Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"THE Large Grey Babbler, or "Gangai", is a bird of open hillsides and wooded scrub, and by no means a 'rara avis'. Writing of it incidentally, Dewar remarks,"This is commoner than I thought.It occurs in most districts of Uttar Pradesh".
In the Dharwar area and adjoining Karnataka tracts, it is quite a feature of the countryside-its distribution in India is wide in not so arid places.But still I can find no mention of this babbler in the list of "Birds with Remarkable Cries" in books on Indian Ornithology, which is remarkable, for few other birds so dominate the locality where they live.
This is no dingy,unobtrusive bird,though it is a babbler and untidy and it is not shy.Almost a foot long,it is a warm,blotched grey,rufescent on the cheeks,with dark rounded flights, an eye-streak that is clear when one is not too close or far away, and a long tail broadly edged with white on either side,that is distinctive and most conspicuous in its frequent passage from bush to bush.It loves the open,and does not skulk in the undergrowth or hide in foliage- you cannot miss this bold babbler,because of its size and blaze-edged tail;and even if you do, no matter you will notice its fellows.For it is highly sociable,even for a babbler,and goes about in parties invariably, in a loose string whether on ground,in bush or in air.And then of course,there is its voice.One would need to be stone deaf and almost blind to miss this bird where it occurs.
There are many birds in our country with compelling voices,but they pass.Spring and the monsoons,resound in countryside with the voices of the cuckoos and rollers and even the hot weather at its peak stimulates certain birds,notably the barbets.However these voices are stilled when the seasons are past-even the koel is silent for six months.But rain or shine, the "quey,quey,quey" of the Large Grey Babbler is heard,in a chorus that persists right through the day.Only the night brings relief from their loud insistent calling.If we could record the total amount of sound by each bird in a year,I think this babbler would have the distinction of being the noisiest.
The call of this bird has been well rendered "a loud, harsh quey,quey,quey" and I suspect the native name ("Gangal") is onomatopoeic.But these renderings do not convey the whining rhythm of the voice-the nearest I have heard to it is the noise produced by a bull-roarer (the kind that has a clay cup with a tightly stretched membrane over its mouth,instead of a wooden block).I have also heard a motor car,stuck fast in mud,come out with somewhat similar sounds.The loud querulous whine of this bird's voice dies down and swells with a quality of mechanical repetition.And it is as untiring as a motor.

Like other babblers, the "Gangai" will unite in the face of a common danger, and since they are large and strongly built, hawks think twice before they decide to swoop down on a straggler.Once I saw a Shikara pounce on a Large Grey Babbler sitting on a bough, and the amount and volume of the victim's protests were astonishing.The Shikara was promptly 'mobbed' by the rest of the clan, the victim (which seemed uninjured) joining in the chase and only the superior speed of the hawk saved it.

These babblers breed in the summer,perhaps they breed again,later in the year.The nest is not placed high up, but it usually in the heart of a thick,thorny shrub of tree and well protected.The nestling sketched for this note was taken on 14 July.It was then probably a fortnightly old and just able to fly a few yards.Incidentally, the head is carried well up,with the crown flat, in the live bird-the Jay-like pose of the head in the sketch from the dead,adult bird is never seen,and was unavoidable in the sketch as the bird was stiff."
-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 5 Aug 1951 in the Sunday Statesman)


The Article contained a sketch(not produced here) with the following caption:
* A NESTLING
**LARGE GREY BABBLER
Argya,alcomi
An adult sketched from a dead specimen.