The coconut tree climber

Recently when I had been to Kerala (south India), I saw this guy named Thomachan who came to climb the coconut tree. Everyone kept talking about the “tree climbing machine” But what this guy had was not a machine but a contraption which helped him to climb the tree.

The design was simple. The contraption gets locked on to the tree when you put your weight on it (by stepping on it) There were two, one for each leg.

He carefully strapped the pair on to the tree and climbed up with confidence.  

Once he reached the top, he cut lose all the coconut that was ready to be plucked. In all we got 32 coconuts from this single tree.  

I was comparing this with a black and white picture of mine where I could climb a coconut tree half way without any assistance. (this was clicked about 45 years ago)

OK, in case you are wondering how I did it, this particular tree had nicks carved out in the trunk to enable the toddy tapper to climb up.   

Coming back to our guy Thomachan, while he was gathering all the coconuts, I saw him picking up an aluminium coat hanger. I asked him where it come from. He said “It is usually the crows, they take it from the clothesline to build their nest”   

Now that rang a bell. I remember seeing the same phenomena here in Pune just a month ago. In fact there were two hangers that were used in the crow’s nest here in Pune.

Here it is seen from another angle clicked again after a month. Probably the hangers slipped down after a heavy downpour.

Have to give  credit to the crows that they chose to pick only aluminium hangers (being lightweight) The ingenuity of the crows are universal, even if they are separated by about 1200 kms. (distance from Pune to Cochin)

Have made a small video to show how Thomachan climbed the coconut tree.

Here it is.