Guindy National Park is a protected area, located in Chennai, India. Spread across , it is one of the smallest National Parks in India and one of the few national parks situated inside a metropolitan area. The park is an extension of the grounds surrounding Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the Governor of Tamil Nadu and encloses forests, scrub lands, lakes and streams.
The park has a role in both ex situ and in situ conservation and is home to a variety of species including a wide variety of snakes, geckos, tortoises, over 130 species of birds, 14 species of mammals including 400 blackbucks, 2,000 spotted deer, 24 jackals, over 60 species of butterflies and spiders each and other invertebrates. These are free-ranging fauna that live with minimal interference from human beings. Guindy Snake Park, formerly the location of Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Children's Park are located next to the park in the same premises. As of 2007, the parks had 700,000 annual visitors.
History
Covering an area of , the park was one of the last remnants of tropical dry evergreen forest along the Coromandel Coast and was originally a game reserve. In the early 1670s, a garden space was carved out of the area and a residence called the Guindy Lodge was built by Governor William Langhorne (1672–1678) for recreation. The remaining of the forest area was owned by Gilbert Rodericks, from whom it was purchased by the Government of Madras in 1821 for a sum of 35,000. The original area of was established as a Reserve Forest in 1910.
Between 1961 and 1977, about of the forest, was transferred to various government departments in order to build educational institutions and memorials. The park has a tropical climate with mean annual temperatures of (maximum) and (minimum). Rainfall ranges from to , with an average annual rainfall of . The summer season in April and May determines the peculiar vegetation of the coast. Between June and December, wet season prevails, with dry season occurring between January and March. The area also has a cleared meadow called Polo Field measuring about by and a lake known as the 'Tangal Eri'.
Flora
The park has a dry evergreen scrub and thorn forest, grasslands and water bodies with over 350 species of plants including shrubs, climbers, herbs and grasses and over 24 variety of trees, including the sugar-apple, Atlantia monophylla, wood-apple, and neem. The region's physiognomy occurs as discontinuous or dense scrub-woodlands and thickets, containing species such as introduced Acacia planifrons, Clausena dentata shrubs, palmyrah palm (Borassus flabellifer), Randia dumetorum, Randia malabarica, Carissa spinarum, Acacia chundra, exotic cactus Cereus peruviana and Glycosmis mauritiana. This flora provides an ideal habitat for over 150 species of birds. About one-sixth of the park has been left as open grassland to preserve that habitat for blackbucks. Though both the species of blackbuck and spotted deer have their natural habitat in grassland, the spotted deer prefer bushes and can adjust in land covered with shrubbery.
Fauna
thumb|Wandering deer at the park
thumb|Pelican at Guindy national park
There are over 14 species of mammals including blackbuck, chital, jackal, small Indian civet, common palm civet, bonnet macaque, hyena, pangolin, hedgehog, common mongoose, Indian palm squirrel, and Indian hare apart from several species of bats and rodents. The near threatened blackbuck, considered as the flagship species of the park, was introduced in 1924 by Freeman Freeman-Thomas. Albino male blackbucks were also introduced to the park by the Maharaja of Bhavnagar.
The park has over 150 species of birds including grey partridge, crow pheasant, parrot, quail, paradise flycatcher, black-winged kite, honey buzzard, pariah kite, golden-backed woodpecker, yellow-wattled lapwing, red-wattled lapwing, blue-faced malkoha, shrikes, Asian koel, minivets, munias, parakeet, tailor bird, robin, drongo, and stone curlew. Bird watchers anticipate migratory birds here like teals, garganeys, pochards, medium egrets, large egrets, night herons, pond herons and open-billed storks every fall season. The park is home to about nine species of amphibians In December 2019, an augmented reality (AR) show with a capacity of 20 persons was opened to public.
Location and access
Entry into this protected reserve is restricted, and visitors can go into the core area only when escorted by a forest ranger from the Forest Department. The children's park and the snake park have separate entrances from Sardar Patel Road next to the Adyar Cancer Institute and independent entry fees. The parks are open from 9 AM to 6 PM on all days except Tuesday. The nearest railway stations are the Kasturba Nagar MRTS station on Chennai MRTS, Guindy railway station on the Chennai Suburban Railway and Guindy metro station on the Chennai Metro.