we noticed a group of these butterflies mud-puddling. Getting closer, we angled for photographs, standing in the water wearing little but our modesty. The butterflies had white upper-wings, duller under-wings and a black tip to the upper wings that was faintly discernible in some individuals. On being disturbed, they would float up like paper bits caught up in a miniature whirlwind, swirling upwards and settling down elsewhere.

The origin of chaos

Later, upon visiting the information centre at Parambikulam, we would learn that the butterfly was the Common Albatross (Appias albina), which belongs to the Pieridae family. After spending quality time with the albatrosses, we enjoyed a refreshing bath and immersed ourselves in other encounters, which are better told as separate stories.

Incoming - paper plane!

Photos by Sandeep Somasekharan. Text by Sandeep and Bijoy