Why did the elephant wear dark glasses?

So that it wouldn’t be recognized, of course. That was one of the most elegant of the series of silly jokes about elephants which was common when I was young. But that is exactly the kind of thing that birds try to confuse birdwatchers with. This Garganey (Spatula querquedula) thought it had succeeded in concealing itself, forgetting that us paparazzi can recognize one by its lovely neck. That’s like seeing Audrey Hepburn in dark glasses. (Sorry elephant.)

This parakeet succeeded where the Garganey failed. The female of the Blossom-headed parakeet (Psittacula roseata) and the Plum-headed parakeet (Psittacula cyanocephala) can be told apart by a red shoulder patch on the wing of the former. This one strategically used a fig leaf to hide its identity. Clever!

The White-crested laughing thrush (Garrulax leucolophus) in the photo above tried so hard to hide its face from me that it nearly toppled off the branch. Little did it know that its voice had already given it away. It has an absolutely unmistakable call. If there’s any tool better for the identification of birds than photos then it is recordings of their calls.

This Painted snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) had a double barrelled method: it tried the old and tested method of hiding its face to preen while hiding behind tall grasses. Fortunately I had a good lens and a better boatman. He could steady my perch while I waited to see the bird raise its head just a little. Look at that; his eyes are closed! He’s enjoying scratching himself.

This Grey-headed swamphen (Porphyrio poliocephalus, formerly called Purple swamphen) tries to go incognito by turning its head away. How many sleazy people have had their photos splashed on the front page of newspapers in the same pose? It doesn’t help them, and it didn’t help this one. It was outed the moment I saw it.

Each of these birds had its own unique method of trying to avoid photographers. Almost all of them failed. But no one failed as spectacularly as this Black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) who hid its head in its feathers without bothering to think about which side the lens was. Better luck next time!

Plum-headed Parakeet + Birds of the Week Invitation XXXIX

To be a bird watcher is to be an occasional voyeur. When I took photos of this couple, the male Plum-headed parakeet (Psittacula cyanocephala) seemed to have caught sight of me. Why else would it look so goggle eyed when he was busy (what’s the word?) snogging his lovely grey headed girl? You’ll notice the male’s colourful plumage: a plum head, bright orange bill, the black neck ring, the blue neck feathers shading into the yellow of the belly, the green of the back with a red shoulder patch like the Alexandrine‘s, and the long blue tail with its base outlined in black. The lady is marginally less of a fop: grey head, orange bill, yellow feathers on the neck and belly, green on the back, no shoulder patch, and a long blue tail. They can be found almost anywhere in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka.

I would have loved a resident colony in our garden, but they haven’t made friends with the local rose-ringed parakeets. Their absence had made me think that they are out-competed in an urban setting, but then I saw photos of them in other parts of Mumbai. Also, the featured photo was taken just outside Almora. Last week I’d written about a huge mixed flock of rose-ringed, Alexandrine, and plum-headed parakeet that I saw near Nepal’s Chitwan NP. So, at least in more bucolic settings, they coexist.

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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 XXXVIII

Parakeet morning

The tuneful but loud whistles of a Himalayan whistling-thrush woke me on my last morning in Almora. It was sitting in the balcony. The sun had not yet risen. I lay in bed enjoying the beautiful song of the bird. It used to be called the truant schoolboy once for its joyful whistling. The Family was in deep sleep, but I found that I was fully awake. I slipped on a jacket, and stepped into the balcony with my camera. The thrush was still whistling on a tree nearby. A great barbet called from far away, and in front of me plum-headed parakeets (Psittacula cyanocephala) wheeled in the sky, with their cheerful pinging calls.

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I don’t see these birds very often. The male has a dark red-purple and the female a blue-grey head. The darker collar of the male and its red shoulder patch, the yellow neck of the female, the bright yellow upper beak, and the long blue tail with a yellow tip are other things to look for. The light was still fairly bad, but I took some photos anyway. They might not be there later. Taking photos disciplines my attention. I might not have caught the courtship feeding otherwise.

Since males and females are so easy to tell apart, even a casual observer like me can see a certain organization in the pack. First, the packs are mixed, but the sexes generally segregate when they come to rest. I wondered whether this is generally true, or even true of other species of parakeets. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find many studies of the social organization of parakeet flocks. The only paper I found was almost a century old and had studied pecking order in a different species of parakeets. The observations showed a lack of strict pecking hierarchy. It would be strange if no one is studying parakeet societies. When I look out of the window, they seem to be as intelligent and social as crows.

Walking around a village

We drove a few hours from Kochi to Thattekad, and reached a home stay on the far side of the Periyar river. In the evening we crossed the river for a walk around Thattekad village. From the highway it looked like there was only a rain-forest nearby. Then I saw the little path worn away by regular use. As we followed the path, I realized that this was not a pristine rain-forest; it had been cleared for human use.

A strikingly beautiful leaf

Ferns growing on a tree

Ants swarm over these flowers, pollinating them as they harvest sugar

Ants have herded these white aphids to colonize these plants

This flower is either edible or poisonous, I wish I could tell which

Banana leaves show that caterpillars have passed this way

This flower is common around the village

A beautiful flower whose name I do not know

The Mimosa pudica, also called touch-me-not

A speckled piculet (Picumnus innominatus) feeding

A plum headed parakeet feeding upside down

The word ecosystem comes to mind as you walk around the village. The network of species is not as dense as it would be inside the protected forest, but you can see it here very easily.

A speckled piculet pecked away at a bare tree: there were clearly insects running up the trunk. I’d never seen a piculet before.

Ants swarmed over tiny yellow flowers which I didn’t recognize. They pollinate the flowers even as they harvest nectar. Elsewhere, a deeper food chain: aphid colonies have taken over a patch of bushes, and ants run up and down them, clipping their wings and harvesting the honey dew which they secrete.

There were flowers which I did not recognize. The one thing which I did was the touch-me-not, familiar from my childhood. Its leaves curl up if you touch them. This was the plant whose name, Mimosa pudica, first introduced me to Latin binomials.

Above us a plum-headed parakeet hung upside down, feeding on tiny fruits. Parakeets disperse seeds widely, and are key players in keeping a forest alive.

As soon as you get away from a city you begin to see the web of life which covers our planet.