Jamnagar – Don't hold your breath

Asian Koel + Birds of the Week Invitation XXVII

Females of the Asian koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus) lurk in canopies of trees and are hard to spot. They have all those streaks breaking up their outlines as you peer at them through dappled sunlight between the leaves. Males are coloured an uniform glossy dark. This was the last bird I photographed on our last birding trip before the pandemic lockdowns. The rest of that spring and summer was filled with calls of the promiscuous males, a monotonous series of rising notes. You can spot these birds from Pakistan and bits of Afghanistan in the west all the way east to southern Manchuria, Korea, and Japan in the north, and from the Maldives east to Timor-Leste in the south. They are brood parasites, most often on crows, but also opportunistically on mynas, drongos, and even shrikes. Females lay eggs, usually one, occasionally two, in the nests of host species. The sexual dimorphism tells you that the females raid nests unaccompanied by males.

Bird of the Week XXVI

Crab Plover + Bird of the Week Invitation XXV

On a sand bank near Little Warsaw, Jamnagar, I saw a mass of crab plover (Dromas ardeola) roosting. These unmistakable birds, the sole member of the family Dromadidae, can be found along the shores of the Arabian Sea and as far down the east coast of Africa as Durban. Interestingly, you can see them across the Indian Ocean in the Andaman islands and even as far east as Kuala Lumpur in winter, but you are unlikely to spot them on the east coast of India. During the Indian Ocean monsoon they nest in large communes in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea, and disperse across the Indian Ocean in winter. Their breeding habits are so different from that of most plovers (they dig burrows, their eggs are completely white, they continue feeding their young through winter), that I would love to see a colony some day.

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. It would be helpful to give as much information as you can, for example which bird it is, where and when you saw the bird, any behaviour you found interesting, or anything else you wish. You might consider using the tag “Bird of the Week” to help others search for old posts. I hope you’ve had the time to look at what others have added in this week and earlier.

Bird of the Week XXIV

Stretching and bending

Humans and giraffes, like most mammals, have 7 neck (cervical) vertebrae. The long-necked Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus of old) had 15. Flamingos beat all of them with 19 cervical vertebrae. So a flamingo has no trouble preening with its beak. I watched this Greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus) as it woke from a nap and stretched its neck to work on its feathers.

Birds have a larger number of cervical vertebrae than mammals, ranging from 11 to 25. So flamingos are not special. I don’t know where on this scale the neck of the Great thick-knee (Esacus recurvirostris, aka Great stone curlew) should be placed. Whatever the number, this odd looking bird doesn’t have a neck flexible enough to groom its wing feathers. I watched as this one stretched out its leg to do that.

I find the name thick-knee extremely good for field identification, as you can see in the photo where the leg is stretched out to preen the wings. The knobby knees are clearly visible. These knees can bend forward, unlike mammalian knees. I was quite struck by the fact that the bird woke from a snooze and began to stretch its legs and wings, which are modified arms. Of course that must feel good.

That flamingo did the same thing, but only with one leg. Its knees bend the same way as ours. Most birds sleep with one half of the brain at a time. You can see this easily in waders which roost out in the water by the fact that one leg is retracted while it stands on the other. The relaxed leg is connected to the sleeping hemisphere. I didn’t think of looking to see which leg this individual was stretching. I don’t think I will go back to Jamnagar soon, but there are flamingos in the waters around Mumbai in winter; I’ll keep a watch to figure this out.

A farmer of Jamnagar

As we finished our hunt for larks outside Jamnagar, a man on a motorbike stopped to inspect us. He didn’t mind being inspected in turn. Communication was difficult, since he spoke only the local dialect of Gujarati, notoriously difficult for even a native Gujarati speaker. He was undoubtedly prosperous; the motorbike, crisp white clothes, the large gold ear ring, all were signs of his local status.

On this southern shore of the Gulf of Kutch water is plentiful, and agriculture has long been a good source of income. Nowadays cash crops like sugarcane, tobacco, and cotton bolster the income that the cultivation of bajra and jowar, and fishing used to provide. As we found in late March, a month after this photo was taken, this district is also a destination for migrant agricultural labour. So I’m pretty sure this gentleman was a local landowner. He gave us up for a lost cause soon and drove off.

A forgotten story of Poland in India

While watching Crab Plovers and Great Knots in tidal flats outside Jamnagar, I noticed this cluster of buildings across the water, which make up a school. It turns out to have a forgotten history. Polish children interned in USSR during World War II were allowed to leave in 1942, provided some country took them in. The Jamsaheb Digvijay Singhji of Jamnagar opened up his seaside resort as a refuge for the children. That is the red-tiled building that you see in the featured photo. That’s the bare bone of the story. The children stayed here till 1946. During this time many were reunited with their families. Of those who had lost their families, several chose to remain in India.

Scanning old newspapers I pieced together the story of a British refusal to let the refugee ship dock in India (paralleling the Canadian response to refugees on Komagata Maru). On the intervention of the Jamsaheb, the ship finally docked in Rosi, a port which belonged to the kingdom of Jamnagar. The cultural sensitivity of the times has also been recorded: schooling in Polish, providing Polish food, and the freedom to raise the flag of Poland. Jamnagar was the first kingdom to accept Polish refugees, and others across the world followed. It is interesting to read about this at a time when there is a spreading belief that the post-war international order, including the rights of refuge, were put in place by the wartime Allies, largely the old imperial powers. This is false. Parts of the new world order are informed by values which belong to the wider and more diverse world which was emerging at that time.

Rage against the dying of the light

Like many others, I must have discovered Dylan Thomas’ poem in my teenage years. In those days it was a sort of a secret anthem on how to live for a cryptic club. The anthem adapts to circumstances. On a late afternoon walk through the Marine National Park in the Gulf of Kutch, I thought about the poem again. People I knew in Wuhan were already in lock-down, and in February it was already clear that the pandemic would strike some time, but that was not what was uppermost in my mind.

We strolled for more than a kilometer out to the waterline. The tide in this gulf is spectacular, and the receding sea had left pools in which we could see sponges, puffer fish and crabs. Over the years I’d discovered that I was similar to a migratory shorebird, like the common greenshanks (Tringa nebularia), which visits these pleasant coasts in winter, striding through tide pools, stopping to inspect things, turning over little stones. The sun was about to set. “Time to go back”, said someone. “Just a few minutes more”, I said, trying to prolong the pleasant day, raging against the dying of the light.

The poem is about living right, as all teenagers know. It is not about dying.

Star-tailed

In this sweltering heat of Mumbai it feels nice to look back at the photos of the winter that’s just gone by. The many winter visitors include these gulls with stars in their tails. Once you notice that, you have narrowed the identification down to three: Mew gulls, Caspian gulls, and Heuglin’s gulls. Mew gulls are the smallest, and very rare in India. This was too big. The Heuglin’s and Caspian are about the same size, and distinguished by the shape of the head (Heuglin’s is broader) and the darkness of the wings (Heuglin’s is darker). This could be Heuglin’s gull (Larus fuscus heuglini). I consulted an oracle, and it was.

Hectic times on tidal flats

Little Warsaw (there’s a long story there) of Jamnagar stands near a tidal flat. We reached when the tide was coming in. A group of Sarus cranes (Antigone antigone) was foraging in the low waters. They are wonderful to watch at all times, so it was a while before I took my eyes off them to look at the tourists basking on a spit of sand beyond them.

They were mostly Crab plovers (Dromas ardeola) winter visitors from Sri Lanka and Maldives. You wouldn’t think anyone would leave those Indian Ocean islands to come and winter in Gujarat. There has to be a story there; one that I intend to follow up some time. As they roosted, a noisy flock of Great Knot (Calidris tenuirostris) came flying in. As they picked their way between the roosting Craab plovers, I noticed some distinctive Heuglin’s gulls (Larus fuscus heuglini) floating behind the islet. The gulls roost in the water.

A knot of locals were sitting by the shore when we arrived, and now they decided to wade out. Their village was probably on the far side of the flats, and they seemed pretty sure of the route to follow. I heard more commotion, and I took my eyes off them. A bunch of elegant Eurasian Oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) came flying in. The Crab plovers were beginning to get crowded out. There was a lot of squawking and crying from the mixed bunch on the island. The villagers had turned in the meanwhile. They were definitely following a fixed route.

The Great Knots were alert to the approaching humans, and took off in a flurry of wing-beats. The Crab plovers had given up on their sleep and were on their feet. The villagers were very close to the islet when they birds took off. As the humans crossed the sand on their way home, a few brave plovers stood their ground. When they were gone, the Crab plovers came back to reclaim the island for themselves. They wanted to spend the afternoon roosting. We were off for lunch.

Colourless flamingos

Juvenile flamingos are not a bird enthusiast’s favourite. Unlike the well-fed adults, with their attractive pink colours, the young look dowdy and unremarkable. But, these young lesser flamingos (Phoenicopterus minor) presented a pretty picture as they fed in this stagnant stretch of water, green with algae. The algae are exactly what attracted these birds here. The lesser flamingo’s diet is largely made of algae, unicellular plants, and cyanobacteria that fill such stagnant pools. These microscopic organisms are rich in the beta-carotenoids associated with the chlorophyll that they contain. These carotenoids will eventually be deposited in the feathers of the flamingos, and turn them pink, red, or orange. What a marvelous transformation!

On a lark

When I saw the pair of ashy crowned sparrow larks (Eremopterix griseus) and took the photo that is featured, it was the end of a morning’s hunt. As soon as we arrived in this place. Adesh had identified a female by its call. I was excited, because I’d only seen the male of the species before. Even now I kept seeing glimpses of the male. Adesh was certain that the female had not left. Eventually, waiting paid off, and the female appeared in plain sight to sit with the male. I was struck by the differences in colouring and behaviour. Often, such differences point to different roles in the rearing of the young.

Apparently not in this case. From what I read, both sexes play equal roles in building nests, incubating the eggs and feeding the young. The difference between the birds is a result of what Darwin recognized as sexual selection, the process of choosing mates leads to escalating behavioural and morphological differences between the sexes: the overt masculinization of the male and the overt femininization of the female, without other important biological differences. The different appearance of the male must be part of this process (although I am going out on a limb, guessing here, because no one has tested this idea out). The most visible difference in behaviour is the courting ritual of the male: the high flights, the trills let loose at the apex of the dive. So wonderful that Shelley wrote a long ode (Hail, to thee … that from Heaven, or near it, pourest thy full heart in profuse strains of unpremeditated art, and so on) to the lark. But when behaviour is different, and biology is almost the same, that’s when gender politics rears its head. Apparently the female works harder at feeding the young!