Little angels' yet another discovery - Bahour Lake

“Sir, there is it. It is pink in colour and beautiful,” thrilled a bunch of little girls. Looked like they have guessed something as their eyes were glint with eagerness.

Teacher were showing them Pond Heron, beautifully camouflaged along the bunch of water hyacinth leaves. With a hunched neck, it looked still as rock beside the leaves. Girls had a tough time spotting the bird but after spotting the bird they looked confused. They couldn’t relate it with an actual bird as it stood there like a statuette.

Once they looked convinced, they came with this observation where they claimed to have spotted another pond heron.

Teacher had a closer look as it is not very far from them; may be 15-20 feet away. Taking a step forward, he bends. His eyes frowned and seem to have lost the high-spiritedness. Yet he tried to keep up his spirits for the sake of the children.

“Wonderful observation. It is pink but not pond heron for sure. Why can’t you have a closer look and observe its features?” He gave the binoculars to the girls, who grabbed and pounced over it like hungry tigers.

  

Water lilly blossoming on the lake

“Hey look at the flower. It is closer now,” little one waving her hands in order to touch and feel the flower.

“Wow, how close it is,” said a little girl who snatched the binocular from another.

One after another looked through the binocular and were thrilled. But they were lost in this excitement. They forgot that pink thing they observed a few minutes back.

Teacher, after noticing it, reminds them about the one they spotted.

The girls struggled to adjust and point the binoculars at the place where they want to see. It was all leaves, flowers, birds for them. They couldn’t target the point. Watching this, teacher stepped in and asked them to see and spot the thing in naked eye before going for binoculars.

They followed the instructions. One after other spotted that pink thing and observed it sitting on the surface of the lake beside the water hyacinth leaves.

After screening the surface for a few minutes, one girl identified it, “It’s still there. I got it!” she shouted.

Another girl observed it closely and said, “Yeah, it’s there! Quiet and motionless. I don’t think it’s a bird.”

“If not a bird, what else it is? Give me that glasses,” one angry looking girl snatched the binocular and started looking at it cautiously.  

Teacher corrected her, “It’s a binocular!”

One girl started writing binocular in her notebook. But teacher sensed something was going wrong so he asked, “Why are you writing it for?”

She replied, “You only told that it is binocular,” pointing the pink thing on the lake.

“No, this is binocular. Not that,” he clarified showing the binocular to her.

“Oh I see,” she gave an innocent nod.

Meanwhile, others were busy looking at that mystifying thing or object, trying hard to crack the code. 

And another group was quite occupied by a little cute bird that takes frequent dips inside the lake. Sometimes it even last long inside the water that aroused the curiosity of the girls. Read this to know more - Little angels' cool discovery

“It’s a BOTTLE,” exclaimed an animated girl.

“What!” others gave a mere surprised look.

“A bottle?” another startled voice came from nowhere.

“Yes! Bottle. BEER BOTTLE.”

 

Beer bottle camouflaged among the water lilly and hyacinth

As every other girl were convinced that it’s a beer bottle they have been scratching their heads all these time, teacher looked disturbed over something.

That the beautiful lake being polluted by some hard-hearted human beings. The lake that harbours diverse range of species – birds, insects, animals, plants and trees – are being used by some ill-informed people for drinking. Not just for alcoholism but also for throwing or even dumping the plastic waste. And most annoying of all was these little girls, ageing less than ten, identifying it as beer bottle.

"Beer bottle! It is," girls wrote on their notebooks and looked at the teacher who looked visibly lost pondering over his thoughts. 

 - yet another excerpt from nature walk at Bahour Lake, Puducherry conducted for primary school children and teachers.