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:

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

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.

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:

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:

and the

PHEASANT-TAILED JACANA:

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