Sunday, November 21, 2004

The excitement of bird watching increases with the change of seasons which brings avian visitors from all over the country, writes Baljit Singh

WE have more than 1,300 species of birds in India. Out of these, at least 20 can be sighted in and around our dwellings. In a city like Chandigarh with excellent tree cover and close proximity to the Shivalik hills and water-body like the Sukhna lake, a resident may take his count to 50 species. The checklist of species of amateur bird watchers will build up to at least 150 species.

However, the excitement associated with bird-watching begins when one gets conscious of the fact that a large majority of birds are constantly on the move within the country the year round in response to the change of seasons.

The avian visitors to Chandigarh in October are driven by the extremes of climate with dwindling food availability. They opt for altitudinal shift between the Himalayas, the foothills and the plains.

On the morning of October 10, I heard a familiar call from the row of Ashoka trees on the edge of our lawn. When the bird showed up, here was the season’s first white-throated Fantail Flycatcher. This bird breeds in the Himalayas and Shivalik hills of Himachal. He is heard more than seen because he hunts insects along tree-trunks and from leaves, keeping within the shadows of the leaf-canopy. It is a plump, slaty-brown bird with a prominent thin white streak above the eyes and a bold white patch on the throat. When in one smooth motion he pirouettes from side to side and throws up the tail, stretching it into a perfect hand fan fringed with white along the crescent-edge, your one-year-long tryst is fully recompensed.

Many are the ways of birds that remain clocked in mystery. How else can one explain the fact that the scaly-breasted Munia, which breeds throughout India East of the line Delhi-Surat and also in the northern half of Punjab but gives clean slip to Haryana and UT Chandigarh? This dumpy little bird loves the lantana flower and berry to an obsession that he could be spotted at the most unimaginable and absurd locations.

Come October, the lantana are loaded with food and this Munia is in the thicket for sure. His cherry-brown face, throat and upper breast and whitish under parts layered with bold black scales is a beautiful sight. I saw five of them on October 17.

I encountered the Black Redstart twice this October. He is very shy of humans probably because there is little presence of man in his chief breeding grounds on the Tibetan steppe and SE Ladakh. Identification is easy because of the sharp contrast set up by its pitch-black throat and upper breast with its rich burgundy-orange belly. Of the nine species of Redstarts breeding or wintering in India, the Black Redstart is the only one t`at is encountered here. All together, it is always an exciting encounter.

In any pursuit, the unexpected is always the most memorable. For some unknown reason I had not reckoned with the possibility of sighting an Ashy Drongo here, possibly because Chandigarh lies at the extreme limit of this bird’s north-west wintering ground. Besides, one is so accustomed to the ubiquitous Black Drango that you are likely to give the go-by to all other species of this genus. I had walked past two Drongos on a Himalayan Larch tree in the Rose Garden on October 7 when intuitively I turned back to look at the birds through binoculars. And there was no doubt that I was watching Ashy Drongos having distinct grey under parts as opposed to glossy black of the Black Drongo. In my three years at Chandigarh, this is the first sighting of this species.

Among the other winter visitors that are always encountered at Chandigarh are the Wagtails. They are a large family of which six species and a further 17 sub-species reside in India and all them except one (the Forest Wagtail) can be met. They are small birds, about 18 cm from the point of the beak to the tip of the tail and as their name suggests they wag their long tail habitually all the time. All of them summer and breed in Ladakh and Uttaranchal but winter in the rest of the country save the Thar desert. The White, the Grey and the Citerine have already arrived.

While the White Wagtail has grey or black backs but their facial discs are the purest imaginable white. At a casual glance the Grey Wagtail can be confused with the White but with a moment to spare you will notice that the Grey has the softest light yellow wash on its underparts. Even the first time around, the Citerine Wagtail is the easiest to identify because of the glossy mustard yellow head and breast. So, who can get bored in October.