It has been over a year since I first started writing the ‘In Your Backyard’ series, and it has been the most remarkable journey. In writing these articles, I have been able to rediscover my love for urban ecology and a few species that I often ignored. Mostly , it reinforced the absolute joy I feel about nature.
The key to understanding the environment we live in better, is to understand plant-animal interaction. We know that plants attract insects for nectar, but do we know that they attract specific insects at times? Butterflies laying their eggs on leaves is common knowledge, but do we know that this isn’t a random selection and that these butterflies have specific host plants?
All this was new for me when I began to explore Nature about six years ago, but making these connections is what a nature educator does. The more I ventured into it, the more logical and fun it became, and the more I realized that this was Nature’s common sense.
I began to think that it might be a good idea to add a wild-fruit-tasting trail to our itinerary of walks around Delhi-NCR, so children can get a feel of plucking and eating fruits directly from trees.
October to March is the migratory bird season and also the time when Ber ( Ziziphus mauritiana ) and Jhad Beri ( Zizyphus nummularia ) are fruiting. When in winter, plants in scrublands display earthy-brown shades, the hardy Ziziphus species adds a little colour to the otherwise dry landscape.
Ber or the Desert Apple, also called Indian Jujube/plum/cherry is deciduous and is most often a bush, but can grow into a small to moderate-sized tree. A characteristic dry-arid tree with spines, it has a short dark grey to black bark and individual trees may look very different, in terms of size and appearance.
Though the scrublands are mostly confined to certain areas of Delhi-NCR now, these trees are still found on Aurobindo Marg, in Safdarjang Enclave, Hauz Khas, Shalimar Bagh and even the Qutab compound, according to Pradip Krishen’s book Trees of Delhi .
Pierrot species of butterfly
Like the Ber, even Jhad Ber/Beri or Jhaad Ber which translates from Hindi to Ber of bushes/shrubs in English, is a shrub that grows up to 3 metres in height. It is native to the Western deserts of India, Pakistan, and in certain parts of the Gulf. In the city, this shrub is widely seen in the Aravalli Biodiversity Park in Gurugram, in Vasant Kunj, Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary and in the Jahanpanah City Forest.
Even though the Ber from Jhad Beri is sweet, it is quite a task to get to the berries, because of the thorns that protect them against animals (mostly cattle). The fruit is green at first, then slowly turns yellow that ripens to red. The not so ripe yellowish-red ones have a certain tang to them. Animals like jackals and the Indian Peafowl feed on them and scatter the seeds widely in their excreta. The leaves on both plants are broadly oval and glossy green on top and rough below.
Both these plants have been cultivated for their fruit, but also for timber and fuel for fire in drier areas.
One cold winter morning in November, 2016, a group of us came across a huge congregation of Jewel Beetles on one of the shrubs. Later on, I also observed that these plants play host to a variety of beautiful butterfly species like some Pierrots and the elusive Indian Red Flash. Spiders and their webs are a common sight on these plants, considering that a lot of insects are attracted to the plant for food and end up falling prey to these eight-legged arachnids.
Being your friendly neighbourhood naturalist for a little over a year has been a wonderful experience for me and I hope it has helped you explore your own backyard. With today's article being my last for this series, I wish you a very Ber-ful life ahead. Thank you, dear readers, for all your support.
The writer is the founder of NINOX - Owl About Nature, a nature-awareness initiative. He is the Delhi-NCR reviewer for Ebird, a Cornell University initiative, monitoring rare sightings of birds. He formerly led a programme of WWF India. He can be reached at ninox.edu@gmail.com
