Indian Pond Heron + Birds of the Week Invitation XL

When you travel in South, East, or Southeast Asia and see a pond heron like the one in the featured photo, then there seems to be no way to tell by sight which species it belongs to. If I’d seen this almost anywhere in India I would have called it the Indian pond heron (Ardeola grayii). But I took the photo in Andaman’s Sipahijala wetland. This area lies in the geographic overlap of the ranges of the Indian and Chinese pond herons (Ardeola bacchus). So it could have been either. The main zone of overlap for these two species is in eastern and central Myanmar. From western Myanmar and south is the geographic range of the Javan pond heron (Ardeola speciosa), which overlaps in range with the Chinese species. Hydrids are known, so there is some gene flow between the species. Telling them apart is hard in their winter plumage, but the moment you see any part of the breeding plumage there’s no doubt which species they belong to.

I scoured my past for photos of the breeders, but I could not find one. I do most of my birding around winter, which is out of the breeding season of these birds. In February I’d seen this Indian pond heron in Mangalajodi in Odisha. It was exactly the same colour as the one I saw in Andaman, but I could be sure it was the Indian pond heron because the place was outside the range of the other two. The photo below was taken in Jamnagar, Gujarat. Again I could be sure this was an Indian pond heron because it was far outside the range of the other two species.

There aren’t many places on WordPress where bird watchers can share posts. If you post any photos of birds this week (starting today and up to next Monday), it would be great if you could leave a link in the comments, or a pingback, for others to follow. You don’t have to post a recent photo, nor do you have to post a photo of the same bird as mine, but do use the tag “Bird of the Week” to help others find your post. For more information see the main landing page for this invitation.

Birds of the Week XXXIX

Gold and feathers

Sunset on Bhigwan’s lake was a quiet time. Fishermen and farmers were on the way home from work. Herdsmen had brought their cattle to water for a last time in the day. Distant sounds of traffic had quietened. We’d heard calls of birds all day. That was completely gone as the light turned to gold. This was a good time for bird photography on the water. An Indian pond heron (Ardeola grayii) stopped looking for fish as soon as I’d clicked the featured photo and stalked to the hollow of the trunk and laid its head on its shoulder, preparing to sleep.

We’d been on open water most of the afternoon. Now, as we drifted close to the shore, I started noticing a completely different set of birds. There was a common redshank (Tringa totanus), its mottled and streaky feathers quite distinctive. I didn’t want the Black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus) in the photo, but the boat was drifting slowly and there was no quick way of getting it out of the way, except by changing focus.

There were reeds near the shore. I’d seen Garganeys (Spatula querquedula) all day, dabbling in the open waters. The white streaks on the head are quite distinctive. But none had come close enough for a photo. I took one now through the reeds. Behind it were Grey-headed swamphen (Porphyrio poliocephalus, formerly known as the Indian subspecies of Purple swamphens). I would get photos of them later.

At this time of the day, the colour of the water depends very strongly on which direction you look at. As I turned my gaze westwards I saw a Grey heron (Ardea cinerea) seated atop a mooring post sunk into the water. Behind it you can see one of the small villages dotted along the edge of the lake.

And finally, looking due west, on a sea of gold, a Brown-headed gull (Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus) had stopped its incessant daily flights, patrolling the water to keep it free of fish. Now it rested gently in the shallows. Later it would paddle closer to the shore and go to sleep on a sandbank. It was time for us to turn back too.

Science da kamaal! Posts appear automatically while I travel off net.

Old favourites and a new acquaintance

I’d gone to Bhandup pumping station last week in the hopes of seeing an Eurasian wryneck for the first time after a couple of years. I heard the pair, but didn’t see them. The find of the day was instead the Malabar starling (Sturnia blythii, aka Blyth’s starling). A flock of glossy birds surveying their surroundings from a high perch were a lifer. The light was wonderful and I could see all the defining details: the yellow bill with a bluish-ash base, the white head with contrasting chestnut belly, and the grey and black wings and tail. This bird is resident in India, and was split off from the migrant species called the chestnut-tailed starling (Sturnia malabaricus) with which it was confused even at the beginning of the century. As I took the photos you see above and in the gallery, I realized that I’d been hearing their chitter for a while.

• 

  Pied myna (Gracupia contra)

• 

  Indian cormorant (Phalacrocorax fuscicollis)

• 

  Indian pond heron (Ardeola grayii)

• 

  Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)

• 

  Common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos)

• 

  Malabar starling (Sturnia blythii)

• 

  Ashy drongo (Dicrurus leucophaeus)

• 

  Great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor)

• 

  Long-tailed shrike (Lanius schach)

• 

  Baya weaver (Ploceus philippinus)

Most of the other birds I saw that day were old acquaintances. We arrived before sunrise, and the early part of the day was not very good for photos. So I missed shots of a common tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius) which spent some time on a branch in front of my eyes. My photos of an eastern marsh harrier (Circus spilonotus) trying to snatch prey in midair have digital noise and are beyond rescue. Some of the others you can see in the gallery above. I should really start keeping my bird lists, but I can’t bring myself to admit that I’m slowly turning into a twitcher.

Birds in the city

A city as crowded as Mumbai has barely enough space for people. When houses are needed, swamps and mangroves are easily filled in. When parking space is in short supply, green spaces will be even harder to come by. It is natural that human institutions, when unchecked, will satisfy human needs above all. As a result, birds are pushed to the periphery of the city. These are the spaces that no one likes to go to.

A long-tailed shrike (Lanius schach) against the apartments of Mumbai

An Indian pond heron (Ardeola grayii) in water with detergent

Flamingos over the city

An Eurasian marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus) seen against high-tension power lines

Waders and water birds in the backwaters of Mumbai

Eurasian wryneck (Jynx torquilla) in urban waste

Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus) in a wasteland

Flamingos in the backwaters of Mumbai

If you are not going out of the city on a weekend, you might join other enthusiasts for a boat ride in the backwaters of Mumbai. The city has turned its back to these waters long ago. They are shallow tidal creeks which are not of much use to ships and trade, and the hunger for apartment blocks has not grown so acute that they need to be filled in. The refuse of the city washes in here: plastic and other garbage, chemical pollutants. The sea breeze does not disperse the smog, so the backwaters are perpetually hazy. In spite of this, life finds a toe hold. I drifted through these parts of Mumbai yesterday with The Family and friends and came back with photos which show that birds still survive just outside human spaces.

Forgotten kings

And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

My Ozymandian moment came as we walked through the mangrove forests of Bhitarkanika. We passed a shallow swamp with dead trees standing in them. Then we crossed a field where a monitor lizard was being harried by green bee eaters. The huge lizard crawled into bushes. We skirted the bushes, and as I looked at the little rise, I saw an abandoned building. It wasn’t too old, but disused and fallen into ruin. Bijaya said it belonged to the Rajah.

Who was this? He had no explanation, but it seemed that it was the local zamindar. The system of zamindars was abolished by the state of Odisha in 1952, so my guess is that the structure is about a hundred years old or less. As I walked around it, I saw a lotus pond where two bronze-winged Jacanas walked on the lily pads pecking at the water delicately. An Indian pond-heron sat apart from them on another lily pad, seemingly withdrawn into its inner landscape. From the pond one could see little slits along the walls of the structure. It was clearly a blind where the zamindars of old could sit and decimate birds which came to the pond. Much research was needed to excavate the names of the family. In sixty years the Kanika family which owned this forest once is almost forgotten.

We skirted the pond and walked into the next clearing. A simple temple in the Odisha style stood under a mango tree (featured photo). Amar tried to bring down a couple of mangos, and was fairly satisfied by the unripe green fruits he got. The temple was not much older than the blind; the two structures used the same kind of mortar. But whereas the hunting blind was like Ozymandias’ statue, the small temple was kept alive by the traditions of neighbouring villages. I walked around it to see a little mortar Nandi facing the niche where a diya burnt in front of a tended shiva-linga inside a little locked screen door.

We walked on past these little remnants of a history now forgotten. The forest was alive with birds, and our hour’s walk was over too soon.