Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Wow! Wish I see a chousingha leaping. Never knew it had this ability. I wonder what is their total population in the wild these days.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"LIFE has grown wet and plastic during the past week. Visitors bring in footloads of mud, which they scrape against the stone steps or distribute over the verandah- being given to pretty joys, I note with satisfaction that when they go away the sodden gravel leading to my gate shakes of at each step from their shoes and that I have gained soil. The ditches flanking the road are turned into brown rivulets, and the dip in the field beyond, hardly perceptible in September, is now a miniature pond.

All these wetness is different from the somewhat formalised depictions of wetness that we are so used to. There would be white glints and dimpled blue patches in an artist's picture of these October puddles and flooded drains, and turbulent streaks of red, perhaps, to denote the freshets. Actually the lowering skies yield no highlights; everywhere the water is a torpid, deep umber, thick with mud and squirming with infant life. Almost as if by magic, innumerable mosquito larvae and tadpoles have appeared in the pond of the field, even little fish. Life began in the slush, according to biologists, and the slush is very fecund still. As I bend over its squelching rim to peer into the peer's teeming depths, I am conscious that I am not alone.

Another huddled watcher is on the other side, acutely aware of me. My cautious advent had driven it to several yards away, now it seems on the point of flight. I retreat to the roadside and squat immobile, and the Pond Heron returns to the water, step by deliberate step, its apprehensive head stretched out in front of its long neck. It stops at water's edge and is immediately harder to see. The extended neck is doubled up and drawn in between the shoulders, so far in that the bird is neckless; the streaked brown of its humped back and yellowish greys of its legs and beak blend with muddy background. It walks carefully into the water, lifting each foot clear of the surface and carrying it forward through the air before immersing it quietly again, and now its neck is again outstretched- it is withdrawn once more as the bird halts, and take its stance in the shallows.

For long two minutes it stays utterly still, only the hard, yellow glint in its eye betraying the avid life in the dull, slumped body.

While fish that pass by,
Till the destined fish comes in,
Great is the heron's dejection

- says a cynical couplet, in Tamil. Presently, and without the least warning stir, the dagger-billed head shoots down on the extensive neck, a tadpole is lifted deftly out of the thick water and swallowed in the same movement. At once the neck is drawn in, and the morose, huddled pose is resumed, so quickly and completely that I could have sworned that its waiting had been unbroken had I not watched the movement.

The "Pond Heron" or "Paddy Bird" is probably the most familiar of our waterside birds. Wherever there is not too rapid water, a puddle or a pond or any shallow stretch, you will find it there, an unmistakable little heron with dingy plumage, a humped back and sulky habits. When alarmed it emits a harsh "kra-ak" and is instantly transformed into a dazzling creature on broad, white wings- its pinions and underparts are white, but hidden except in flight by its earthy mantle, and in flight it seems an all-white bird. Americans in India used to call this heron the "surprise bird" from the sudden contrast between its drab, unobtrusive repose and flashing whiteness of its flight; I believe the name is no longer in fashion.

Though roosting and nesting in company, pond herons are unsociable by day. They are lone hunters; occasionally you may see three or four near one another, but they never seek prey in common, and even when going home to roost do not join together in large flocks. They are strong flyers, and though they look rather like Cattle Egrets in size and whiteness when on the wing, it is easy to tell their firm, quick wing beats from the lubberly action of the egrets.

Incidentally, all herons fly with their necks tucked in. Wordsworth's-

And heron, as resounds
the trodden shore,
Shoots upward,darting his long
Neck before

- might be quite true of a heron shooting up into the air in alarm, but once it settles down to flight the neck is not darted before, but is doubled up and drawn in- that, in fact, is the token by which one may know members of the heron tribe from other waterside birds on the wing."- M.Krishnan

This was first published on 19 October 1952 in The Sunday Statesman

#Sketch of the bird not reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

COUNTRY NOTEBOOK : M. Krishnan : Nectar and Figs : The Sunday Statesman : 3 August 2014
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NECTAR AND FIGS

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"THIS summer I found opportunity for observing the flowering of that magnificent and wholly Indian tree, the red silk-cotton (Salmalia malabarica, probably better known to readers by its old name, Bombax malabaricum) in several places. And once again I was struck by the peculiarly rich and vivid red of the flowers, so poorly depicted in plates from water colour drawings and colour photographs. I do not know if it is the process, or the that rendering of the red by the printer or the film that is to blame, but the full, opulent crimson of this flower, with the blush of rose madder on it when it is newly opened, and later the imperial tinge of purple is invariably rendered a heavy, dark, purplish red in the plates.

A friend who is fond Sanskrit classics ( unfortunately I have no Sanskrit) told me of a celebrated passage that refers to the shrill green of parakeets against the background of Salmalia bloom. Parakeets do visit this tree and tear clumsily ad the fleshy petals but I wouldn't put them down among the birds that are typically associated with its blooming. Among the regular visitors to the flowers that I noticed were the mynahs (the Common, the Brahminy and the grey-headed Mynah in that order) a few stray Rosy pastors, Bulbuls, Sunbirds and House crows. the birds put their heads right into the open flower to get at the nectar. Squirrels, of course, were very much in evidence, being avid nectar-lickers.

Another tree at which I halted frequently, and whose pendent clusters of white , thick-petalled bloom attracted many birds, was the Southern Mohwa or "Illupai" - Bassia madhuca longifolia. The buds are dark with the enclosing rusty-green outer sepals, but the opened flowers hang with the luscious globes of their corollas displayed, each like a miniature, pearly-with electric-light globe,with the style sticking down from the centre like some ornamental appendage. Naturalists and shikaris have often commented on the fondness of jungle animals for these saccharine, rank-scented globes -deer and the sloth bear, in particular, seek out the mohwa to feast on the juicy, fallen flowers, on the ground beneath. incidentally, these fallen globes are sweeter than the ones on the tree, though they are ranker-scented and have a more "fermented" flavour. Expertocrede -I have sampled both.

Strangely enough, I have not come across any mention of the mohwa in bird books as a tree that attracts the avifauna of the neighbourhood to it's bloom-a surprising omission, for then it is loud with bulbuls and other small birds. I have known this from childhood, bird only this summer did I not down the commonest visitors to the Bassia in bloom - a surprising omission, for then it is loud with bulbuls and other small birds. I have known this from childhood, but only this summer did I note down the commonest visitors to the Bassia in bloom. Chief among them are the bulbuls (the Red-vented, Red-whiskered and White-browed Bulbuls), which tear at the flower and carry away pieces of the corolla which they eat, besides drinking the nectar. I also noticed quite a few Common and Brahminy Mynahs, a Magpie-Robin, Ioras, the beautiful Small Minivet, White-headed Babbler, Sunbirds and some Warblers. Some of these, apparently, visit the tree not for the sake of its sickly-sweet flowers, but for the insects these flowers attract. I watched a Small Minivet for nearly half an hour, and though it was hunting all the time among the pendent inflorescences, it did not even peck at the petals.

In Tamil, we have a proverb, "the village that has no cane refinery gets it's sugar from the flowers of the mohwa". I have often suspected this proverb of cryptic satire, but am not sure that it has any such ltent venom, for it could be construed literally, too. However that may be it speaks of the sugar-content of the corolla.

I would like to mention another tree at which birds forgather in clamorous numbers during summer. The banyan is in red fruit right at the peak of summer, and noisy mixed parties of parakeets, every kind of Mynah, the Rosy Pastor, Bulbuls, Barbets and crows (both the House Crow and the Jungle Crow) crowd its spreading boughs then. But at times, I have noticed, the birds visit only one of four or five neighbouring trees, though all are in fruit and the figs of that tree are the tastiest - I have observed that such specially favoured trees are often comparatively young (though mature), and that their fruit is larger.

Quite a lot of insectivorous food must be consumed along with the pulp of these figs, as you will realise of you pick up a fallen fruit and examine it. Whether it is such content or not that is the incentive, its true that at such favoured banyan the birds feed with unrestrained gusto, even the crows (which are usually content with picking up the fallen fruit from the ground) tugging and pulling at the figs eagerly and tearing them off the twigs.

Recently I saw a Brahminy Mynah bolt a fig in such haste that it almost choked to death and fell from the bough to the ground, its wings threshing, a visible bulge at its throat.After a frantic minute it managed to gulp down the fruit, and then, to my surprise, it just flew up into the branches above and started pecking and tugging at another ripe fig ! "

-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 11 July 1957 in The Sunday Statesman


#Two photographs of trees not reproduced here

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan : VOICE OF THE DUMB :The Sunday Statesman: 27 July 2014

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Voice of the Dumb
(The Spoonbill and The Openbill)

"IN this loud world, silence is remarkable. It is not less so in the avian world, for birds are voluble creatures, much given to song and chatter and gesticulation. The mechanism of sound production in birds is peculiar; without going into the technicalities, it may be said that in them the voice-box is placed much lower down than in other animals. However, this does not affect their ability to produce a number of calls and churring sounds and songs - in fact, I doubt whether class of animals is so varied in its voice. Some birds, however, are laconic in the extreme, rarely coming out with any sound beyond a harsh croak, and some are practically dumb, their only recorded sounds being a grunt, usually indulged in during the breeding season, and a claterring together of the mandibles. Such silent fowl are usually water-birds.

During March and April this year, I spent quite some time verifying earlier observation on THE VOCAL EFFORTS OF TWO WELL-KNOWN DUMB WATER-BIRDS, THE SPOONBILL AND THE OPENBILL. At Vedanthangal near Madras, where I found opportunity to observe and listen to these quaint birds, there is a mixed breeding colony of over a dozen species, several thousand water-birds nesting in the half- submerged grove of Baringtonias in the village tank during the rains. I had to wait till most of the breeding birds had left and till the tank bed was more or less dry before I could get the verification I wanted, for the large mixed din of a large heronry can be most confusing, and in judging sounds it is better to get near and use one's ears than to rely on observation through binoculars.

It has been said of the INDIAN SPOONBILL that "a low grunt and a clattering of the mandibles are the only sounds uttered" by the bird. In a dozen books on Indian bird consulted, I could find no other call or sound recorded except for RS Dharmakumarsinghji's reference to a "soft whistling note" in his Birds of Saurashtra. Recording another call, which is neither a grunt nor a clattering of the beak, I should certainly like to describe in detail the seductive and so-far-unreported love-song of the Spoonbill, but a naturalist is limited, by a stupid code, to the bare truth. I cannot report anything better than a hiccup.

However, this hiccup is much the most typical call of the breeding spoonbill (in the South, at any rate); the bird does indulge in low grunts, especially at the nest, but this hiccup seem to be its call note. Since I am satisfied that some of the breeding birds at Vedanthangal (and elsewhere in the South) exhibit certain peculiarities of plumage and behaviour, I should add that the Spoonbills here are in no way different from those breeding elsewhere in India.

The full nuchal crest was very much in evidence, the adult birds had a yellow fringe to the broad tip of their spatulate bills, there was the collar of dull cinnamon at the base of the neck, and the chin, from the base of the lower mandible to the throat, was bare and yellow to orange-yellow, with a fringe of Chinese vermilion to this bare patch where it met the throat. The bare patch pulsated as the birds panted open-billed, as most birds do during the heat of the summer afternoon in the South - I draw attention to this bare, yellow chin-patch, as at the moment of calling the skin of this patch is not drawn in (as when the bird is at rest) but slightly puffed out.

I refer, of course, to the fully adult breeding birds. Infant Spoonbills look like nothing so much as miniature dodos - they have pink, hook-tipped bills, swollen in the middle like the bill of a nestling pigeon, and they cheep loudly at the nest, very much in the manner of pigeon squabs. In fact, I noticed even the young of EGRETS (birds known only to grunt when adult) had quite expressive voices, and uttered a loud, yickering cheep when urging their parents to feed them. The food-calls of the infant, like at any mixed heronry, are quite a feature of such places, and I shall not refer to them here.

The call of the adult Spoonbill is most completely described as a subdued but clearly audible hiccup, somewhat high in pitch - I fancy that a well-bred lady, trying ineffectually to supress a hiccup in the party, would emit a very similar sound. The call has the same duration as a hiccup, and the bill is open at the time it is uttered, being closed immediately after. There can be no question of the sound being produced by any action of the mandibles as they are open when the bird is calling.The skin of the chin, as already said, is noticeable during the call. The birds call both from the perch and when on the wing. My photography of a perched spoonbill calling shows the bill almost closed, at the end of the hiccup; the flying bird was snapped in the middle of its call.

At first I was not sure if the bird called when on the wing - I could see the flying bird opening and then quickly closing its bill and the bulging of the chin-patch, I thought I heard the hiccup faintly high above me in the air, but so prone is the ear to hear what the eye sees, and the mind knows, that I was in doubt. Later I was able to hear the call from birds flying low overhead, and I am now certain that they do call at times, while flying.

The call of the laconic OPENBILL is even more remarkable.The only sound so far recorded of this stork is a clattering noise produced by the mandibles, the usual stork-sound. The openbill is not only the smallest of our storks but also the quaintest. The mandibles meet at the tip and the base but in the middle there is a clear gap between them. As in the spoonbill, the nestling has quite a different kind of beak - thick and wedge-shaped, with no gap in the middle. As it grows, the beak grows much longer, but the bill remains straight even when the young bird is well able to fly, and almost as big as its parents - it is a tapering wedge then, the gap in the middle and the consequent bi-convex contour of the outer edges of the coming with age.

Openbill nestlings, clamouring for food, produce a distinctive noise that is midway between a Yap and a Yicker, the three-quarters grown young, perching on treetops, makes a similar sound when begging food from its parents, but at this stage the sound is much more a Yap than a Yicker. When they are grown and can fly freely, the young birds gather together in sub-adult parties and perch on treetops in between feeding expeditions. They are now almost on the point of leaving for their feeding grounds perhaps hundreds of miles away. While roosting in company, at times they Yap in chorus. And so do their grown-up parents, roosting on another tree.

At Vedanthangal, I found about two dozen young openbills late in April - right at the other end of the grove of trees, almost diagonally opposite, there were an equal number of adult birds (some of the breeding pairs of recently-ended season), also roosting in close company. At times, one or two of the older birds would fly across to join the junior set, but this was exceptional - most of the time the two generations kept apart. The young birds were yapping occasional, infrequent calls, usually produced by just one or two birds. But the older birds indulged at times in a sustained chorus of muffled yelps - a sound not wholly unlike a chorus of faraway puppies, if one was sufficiently imaginative!

I noticed, both while the old birds were calling and while the younger birds were, that the call was uttered with the bill open - I mean, with the mouth open, for the bill of the adult openbill is always open! So far as I could note, this yapping is only indulged in when the birds are roosting together and perhaps only when they are assembled together preparatory to departure from the breeding colony. The young birds were noticeably less persistent with this strange chorus than their parents."

- M.Krishnan

This was first published on 19 May 1957 in The Sunday Statesman


#Two action photographs showing (1) Young openbills "yapping" (2)The "hiccupping" call of the spoonbills not reproduced here.