Pallikaranai Eco Park: A stage in the wilderness

The 2.5-hectare facility seeks to offer a peek into the Pallikaranai marsh with its many occupants, particularly the ones flying in for a winter sojourn. It also accommodates the homo sapien

December 15, 2021 05:24 pm | Updated 07:10 pm IST

A decorative flagstone screams how the Pallikaranai Marsh has suffered unintended weight loss, shrinking to 700-plus hectares from a massive 6,000 hectares. The stone stands by the side of a tiled walkway laid for the benefit of homo sapiens, at the newly-opened 2.5-hectare Pallikaranai Eco Park. One hopes the sombre fact chiselled in stone is also etched in the stewards’ minds.

A surfeit of design features attract selfie-loving homo sapiens and even serious birders, and therefore, obviously, the rest of the eco-park should be left undisturbed and unaltered for all other species. There is a chilling touch of irony to this situation: making room in the house for the house owner.

There is a word of reassurance from the stewards of the place. Priyadarshini Venkataraman, District Forest Officer (DFO), Chennai Division, states there would not be any additions by way of design and enhancement that would eat into the space where Nature has to have a free run.

A tiled pathway that runs right behind the lengthy frontage of the Pallikaranai Eco Park. Photo: Prince Frederick

A tiled pathway that runs right behind the lengthy frontage of the Pallikaranai Eco Park. Photo: Prince Frederick

From 6,000 to 700 is a steep drop, and from there every inch counts and none can be frittered away even while executing well-meaning exercises.

The design is heavily concentrated right behind the pleasingly lengthy frontage. Along a slip-resistant tiled pathway run parallel patches of native trees and manicured decorative plants, each category bunged into a space that is all theirs. This spaced pairing succeeds in bringing contrast to the picture.

fThe stand of trees suggests a triumph of the indigenous over the exotic. Culling out a few names from the roll of honour: peepal ( Ficus religiosa ); bulletwood ( Mimusops elengi ); Manila tamarind ( Pithecellobium dulce ); jamun ( Syzygium cumin ); portia ( Thespesia populnea ); and neem ( Azadirachta indica ).

One can visualise the tiled pathway turning into a comfortable cloister when the trees reach longingly for the skies. After every minute of greenery, stones and artworks pop into sight, and in the manner of oracles, hold forth on wetland ecosystems, biodiversity and allied green topics, all of which making references to the marsh and its occupants.

Though the aforementioned space would be an automatic crowd puller for walkers and picnic-seekers, it is hardly the focal point of the exercise.

Walk of life

The central part of the eco-park runs perpendicular to the tiled walkway, and is delightfully untouched by masonry, which is marginal to the point of seeming non-existent.

On this section, a landscaped area is flanked on both sides by a walkway that displays earth with stubbles of grass. Like the tiled pathway, these earthen walkways sport benches. However, if the eco-park is put to its much-intended use, visitors would be standing up to their full height, training binoculars on birds found in the distance. The DFO - Chennai Division discloses that binoculars can be taken from the office at the eco-park.

On the day of this writer’s visit — December 14 — migratory birds had stood visitors up, as they have so far in most other bird habitats in and around Chennai that traditionally host them during winter. A series of inclement weather systems during November seem to have pushed their check-in timelines by weeks. The regular batches of migratory birds — particularly waders and dabbling ducks — must be parked in other parts. Waders and dabbling ducks are finicky about dipping their feet in waters with levels too high for their comfort. The migrants will eventually traipse into the front rows. Sooner they do that, the better. The Forest Department has a role for them in an exercise.

Priyadarshini’s division has proposed a soundless celebration — Pallikaranai Marghazhi Thiruvizha — from December 18, awaiting approval. The migrants would be guests of honour — one hopes the visiting birds read this announcement and take centre stage in time for the fest to be a squawking success. The birds better do this for the public, as the latter have access to the eco-park without any damage to their wallet through this month. From the next, there are charges for entry, and that includes cameras. There would be monthly and daily passes, notes the DFO.

On December 14, flocks of black-winged stilts on one side, and cormorants on the other, made the most of the empty stage, filling it with their quiet performance. The cormorants were occupying perches jutting out of an expansive basin of water shoved into a quadrangle of a walkway.

One section of this irregular quadrangle brings eye-catching gradient to the scene. On a raised bed, the central pathway dips into something of a swale. This low-lying side of the quadrangle is studded with granites and tramping down this section is particularly delightsome. The swale rises and gives way to another walkway that nestles next to the compound wall of the eco-park’s neighbour — the middle-aged National Institute of Wind Energy.

The walkway on this side is essentially a granite-punched hardscape flanked by a stand of native trees on both sides. It seems to have been left deliberately gap-toothed, with mud patching up the spaces between granite stones. Recent rains had washed away the mud, which was being replaced by workers that day.

The park is open from 6 am to 6 pm.

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