Last weekend, a motley bunch of kids and adults attended a tree-trail at the Pramod Mahajan Kala Udyan, a newly landscaped garden at Dadar (West). The expert, Katie Bagli led the participants around the garden, narrating stories related to the park's trees. As someone who has led similar trails over the years, I'm aware of the difficulty involved in leading a mixed audience. Although everyone enthusiastically congregates to attend a tree-trail, it is a herculean task for the group leader to sustain their interest for over two hours, in trees and plants alone. So, automatically, associated species of vertebrates and invertebrates which pollinate, disperse or consume these trees are also explained.

Somewhere mid-trail, Katie showed some dead insect specimens, which she had painstakingly preserved. The colours of some of these were fascinating. The shiny black, robust carpenter bee was recognised by almost everyone, although they called it a bumble bee. This specimen brought back childhood memories when we scampered covering our ears at the sight of a buzzing black bee.