29 - Sparky’s ‘Back-to-news’ World

 Hello, Sparky here.

Ø  This week I received a few letters from my readers. Some of you wondered if there wasn’t anything newsworthy in the world.  Some of you complained that living on the Banyan Island, you knew nothing about the happenings on the island as ‘Sparky’s World’ has taken to reporting happenings only as far as it concerned the ‘topic for the week’. One of you wrote to me lamenting the fact that a matter as important as the arrival of 'wintering birds' was given a complete miss by the magazine. 

 

Ø  Let me apologise here. I did get carried away researching exciting topics over the last few weeks that I hardly found time to step out of home to check on the exciting world right around me. 

 

Ø  As winter is gently but surely taking over, the first of the travellers have started arriving.

 

o   Coming all the way from the mighty mountains of Central Asia are the little Greenish Warblers. They have arrived in millions. These birds enliven the place where they are as they ‘musically’ negotiate with each other in in the process of choosing their trees and branches for the season. As they fly around, your peripheral vision will pick up the flight as the movement of leaves. But the ‘leaves’ don’t fall to the ground instead settle on another branch.

 

o   Grey Wagtails have made it to their winter home as well, having left the advancing chill in central Asia and Russia behind them.

 

Ø  These are just the first of the many birds who are making the journey as I write. As the winter approaches and days grow shorter in places like Europe and Russia, there would be a shortage of both food and feeding-time which would have set the birds off towards their winter home here in Southern India.

 

Ø  The birds I met and chatted with tell me this year things are vastly different. The Covid-19 pandemic that has struck the humans have made the world a quieter, gentler place. While the humans cease their relentless attack on nature as they hide away from the virus, the nature has reclaimed some of the lost ground. The planet today is less polluted and smells sweeter, is greener and seems better.

 

Ø  The Greenish Warblers and the Grey Wagtails who have chosen Banyan Island for their home say the journey this year was far less riskier than the previous years. Fewer ‘flying objects’ in the sky, fresher air to breath in flight, cleaner water to drink to replenish energy to resume the journey. I sincerely hope these changes that have so ‘replenished and revived’ us will have ‘touched’ the humans too who will rethink their way of life once the corona virus is reined in.

 

Ø  In more news, the baby Woolly-necks are ‘almost’ not babies anymore. Their constant practice at flying – with all the stumblings, falling out of nests and grumblings – as they learnt the skill and trick of flight has paid its dividends. The fledglings – the young birds who are learning to fly – have finally mastered the art of flying. There was a time when the parents had to coax them to try to fly, encourage them while they stumbled and stood-by while they clumsily landed on the ground – many of us on the banyan tree witnessed the trial and error of these birds and now are a witness to not just their tribulation but also to their parents’ irritation on finding the children missing as they come back with food. Not yet able to fend for themselves but lost in the joy of  being able to fly, it’s testing time for the parents to ensure they get enough food in their bellies for all their ‘joy rides.’

 

Here are a few activities for this week.

• Here’s a photo of a ‘grooming-session’. Look at this photo and identify ‘words’ that begin with the letter ‘M’. Don’t limit yourself to just what you see, widen your imagination and look for intangible things as well.

·        Here are some similar looking, similar sounding words that can be a little confusing, also a few choices to be made between ‘not-so-similar’ words. See, if you can get it right.

 

When I told the otters of my meeting with the 120-year-old turtle last ______ (weak/week), they were quite ­­­_______ (disappointed/envious) of me. Udra wondered _______ (allowed/aloud) if the turtle would visit the island again.  The otters were very ______ (eager/thrilled) to meet someone who had ______ (scene/seen) 120 years go by. They _______ (marveled/anticipated) at the possibility of how well-read the turtle could be with so many _____ (year’s/years’) worth of reading under her shell. Samudra asked me if he would be ______ (allowed/aloud) to greet the turtle ______ (where/were) he to bump into her in the waters or would she take ______ (exception/perception) to that and snap at him. The otters met the Woolly-necks and requested them to keep an eye out for the turtle while they flew around.

 

After the other _______ (residents’/resident’s) of the island read about the turtle in the magazine, many were ______ (encouraged/amazed) by her visit and her age. Everyone _______ (expected/accepted) the turtle to turn up again on the island. Not just the Woolly-necks but all the birds started ______ (scouting/shouting) for the turtle. Monkeys in their free time would head to the top ‘_____’ (story/storey) of the trees to look for the turtle. When the turtle remained _______ (delusive/elusive), there were ______ (murmurs/waves) of disappointment. Some even wondered if the turtle was real or a ‘______’ (story/storey). Just a ______ (pigment/figment) of my imagination. That’s when I thanked my stars that it was Mrs Ulukah, the leader of birds who had seen the turtle first and informed me of it. ______ (credibility/loyalty) is everything to a reporter. It is also the ______ (foundation/structure) on which a publication stands.
 

  

Little Readers’ Section

• Identify these animals:

• Before a flower there is a bud, something like a ‘flower baby’, sometimes looks like the flower, sometimes is different. Can you match the buds in these photos on the left to their flowers on the right:

See you all next week with more news, activities and answers to this week’s puzzles.

In the meanwhile, if you would like to write to me, email me at Sparkyatbanyan@gmail.com

Answers to last week’s puzzles: 

•         Solve the riddles one by one and you get the name of the book that we are reading in our ‘book club’. 

20	You know it if you know the atomic no. of Calcium or, it’s how many units which make up a score. If not that, then this is the number of sectors on dartboard. This is also the number which indicates perfect vision.
Thousand	A millennium is made up of these many years, Also referred to as ‘k’ from kilograms or ‘grand’ from what this amount of money was in 1900s.
Leagues	A group for a purpose that forms. or members share similar likes and dislikes. As far as distance goes, it means 3 miles.
Under	Not above, below. This word’s not below, but another.
The	Denotes a specific noun, A person whose name succeeds this word, Would be the talk of town.
Sea	‘C’, ‘see’ and this are homophones. If you want adventure, dive into one.

·         Looks can be deceptive. Can you identify if these are plants or animals or something else. The beauty of nature sometimes lies in the fact that we are left wondering and guessing.

Let’s start from the beginning. I have compiled here the ‘life on earth’ in as simple a way as possible.

Anemones	Animal	Live on rocks and coral reefs. Hunt fishes that swim by, with their tentacles.
Corals	Animal	Most corals obtain the majority of their energy and nutrients from photosynthetic single-celled ‘animals’ that live within their tissues.
Tube Worms	Animal	Marine invertebrate
Barnacles	Animal	Marine invertebrate. It’s a crustacean like crabs, lobsters and shrimps.
Sponges	Animal	Marine invertebrate
Sea Squirts	Animal	Marine invertebrate
Portugese-man-of-war	Animal	A marine ‘colonial’ organism related to jellyfishes.
Sea Cucumber	Animal	Marine invertebrate related to starfishes.
Venus flytrap	Plant	This is a plant that ‘hunts’ like an animal.
Algae	Protist
Seaweed	Protist
Mushroom	Fungi
Sea Lilies	Animal	Marine invertebrates like starfishes, sea urchins and sea cucumbers when attached to sea floor are called ‘sea lilies’. They feed on microscopic plants and animals.

Some animals look like plants and some (like corals) ‘behave’ like plants. There are all kinds of combination in nature, some we have understood, some probably, even yet to discover. This is evident by the fact that the classification of life form itself has undergone multiple changes over time. The classification in the spreadsheet above is as per the latest classification done in 2015, when ‘Prokaryota’ was split into Bacteria and Archaea.

 

·         Here’s a Habitat puzzle. Look at the photos of the 2 habitats and choose which one of the habitat do you think the animals in the puzzle live in.

Note: I have chosen the habitat of these animals based on the 2 ‘given’ habitats of Deciduous and Savanna. Some animals here like bear and ostrich also inhabit other types of habitats. A collage of photos of all these animals is in this week’s ‘Little Readers’ section’.