Bush larks and red munias
Baljit Singh

NOTHING is ever replicated in nature; no two sun rises are alike, neither the sight of a silk cotton tree in full bloom under a full moon nor the muffled sound of a mountain stream can be the same. One knows the ways of nature and yet never ceases to hope and look for a replay of the favourite sight, sound or experience.

During the morning walk, on an embankment, some ten feet higher than the surrounding fields, I noticed a small, solitary bird rising in near-vertical flight from the ground below. The bird gained at least another ten feet above me and then checked his flight by a momentary hover when it seemed unable to gain further height. Spreading its wings it entered into a controlled free-fall descent, the sun disclosing its redish-brown plumage. It had to be a lark but which one? The bird alighted on a shrub in a depression about twenty feet below and as much away from me. No matter how hard I tried to obtain further clues to identification but in vain because the sun was unfavourably positioned. Mindful of a stray dog, the bird flew up to the embankment but unfortunately sat between me and the sun. I set out on a long detour for a better view and positive identification. It would take long and the bird may not remain static but I had nothing to loose. My luck held out. From the closest I could get, my general impression of the bird was of the female house sparrow.

Thumbing through all the books, one was not too certain about the identity of this lark. Its flight pattern, general colouration in flight, the habitat and its song in flight all pointed to the oriental sky lark. Could it be the Indian bush-lark? The next morning one did not come across any larks (remember, nothing ever is replicated in nature) but what I did spot was a flock of several tiny birds suddenly get up in a small, mist-cloud and just as suddenly descend to the ground close by. These could be the scalybellied munia which I had seen hereabouts on a few earlier occasions. I got to within ten feet of the birds. There were low Lantana bushes ahead of me and the birds sat feeding on the ground in the shadow of the bushes. They were eleven in all and dull brown general appearance. Now one among them moved into the sun and there was no mistaking its orange-red rump. Another bird showed up in the sun and displayed its pink-red beak. My heart thumped as another three of the flock paraded their blood-red heads, red flanks, faded reddish pink colouration of chest and abdomen and off-white vents. Small white spots on their wings near the primaries were also visible. These birds were three male red munias. There were some birds in the flock with dull down plumage typical of the young (immature) birds. What puzzled me were two birds whose upper plumage resembled the female’s but the colouration of their flanks looked neither the male’s nor the female’s!

Collins Hand Guide to the Birds of the Indian sub-Continent carries a beautiful painting of the male in non-breeding plumage. So the breeding hormones of the two males seen last were clearly dormant yet. The three cock birds identified earlier, certainly had more active hormones as their plumage was closer to the painting of the Red Munia in the breeding phase.

Hugh Whistler’s book The popular handbook of Indian Birds is often my last stop and usually the most rewarding when all other attempts at positive field identification become frustrating. Incidentally, Whistler by profession was a Punjab policeman but his passion was ornithology. Born in 1889, he entered the officer cadre of the Indian Imperial Police in 1913. He was assigned to the Punjab Province which then comprised most of today’s Pakistan and all of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Unfortunately he was hounded by illness, had to prematurely retire to England and died at the young age of fiftyfour. During his very brief presence in India he amassed such a vast knowledge on India’s avifauna that he passed muster to enter the Hall of Fame of Ornithology. He guided the late Salim Ali in his earlier days which the latter acknowledges with fondness in his autobiography The Fall of a Sparrow.

Two decades ago, bush larks and red munias were frequently encountered in the open countryside surrounding Chandigarh. Today, you will have to get up to the Morni area where they are still holding out. But just about.

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