Chennaiites are slowly realising the wealth of birds that can still be found in and around the city. Bird watching is becoming popular as a hobby. On Sunday evening, Prabha Bob conducted a fun interactive workshop, Bird watching for kids. It was organised by Goli Soda at the Ashvita Bistro to promote this hobby among the kids. It promised to teach kids how to identify birds around Chennai using bird call, colour and physical features.
The session started off in a fun way showing how birds were there all around us with pictures of the various bird characters in animation movies like Margolo from Stuart little, which is a canary.
There was a presentation with bird pictures and their calls in the background. The kids were told about the coppersmith barbet and its monotonous tone, the difference between parrots and parakeets (parakeets have longer tails), the bright red crest of the woodpecker, the cattle egret and the common babbler.
After this, there was a quiz with exciting prizes including an 8 GB USB Drive. The kids were so enthusiastic with their answers and hands shot up even before the questions were completed. The kids learnt so many things like how James Bond was actually the name of an ornithologist (study of birds).
Then, Prabha spoke about the different uncommon birds found all over India like the Sarus crane and the Monal pheasant. The workshop ended with learning how to make different origami birds.
Pallikaranai, Pulicat, Vedanthangal, Theosophical Society and Boat club are the various bird watching locations in the city. The next time these kids see a bird, they will stop, observe and identify because now, they have a new hobby!
Gopika is an Economics graduate on the outside, and a writer on the inside. She used to be a student reporter for YOCee which she says, gave her the kickstart to move on to writing with her university magazine – The Context, an online news website called the Bastion, and become a peer tutor at the University Writing Centre, Her post-lockdown plan currently is to do her two-year fellowship with Teach for India