Chennai's Green Lung - Semmozhi Poonga

After moving back to my hometown, Chennai, from Bangalore after my PG, one thing that I missed a lot was the greenery. There's a reason why Bangalore is referred to as the garden city. Lush green parks and gardens almost everywhere - I envied Bangalore for that! 

But, over the past 2-3 years, several new parks have been opened in Chennai, and the older parks have been renovated. Kudos also to the way the parks are being maintained. 

Of these new parks, Semmozhi poonga at the junction of Anna Salai and Cathedral Road, has to be the highlight! Though I had been there a few days after it was inaugurated, Harish (http://magixncurses.blogspot.com, @harishvsays) and I went there one fine evening 2 weeks back, for photography. And, we loved it!

The greenery starts right at the entrance, with a beautiful vertical garden forming the entry arch. Once inside, there's so much colour - flowers of various colours greet us amidst the greenery.  Spider lilies, balsams and several other exotic flowering plants adorn the garden. There are several species of cacti too.

As we further move into the beautifully landscaped garden, we come to a short cascade and a duck pond, with several geese and duck. They were not shy at all, and kept coming so close to the camera. We had to move a few steps back to be able to focus them!

As we were walking through the park, we kept hearing calls of parakeets, mynas and koels, which are very common. But, one call - a shrill trilling sound - made me jump in excitement. I identified the call immediately to be that of a Lesser Golden-back Woodpecker (or Black-rumped FlamebackWoodpecker). I've spotted these cute little birds at Theosophical Society and IIT Madras campus, but I didn't expect to see one here! So, we followed the sound and found not one, but four Lesser Golden-back woodpeckers. I couldn't get a decent shot of the bird, but Harish did.

As it started getting darker, we finished our walk in the park, enjoying the lovely bonsais (imported from China) and the superb fountains, which keep changing colours and patterns.

View more photos in my Flickr page and Harish's Flickr page.

If I've to pick one commendable aspect from things done during previous mayor M. Subramaniam's tenure, I'd pick the increase in greenery in Chennai. I hope the new mayor continues from where MS left off!