Two hoots in a deserted quarry

My love of owls has made me peer into abandoned quarries, tree hollows, rafters of old barns, and dilapidated houses. Last year, I watched three Indian Eagle Owl chicks grow from featherballs to subadults. We waited a whole year to publish this report, assured that they are now relatively safe


In India, where kids grow up with superstitions whispered into their ears, owls are much maligned. An owl hooting at night is said to bring death. Barn owls (Tyto alba) fetch lakhs in the black market as they are believed to have magical powers that aid in black magic. And some say if you starve and beat an Indian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo bengalensis), it will start talking like a human and predict your future. For a nature-watcher, however, these hunters of the night are graceful and elegant. And the more you watch them, the more you fall in love.

the beauty with large eyes!

My love of owls has made me peer into abandoned quarries, tree hollows, rafters of old barns, and dilapidated houses. In one such quarry in the outskirts of Mysore I saw a fully grown female Indian Eagle Owl, which perched on the least noticeable ledges and watched us with her large, all-perceiving eyes. The spell she cast on us was unbreakable, so much that we continued to pay her frequent visits.


Generally she would be quite shy, taking off to distant inaccessible corners of the quarry if we got close. But on one visit in January last year, she didn't leave her perch, however close we approached. The ledge, though, was inaccessible - it was about 10 feet high and about 7 feet away from the edge of the deep rainwater pool at the bottom of the quarry. We imagined the reason for her perceived acquiescence was that she might be nesting. We left her alone.

Momma squints a warning

A few weeks later, in February, we returned. The mother was nowhere to be seen. Scanning the ledge carefully corroborated our guess: three tiny feather-balls. My heart thumped. The sun was coming up, and the chicks were pushing against the farthest corner of the quarry wall, seeking protection from the early morning sunlight that was now turning harsh. The nest was a humble setup -- a ledge with sand at the bottom and some grass growing at the edges. Mommy showed up presently, her stern stare radiating a warning: “Keep off!”


Huddled in the nest and vulnerable.



Momma plays sentinel


When we next visited the quarry a month later, in March, we couldn’t spot any chicks. Dismayed that they might have died of illness or fallen to predators, we prepared to leave when we spotted a chick behind the grass stalks that jutted out of a ledge. It appeared to be three times larger than we had last seen it. Another sat a few feet away on another ledge. There was no sign of the third (we never saw it again). Mommy occupied another ledge, watching us intently with the same stern schoolteacher expression. Since the chicks were on a different ledge from her, it was pretty obvious that they had started to fly.

Well concealed



And the second chick on another ledge

Our next trip to the quarry happened only in May as something or the other interfered with our plans. All we saw were two adults: The larger mother and the other was probably one of the chicks, which had by now grown large enough to be on its own. The second chick had probably left the quarry (or maybe it was dead -- we would never know), and I had a feeling that I would not see this one for long either.

The little one takes flight...



The last glimpse that I got of the young owl

As expected, on later visits we found only the mother owl. Since Eagle Owls are voracious eaters and require a large area to hunt in, it is likely that the grown chicks had left to set up their own fortresses elsewhere. I do think about them once in a while, wondering where they would be now, whether they managed to survive and found happy hunting grounds of their own beyond the reach of superstitions or predators. 


After all, when babies grow up before your eyes, you get attached to them!


Further reading:

1. An excellent technical documentation of Eagle Owl chicks [PDF], by Eric Ramanujam and T Murugavel, is available at the Journal of Threatened Taxa website. 
2. Sad, Wise Eyes, an article about owl trafficking by Shruti Ravindran, appeared in the March 2009 issue of Outlook magazine.

Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan


More on The Green Ogre:


Read more about Indian Eagle Owls and Barn Owls 
Read more about threats to Mysore's scrubland habitats
 

Dads we love wildly

On Father's Day, we raise a toast to the best animal dads, but our top contender isn't a bird!


It might be just another Hallmark card red-letter day, but Father's Day means a lot to us Ogres. And not just because we hold our own dads in great esteem. While motherlove dominates the wild world, there are a few notable exceptions among animal fathers who shine bright. Here's our pick of the Top 6. You're free to argue or disagree, but do leave a comment if you'd like to split hairs, or have a bone or feather to pick.

1. Seahorse

If this were a gallop poll, those delicate little fish known as seahorses would have breasted the ribbon without challenge. When it's time to make more little seahorses (or sea-foals, should we say?), dad-to-be and mom-to-be the male waltz intimately for about eight hours before the female lays about a thousand eggs in the male's brood pouch. The male fertilizes the eggs by releasing his sperm into the surrounding water and then releases the hormone prolactin (which, in mammals, induces the production of milk). The eggs hatch inside the pouch and the young swim away, and with that the seahorses' parental responsibility comes to an end. 


Seahorses are threatened by over-fishing and collecting for ornamental aquariums. The biggest threat comes from Chinese epicureans who believe that eating seahorses (often on a skewer or in soups) has aphrodisiac properties.




2. Greater Painted Snipe

Polyandrous female Greater Painted Snipes are the epitome of women's lib. Brightly coloured and aggressive, they court drab, dowdy males. Once they're through with the formalities, they lay their eggs and move off to repeat the show with another male. The males incubate and hatch the eggs, teach the chicks to forage and then shoo them off to lives of their own. Once the nest is empty and the breeding season is back on the calendar, it's time for papa Painted Snipe to come into his own all over again.






3. Indian Eagle Owl

Look into the deep amber eyes of the Indian Eagle Owl. Does he look like he has a chip on his shoulder? Not surprising, for he's not exactly your lovey-dovey kind of papa but the strong, silent, responsible type with exemplary family values. A tad conservative, but a swell guy in the final analysis.


The male Eagle Owl has his act cut out: He goes about aggressively defining his territory in the best real estate he can find, then attracts a suitable mate and provides for her as she incubates their eggs. Once the eggs hatch, he steps up the hunt, cleaning up every furball in the vicinity to nourish his hungry, greedy and fast-growing little ones. He also joins his mate in teaching the fluffy, gauche young things to fend for themselves. And when it's all done, it's time to repeat it all over again!






4. Ostrich

When the male ostrich fights off competitors to cobble together a harem of five to six females, he is taking on an enormous responsibility that few of us would envy. Once done with the amorous preliminaries, the females get down to business. The male does the dirty work, scraping a pit in the ground that can be up to two feet wide and ten feet wide. In this large communal nest, the pregnant females lay their eggs. The hens incubate the eggs during the day when their drab plumage blends perfectly with the sand. In the dangerous dark of the night, the dark-coloured male takes over. Hunched over the nest in the dark, he is almost impossible to see. Once the eggs hatch, he teaches the chicks to feed and defends them against predators. A kick from his powerful legs, tipped with two sharp claws, has been known to kill lions. This guy is a macho dad all the way.




4. Weaverbird

Apart from the usual stuff, stability and security are two traits that females of the species have always sought in males. Real estate and housing are huge concerns among some birds, the male weaverbird's badge of courage is his ability to build a nest that can win his lady's approval. When the first rains arrive, he singles out the best blades of grass and weaves his nest while the strands are still moist. As they dry they stiffen into the shapes he has envisioned. 


The female, true to character, is a picky customer, and she will reject outright a nest that doesn't appeal to her aesthetic tastes. Perhaps she also inspects the nest for stability, protection from predators and weather, and she ends up rejecting many half-built nests. But Bob the Builder persists until he has built the heart-stopper of nests. And then, mama and papa raise their brood in the comfort of the nest that won the Good Housekeeping Award for Birds.




5. Hornbill

Male hornbills of nearly all species bear an enormous burden. Mostly, he and his chosen mate pair for life. When they are ready to start a family, they single out a good-sized hollow in an old forest tree. 


The female enters the hollow, sheds most of her feathers (possibly to line the nest), and the male imprisons her inside by sealing the opening with mud. He then leaves the mother-to-be and her eggs to forage. He makes several trips a day, clattering his bill and making the hills reverberate with his honking call. Once the eggs hatch and the young are ready to fledge, the male unseals the nest. 


In the event that he is killed during the nesting period, both the female and his brood will starve to death. Just imagine the anxieties faced by single-income families.




Photos: Wikimedia Commons (Seahorse, Greater Painted Snipe and Ostrich). Pictures of Indian Eagle Owl and Weaverbird by Sandeep Somasekharan and Malabar Pied Hornbill  by Arun Menon.


Text by Beej


Read more about:


Indian Eagle Owls
Weaverbirds
Malabar Pied Hornbills

Encounter - The Indian Eagle owl

The Indian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo bengalensis) is a sub-species of the Eurasian Eagle Owl, formerly known as the Indian Rock Eagle owl. My first run-in with this enigmatic bird was near Mysore's well-known landmark - Chamundi Hills. My friend saw him sitting on a tree near a quarry, and we had a long tryst trying to photograph him from outside the wire fencing around the hill. The large, orange-yellow eyes, the prominent horns and his large size (not to speak of an impressive wingspan), makes the bird really some viewing.

Can you meet that stare?

After that, there have been multiple incidents when we have had a run-in with this huge bird, mostly in and around abandoned quarries. But it is tough to spot them when they sit on some shadowy ledge in such quarries, as their colors make for a perfect camouflage. They emerge from their hiding places past dusk, when they hunt for rodents, bats and birds at night and return to their cavernous abodes late at night. The bird is known to tear apart its prey with its sharp claws and beak before devouring them. They are known to feed on large-sized birds as well, including some birds of prey.

Showing off that impressive wingspan

There have been instances when we have stopped at quarries to spot these birds and seen them take off from ledges right underneath us, or from nearby trees as we scouted the location to spot one. In most cases, the only way to spot them is to see them take off from their resting places.

In flight

Like the barn owl (Tyto alba), this bird is a victim of poaching and hunting due to superstitions. The hoots of this bird are supposed to bring bad luck and death in many places, and that is one reason why people are known to hunt them. Not to mention increasing fragmentation of their habitats due to urbanization and the resulting lack of food… 

Please spare our lives

Text and photographs: Sandeep Somasekharan