Not 'a storm in a teacup'

 When the storm hit the afternoon before, I was braced for some devastation in the taman the next day.  But what a trail of heartbreak it turned out to be!  

Well, when nature gives it does take too. 

The first sight of a victim shortly after stepping into the taman.

The magnitude of the aftermath fully revealed here, where one of the favoured trees of birds and birders had crashed.

A favourite spot of white-throated kingfishers, also blue-throated and blue-tailed bee-eaters because of the tree height, and sprawling roots that offer camouflage to the white-breasted waterhens that used it as cover to approach the pond.

This is the area, where not too long ago, birders went 'ballistic' because of a family of crimson-winged woodpeckers, and I would add the taman became an instant hit overnight.

Unfortunately damage is most widespread here as if the storm hurled most its fury past here!

It's not difficult to imagine the howl of the sweeping wind and the crashing of fallen trees here.

Just by the pond, what was once a thin medium-sized tree that seemed to have been simply tipped over the path.

A few steps away, across the pond, another fallen giant.

A carpet of green leaves attested to the lush foliage of healthy fallen trees.

Moving on to a popular hang-out of barbets, starlings, bulbuls, orioles, pigeons, etc, a tree that had provided red fig fruits, and bare branches at its upper storey that practically gave the birds a 360-look-out over the taman.

And the riverside was not spared either.

A fallen branch across the path.

Two uprooted trees that had given birders respite from the sun.

Looking blazingly bright now.

This one even hauled up recently laid electric cable.

The trunk going all the way down the slope to the river.

Also taking down a tree right in its path.

Unfortunate shallow and weak bed of a giant.

However minor the fallen, it's still a loss.

A case of down but not out, yet.

Perhaps it will yet survive for there is it that lends a hand.

It looked like the eastern side of the taman was the least affected.

Yet there were too that were not spared misery.

The uprooted end of one that had been targeted as an avian home.

Why do trees (or, eh, man) topple?

It's all about the roots, really.

And unfortunately with it the innocents.

What looked like a nest-in-progress found by a fellow birder.

Another of many, this one probably belonged to a bulbul.

And the loathsome too, crawling freely everywhere,  that had me resisting the urge to reach the unmentionable for a flick and a slap, still many have I exterminated in-situ, in attempts to explore the vast damage!