COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan : The Sunday Statesman 29 December 2013


Crow...Pheasant...
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"THE CROW-PHEASANT is an unhappily named bird for it is neither crow nor pheasant but a non-parasitic cuckoo, the sort that takes posterity seriously and builds a nest instead of foisting its eggs on others. It is as big as a crow but with a longer tail, black with metallic greens and blues glossing the highlights and round wings of pure chestnut, a bird that is unmistakable once seen or heard. It skulks in dense cover or hops about treetops, a habit not at all reminiscent of the crow, and its weak, low flight is no more corvine. But a general resemblance to a crow is there and so the first part of its name is understandable, but why "pheasant"?

Dewar and many other European ornithologists have justified the name on the ground that, as it skulks long-tailed through the undergrowth, the griffin is liable to mistake it for a pheasant. But I suspect that few novice sportsman have bagged a crow-pheasant by mistake. Pheasants are not common all over India, as the crow-pheasant is, and moreover though this cuckoo spends quite a lot of its time on the ground it is wholly unlike any gallinaceous bird in its deportment and gait.

I have the feeling that a much sounder reason lies behind expert justification of the name "crow-pheasant", the subconscious recognition of the uncouthness of the only other English name this bird has, Coucal. Incidentally I am unable to discover the origin of the name "Coucal"; perhaps it is African, for the African crow-pheasant is also called by the same name. However it is a useful word for those planning crossword puzzles.

The vernacular names of this bird are equally incomprehensible. In Tamil names, "Shambakha-paksi" and "Sembothu" are uninterestingly causeless, but in Kanada it is called "Sambarakagi", which, translated, literally means "Spice-crow". Once I asked a Kannadiga why it was named so and he explained the reason - because it looks rather like a crow and because in cooking its flesh, which is valued medicinally, it is wise to use plenty of spices!

This is the bird that comes out with a deep, solemn "whoop, whoop, whoop" from a clump of bamboo or some thickly-grown corner of the compound, or even from treetop on occasion. The call, most often heard in the morning, at noon, or at sunset, is unmistakable but hard to describe in words. Dewar calls it a "low, loud, sonorous whoot, whoot, whoot, the kind of call one associates with an owl - I must say though the commas he has used to punctuate the call are more indicative of the intervals than the usual hyphens. I have never been able to find anything owl-like in the call. Lowther gives a much nearer rendering, a deep, booming whoop-whoop-whoop, pleasant to listen to, sometimes mistaken for the cry of the black-faced Langur monkey. The resemblance to the normal whoop (not the alarm call) of the langur is there, but no one who has heard the crow-pheasant is likely to mistake its voice for any other creature, bird, beast, or reptile.

Every large, old-fashioned garden is likely to attract the crow-pheasant, especially the ones planted with a clump of bamboo in a corner; it is equally common in groves and large public parks, well-wooded avenues and in the purlieus of villages. As per old South Indian traditions, the bird is one of the hereditary enemies of snakes, and for once tradition is true, for it will kill and eat small snakes, besides other small reptiles, frogs and insects. I have seen it eating a banyan fig and perhaps it supplements its hunting with occasional fruit.

I know a rather curious but true story about this bird. I don't think it is one of those birds considered especially auspicious by native superstitions (such as the King-crow or Roller, the sight of which, when one sets out on an important errand, assures success). But some of us started the legend about the crow-pheasant in a small illiterate community, purely for a joke. In a few years it had caught on and spread, and I was solemnly assured by a native that it was exceedingly lucky to see the bird when starting on any mission or quest. When questioned, he informed me that he heard about this omen from his father who, no doubt, had it from his father - which conclusively established its authenticity."
-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 4 September 1955 in The Sunday Statesman

*The nice sketch of the bird has not been reproduced here.