Puttenahalli Lake Walk, 191111, for some children from Magic Puddles.

November 19, 2011

I’ve been interested in, and involved with,

Magic Puddles

a daycare and children’s activity centre, for a while now, since I did a project with the children about trees. And having done the

Puttenahalli Lake Walk

a little while ago, I wanted to take the children there, too; so this morning, Viji and I rounded up some children and off we went!

We started at the Brigade Millenium arch entrance:

S ptnhli mgcpdls sttng out 191111

And as we went, I pointed out various interesting things to them. Here they are, keenly observing a grasshopper!

S ptnhli grss hppr mgcpdls 191111

The children were full of curiosity…their sentences always seem to end in either question marks or exclamation marks! We were joined by

Usha Rajagopalan of the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust

who, with her band of tireless volunteers, has been maintaining the lake…and saving it from almost-certain disaster.

S ptnhli mpdls pencil 191111

They looked at various insects, trees (that PNLIT has planted, and others, too) and birds…and Usha explained various things about the lake.

She gave each child a pencil to write or sketch with (several of the children were already writing down what they saw, or sketching it!), and I asked everyone to pose for a group photo:

ptnhli usha, viji and kids mgc pdls S 191111

Here are some of the birds we saw:

Coot, Common Cormorant, Little Crow, House Crow, Jungle Duck, Spot-billed Egret, Cattle Egret, Little Garganey Heron, Pond Heron, Purple Jacana, Pheasant-tailed Kingfisher, White-breasted Kite, Common (Pariah) Moorhen, Purple Munia, Scaly-breasted Mynah, Common Waterhen, White-breasted

Here is the

PURPLE MOORHEN:

Sprpl mrhn ptnhli 191111

and the

PHEASANT-TAILED JACANA:

S pt jacana ptnhli mgc pdls 191111

We wound up with a lovely breakfast of Uthappam and coconut chutney, delicious after the sunny walk!