Encounter: Large-tailed Nightjar

When the dim, shadowy silence of the leaf-litter suddenly takes wing, it's either a ghost or a nightjar that sets your heart racing. Our search that began in the hunt for a peacock feather took us to the adorable Large-tailed Nightjar

The Large Tailed Nightjar wrapped up in silence. Notice the white frill on the throat; in some individuals it is supposedly prominent enough to be called a throat patch

"The first bird I searched for was the nightjar, which used to nest in the valley. Its song is like the sound of a stream of wine spilling from a height into a deep and booming cask. It is an odorous sound, with a bouquet that rises to the quiet sky. In the glare of day it would seem thinner and drier, but dusk mellows it and gives it vintage. If a song could smell, this song would smell of crushed grapes and almonds and dark wood. 


The sound spills out, and none of it is lost. The whole wood brims with it. Then it stops. Suddenly, unexpectedly. But the ear hears it still, a prolonged and fading echo, draining and winding out among the surrounding trees".

- J.A. Baker (The Peregrine)

The peafowl feather that led us to the nightjar

It all started over a feather.

It was a nice November afternoon, hotter than usual, and I along with four kids, including two of my own, was looking for bird feathers in an overgrown corner of the garden. I located a peacock feather, not the regular ornate one that Krishna prefers but one from the bird's flanks – a lovely feather with alternating bands of white and darkest grey. As I proceeded to inform everyone the name of the feather’s owner a voice called out from the deepest bushes.

Voice from the bushes: “This feather does not belong to the peacock”
Me: “Then?”
Voice from the bushes: “It belongs to a brown bird!”
Me: (Convinced he has seen a Peafowl fledgling) “It’s the young one you are looking at.”
Voice from the bushes: “No, it flew.”

Peafowl fledglings do not fly. They make a beeline behind their mother and tirelessly move about the garden, in perennial awe of the marvelous world around them. So that’s what we had - a brown bird that flew from the ground under the bushes one fine November noon!

Excellent camouflage - the bird is strongly patterned yet merges with the leaf litter

I did not have to wait long. The very next day as I walked down a garden path, crunching leaves underfoot, a pigeon-sized brown bird took off from near my feet. Before I could recover and take the next step another flew. Then another. It suddenly dawned on me that I had seen my first nightjar, specifically the Large-tailed Nightjar (Caprimulgus macrurus) by inadvertently disturbing its roost. Henceforth, the afternoons were occupied.

It soon became clear that the nightjar preferred regular roosts. Also, if disturbed, it flew in pre-set hops to other roosts. So, actually, it had a few favorite roosting spots. Every afternoon I would know I could look for it at any of the four locations and if I was careful enough, it allowed a close enough approach for naked eye observation. There was something mesmerizing about the way it sat crouched amidst the litter. Never did it ever betray a slightest hint of movement, not even a blink of its eye. Neither did it take undue alarm at my approach (except when I got too close it flew to another of its roosts). The camouflage was perfect – if I did not know it was there, I could never have located it except when it flew. Quite often I would scan a roost knowing it is around and miss it completely. The silence it wrapped itself in made the camouflage perfect.

The first thing that struck me was its flight. Except for the sharp rustle of the dry leaf litter at takeoff the flight was absolutely silent. It was not slow, it was quick enough for a getaway but as the feathers cut the air there was no audible sound – no swoosh, rustle or whisper. The flight itself was a bit awkward – like a drone dipping sideways, alternating on each side, revealing prominent white wingbars -- which really are the buff tips of the coverts. The noontime flights were always short – they were more like quick darts to another roost. 

Usually, as soon as the bird took off, it quickly gained height and descended to another roost barely 50-70 m away, most often on the other side of a wall or barrier, but sometimes below another bush and occasionally in the open but always in abundant leaf litter. Sometimes, it perched briefly on a branch, always along its length (never crosswise) and then quickly descended to roost. So eager was it to get to a roost that, occasionally, it descended too soon, discovered a barrier and had to turn sharply to evade it.

The beautiful liquid eye, the thin broad bill and the whiskers

Other times the bird remained quiet, well concealed and well camouflaged, but looking out with large, oval liquid eyes, which certainly gave it excellent peripheral vision and remained ever open. The wide gape of the bill reminded me of the Frogmouth, as also the small whiskers near the beak -- which was wafer-thin and enormously broad at the base, resembling an equilateral triangle.

The breast has a neat parting and a mottled appearance. The buff edges of the scapulars create the side wing-bars.

The tail was thick and square; the primaries crossed over the back had thick rounded ends. A very prominent white stripe ran from the base of the beak across the face and below the eye. The feathers of the chest were neatly cloven and gave off a very mottled appearance (the general pattern being close to that of Mottled Wood Owls). The colors were shades of grays, buff and browns, with some black on the scapulars prominently edged with buff. There was a very prominent horizontal frill or “white beard” just above the parting of chest feathers. This is also described as a prominent white throat patch in some accounts but it appeared more as a frilly bib to me.

The roosts were all in well-sheltered places -- the sort of nooks where one might walk past without peering in.

This roost is against a masonry wall and below a thick bush. There is no approach from three sides.

A neat nook amid reeds - thick vegetation covers it almost entirely. The Nightjar was in the small cave-like opening in the middle.

Against an overgrown bank -- this was my best view. The first and the third picture from the top are from this roost.

This may be a nigh jar feather -- can't be certain, though. Any guesses?

Towards the end of the week I saw the Large-tailed Nightjar much better, especially if it was present in one of the roosts. I tried to locate more individuals in the garden but had no luck before alarming the birds into flight. Also, I never spotted it at night. Some nightjars are known to sit on roads at night but I never encountered the Large-tailed Nightjar along the roads near the garden, or any path in the garden itself. It's quite possible that this species does not take to the roads -- though I will have to continue to look.

Text and photographs by Sahastrarashmi
Read all Encounter posts on The Green Ogre

Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher: An Afternoon Haiku

What could be common to a tiny forest bird and a temple statuette that embodies grace, beauty and wild power? 

Having looked at a small group of 4-5 highly energetic and extremely acrobatic birds with small grey heads, small straight sharp beaks, large black eyes and yellow bodies, I looked expectantly at Sunita. Beguiled by the beauty and thrilled at finding a new bird, I wanted a name – to end the delightful morning walk on a satiated note.

“OK, so this bird that you see is ... take a good look. Notice the greenish-yellow upper body, the whitish-grey throat. The yellow on the belly all the way to the vent – it glows in the light.”

A shaft of white light penetrated the top-canopy and lit up a space surrounded by a cluster of branches in the mid-canopy of a copse of tropical deciduous trees. Drawn to the light a buzz of winged insects circled in random flight paths and were being hawked by the birds in our viewfinder.

All of this was fine but I wanted a name.

I looked again. The birds seemed to set their sights on a winged insect and with remarkable dexterity follow its flight path, and change direction quickly to snap up the prey. Flying trapeze artists on steroids. The change of direction was random; the birds picked up their targets in mid-air and within the blink of an eye perches were exchanged. 

“Notice the typical flycatcher behavior – exposed mid-canopy perch, the swift and short targeted sortie. And the large eyes.”

Still no name.

It was a satisfying end to a nice morning walk that had yielded Chestnut-bellied Nuthatches, Black-hooded Orioles, Hoopoes of the European race, Asian Barred Owlets, Black Redstarts, Grey Hornbills, and White-bellied Drongos among others. The small grey-yellow birds were right in the garden attached to our home and, like a true landowner, I felt a flush of pride at this newly discovered treasure. But for it to be truly mine, in my village, my garden and my backyard, I needed to know what it was called.

“OK... so this is a -- Sahastra, have you had a good look?”

Absolutely. I had, down to the soft tit-tit that emerged from the trees in a low-frequency murmur of avian satisfaction. My neck hurt, my eyes were blinded and the suspense was unbearable. All of this had just one cure – a name.

“The grey-headed Canary flycatcher. I did not know it was found here."

I didn’t care. The bird was mine for all time to come.

November noon

                             ticks vanish

                                                           canary flycatchers

In subsequent Novembers investigations established that the Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher (Culicicapa ceylonensis) had made the small patch adjacent to my home a regular haunt.

The next meeting with the bird was in the Himalayas, in May, as we descended the Loharjung-Wan road towards Didana. We heard the chee-weeeee-wee call with a soft whistle before the long weeeee and they were almost always in mixed hunting flocks. Jennifer informed us that they often make up the extremities of these flocks, a bit like the advance guard.

My first encounter with the birds in southern India was at Muthodi and again they were quite vocal. The habitat was different here -- not the montane oak forests of the Himalaya, or the dry-deciduous groves of Rae Bareli in the Gangetic flood-plains -- but the birds behaved just the same. The call, the perch, dexterity and the delight.

The next day while driving back to Bangalore, we stopped at the Belur temple. Its scale is not what one expects – small and star-shaped as opposed to the huge imposing masses that a lot of temples are. In his book “Diving the Deccan”, Bill Aitken found it an uninspiring anti-climax. On our way back, birding talk was interspersed with notes of the archaeological, and I managed a summary: 

“The Belur Temple is like a (canary) flycatcher, small but exquisitely crafted.”

Beej remarked, “You must be the only birder ever to imagine such an example. Or for that matter, any archaeologist.”

The Huntress at Belur, lit by a shaft of evening light

Bill Aitken can try some birding, I guess, and start with the flycatchers. It will ensure that he is better appointed when he is in the presence of the Belur Huntress the next time round.

Text and photo of the Belur Huntress by Sahastrarashmi

Photographs by Sandeep Somasekharan

Le Question: What colour is the eye of the Sarus?

Seeing eye to eye with the Sarus Crane evokes a host of questions and the answers aren't exactly simple

Shashwat and I were driving along a small arterial road in Rae Bareli, checking out the pairs of Sarus Crane (Grus antigone) among the paddy fields on either side. It was the end of a relatively warm November day, and dusk was imminent. We came across a beautiful female near a clump of reeds by the roadside -- though sexes are almost alike, I could tell since it was smaller than the male, which was foraging a few metres away.

Me: What colour is the Sarus?

Shashwat: Grey, White.

Me: What is the colour of its face?

Shashwat: Red

Me: And the color of its beak?

Shashwat: White, Grey

Me: And the eye?

Shashwat: The Sarus has no eye!

The Sarus hadn’t lost an eye but we were looking into the setting sun with the clump of reeds and the bird in the foreground. Its bright red eye was hidden in the glowing red skin of its head -- you actually could not see it. I knew the eye existed and that he was only telling me what he saw. We were both right, as a Zen master might say, but he was in the "moment"; the unconditioned observer.

On the Wing: Black-shouldered Kite

An attractive raptor even while perched, the Black-shouldered Kite is hard to forget once spotted hovering

For a long time after I learned to identify this bird, also called the Black-winged Kite to differentiate it from the Australian  Black-shouldered Kite (Elanus axillaris), I did not witness its flight. During the winter dusk near my village in Rae Bareli, I always saw it hover over potential prey that it had spotted on the ground. All you needed was to scan the horizon and, eight times out of 10, you could spot this bird hovering. The kite hovers over open scrub or grassland patches with its wings held high up and with slow wingbeats, beginning quite high up and gently gliding lower before it starts hovering again. This, presumably, is a tactic to get closer to its prey and fix its location on the ground. Sometimes the bird shifts sideways while still hovering. The action is repeated 2-5 times after which the raptor either swoops down or flies off to locate another quarry - usually lizards and rodents.

Its flight is similar to its hover -- gentle wing-beats punctuated by long glides. On this occasion, I first saw it perch on a tree stump as the wind gently caressed its soft white down feathers. It fixed me with its sparkling red eyes and after a beat took off gently, skimmed the tops of the thorny acacias and flapped out of view.

This elegant raptor, with its diagnostic grayish-black shoulder patch and red, owl-like iris, is found throughout India except for the country's extremities.

Text and photos by Sahastrarashmi
Read all posts in our On the Wing series 

Le Question: Did Indians do nothing but celebrate festivals?

A tree may be our  primary connection with the universe -- but it will take us all our lives to acknowledge it

The Ficus virens that outgrew the shrine

Shashwat: Haven’t the Americans built big cities, warships, fighter jets and so on? 

Me:  I guess so.

Shashwat And the Germans have made very fine automobiles and autobahns?

Me: Yes, they have.

Shashwat: The French have the TGV!

Me: Yes, so?

Shashwat: So, in India, did we spend all our time celebrating festivals and meditating?

Me: Silence

The canopy, loved by both peacocks and Hanuman langurs

Five minutes later the hush still rules as fervent devotees accompany the lord through the city, drumbeats announcing the procession a kilometre away from where a Sunday morning chat is languishing for lack of words. Blame it on Discovery Channel.

The best I could do was distract him with a tale.

Once I saw a cobra make its way through the network of aerial roots

Back in my great-great-grandmother’s time, a young boy had the duty of striking the hour. One fateful day he may have dawdled after his morning smoke or perhaps gazed at a damsel too long - and missed striking an hour. This is where things get curious, for while he missed it, the hour was still struck. His inquiries failed to find the person who had struck the hour in his absence. The lad, true to instinct, concluded that it was none other than Lord Hanuman, whom he worshipped, who had done it on his behalf. Grateful to the Lord but mindful of the fact that he had inconvenienced Him, he gave up the job. He built a shrine, planted a Ficus sapling (Ficus virens) in front of it, and announced to all and sundry that from that day on, he will perform only the Lord’s duty. He had enough of l’affaires du monde.

Almost 150 years on my father has inherited the piece of land on which the tree stands. I discovered its charms early in life and, when I learned that my favorite pickle was made from its spring leaf-buds, our bond deepened considerably. Summer yielded an enchanting and often forbidden lesson of natural history. Lifting up the platform bricks revealed small snakes curled up below, making me wonder if they had grew up in that position. Young Hanuman langurs (Semnopithecus entellus) socialized under the watchful eyes of the matriarch. The monsoon invigorated grass, which on closer inspection revealed clutches of peacock eggs which I dutifully counted. I apprehensively spied a cobra make its way along the sinewy branches possibly preying on treepie nests. I watched squirrels chase each other in hormone-fuelled sprints, while my dog could only gaze longingly and salivate. Inconvenienced by the water I poured, mad-with-rage scorpions emerged from their narrow slit burrows straight to my waiting collection jar. Their rage, I imagined briefly, turned into puzzlement and then helplessness. The scorpions I was forced to part with -- my grandma would have none of my entreaties to their being a part of my collection for the purpose of scientific research into scorpion sting antidote. I am sure her hand in their release was not due to any sympathy she may have felt at their cruel confinement.

Peacocks lay their eggs in the wild growth beneath the tree after the first monsoon showers

The platform around the tree cracked and fissured with every monsoon and life permeated through it till it became a semi-organic being, one with the tree itself, its living extension.

The tree's local name is Pakadiya or Pakad. It is also known as Pilkhan in the north

The monitor lizards (Varanus bengalensis) were the ones that really troubled me. One year, while I was away at school between vacations, a couple of monitor lizards supposedly set up residence on the tree. This was fine, I had no issues sharing the tree. But a local friend who informed me about this latest addition to the tree’s denizens slipped in a cautionary note on their natural history. If I ever got bitten by one, my survival depended on peeing immediately and drinking it up before the lizard did it. Too terrified to even think of why the creature would indulge in such a horrifying practice, I spent many a sleepless summer night replaying the scenarios with only a mocking Great Bear for company. Even if I did manage a pee on demand, and that too after sustaining an excruciating bite from the reptile, I wasn’t exactly sure if I'd be able to slurp it up before the lizard did so. I made grudging peace with my unseen tormentor: I gave up climbing the tree. My world was diminished. It remains that way. Now, as I confess this, I have this nagging doubt that I was perhaps set up. 

Grandmothers are deceptively clever.

The tormentor I never saw -- this one was photographed at Parambikulam

A feather, a question

As my patchwork memory metamorphoses into nostalgia, the next generation has befriended the tree. Shashwat and I visit it every day during our vacations and there is always something -  a feather, a scorpion scurrying for cover, a bird-call hitherto unheard.

The "wooden monkey" is a gift from two years ago and the Kukri snake (Oligodon arnensis), having been mistaken for a juvenile Russell’s Viper, was killed last year - I was too late to save it.

A dying Kukri snake, a victim of mistaken identity

The best lessons will be the ones he will learn on his own. I suspect he is already on the job. As for the question regarding the object of Indians’ passion for festivals through history, he will answer it for himself. Like every other race, we have a view regarding what drives the universe, but we have survived and that proves a lot.

The "Wooden Monkey"

Weaver ants have established a huge colony on the tree

The tree is nearly 150 years old and for me it's been there for ever

By the way, Lord Hanuman, who never had the benefit of a proper prana-pratishtha, remains un-worshipped. He has managed keep the attention off Himself. I admire Him for that.

Text and photographs by Sahastrarashmi
Read more posts in our Le Question series

Encounter: Rufous Tailed Shrike

Often, the stupidest questions elicit the most enlightening answers. Such was my initiation to the little featherball known as the Rufous-tailed Shrike. I'm glad I asked, though...

I am responsible for one of the dumbest questions in Birdingdom. This is a belated confession.

One fine February evening we were happily maneuvering a pot-holed road in Rae Bareli as GS scanned the acacia bushes beside the road for birds. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Rufous-tailed Shrike!" (Beams with excitement, asks driver to stop.)

I saw the bird and inquired, “Why is this Rufous-tailed Shrike?” It was actually three questions:

Why is this bird a shrike?

Why is it a Rufous-tailed Shrike?

What are you so excited about?

You must have realized that I had figured it was a bird. I also had a passing familiarity with the color rufous.

Prickled by the question but managing to keep his composure (the sighting helped), GS snapped, “Observe.”

This I did.

Lanius isabellinus is a small shrike with a hooked bill adapted for tearing flesh. It has a grey or sandy-brown mantle, a prominent rufous tail and grey-brown ear coverts. The male has a white patch at the base of the primaries (this is absent in the female) and the female has faint dark scaling on the breast and flanks. The bird in the last picture seems to be a first winter specimen since it has the overall coloration of the female (including the faint dark scaling on the breast), lacks the white patch at the primaries, but has the dark black lore of the male. The bird in Sandeep's photo (the lead pic) is an adult female (lacks the white patch on the primaries).

In winters the bird frequents wooded country along canals, riparian tracts and acacia vegetation along small roads. It breeds in the highlands of Baluchistan, southern Siberia and the Daurian steppes of central Asia.

The Rufous-tailed Shrike eats smaller birds, lizards and rodents and has the gruesome habit of impaling its prey on thorns and barbed wires. It is usually found atop bushes and small trees – a prominent perch for hunting. The bird we saw flew down and picked up a large ant (see pic below).

Going by the field guide that we were using, the shrike had no business to be there. However, one cannot really fault the birding guides for this as the basic information regarding winter and summer ranges of migrants is quite archaic – some of it survives from the days of Salim Ali and the British ornithologists. Bird checklists for some districts in UP are last updated by the district collectors and amateur British naturalists (A O Hume was the Collector of Etawah and the district is an exception, thanks to Gopi’s fieldwork. The checklist is quite current with 400+ birds). Most siting data continues to be reported from IBAs and established sanctuaries but very few birders visit the offbeat places, which are not well-known or are simply off-track. This leads to over-reporting from certain parts while creating birding blind-spots at the same time.

The grand old man of Indian ornithology was wise enough to avoid bias and made sure that he birded in places like Bastar, Bahawalpur, Districts of United Provinces, Afghanistan, etc. where few people venture today. He had birded in Rae Bareli and has reported the Siberian Crane from there. In my multiple visits to Samaspur, a bird sanctuary in the district, I have never encountered birders. The sanctuary staff tells me that such visits are fewer than a dozen in a year.

Moreover, the migrants can shift the wintering range based on factors like temperature, cropping pattern and rainfall. This is both seasonal as well as gradual shifts over time. This makes it all the more necessary for the data gathering to be extensive and well-planned.

The shrike sighting turned out to be good birding education. The presence of this elegant little predator indicated that the migratory season was well underway. Moreover, migrants can often be found in areas in which they have not been recorded earlier either due to a shift in range or gaps in information. So it's good birding practice to keep looking for them. This is where initiatives like MigrantWatch are both welcome and necessary since they enrich our knowledge about these lovely avian tourists as well as track shifts in arrival times and geographical spread.

Incidentally (now that I am on serial confession mode), I am also responsible for one of the most stupid answers in all Birdingdom. More on that later. Patience, dear reader. Or patientez s’il vous plait, in case you are Francophone.

Text and photographs by Sahastrarashmi (taken in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh)

Lead photo by Sandeep Somasekharan (taken in Kutch)

Wordless Wednesday: Sarus Crane gestures hypnotically

Caption this!

Photograph: Sahastrarashmi

Kiln Fields - How brick kilns hurt the environment

The brickmaking industry gradually converts fertile fields into sterile lands. Here's how it's done...

Sarus Cranes take flight outside a brick kiln in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli district

As a kid when I used to take a bus to go outside the village, usually to Kanpur, the brick chimneys were on my list of wayside wonders. The sites were marked by huge twin maroon chimneys and they dominated the surrounding countryside. I never managed a visit any of them, but I knew they were brick kilns (or ita bhatta in the local language). I could only imagine what went on inside their huge ovens, which churned out hundreds of thousands of deep-red bricks that were used to build our houses. 


My grandfather once showed me the marking on the bricks excavated from our home – BSB. It stood for Bishwambar Nath Bhat, the owner of the brick kiln that supplied quality bricks for our home more than 100 years ago. It was the only one in the district. 


So fascinated was I by the markings on the brick that while hunting for bugs and scorpions underneath old bricks, I would observe the markings first. From just one in the district at the beginning of the twentieth century, brick kilns have now multiplied. So have their tell-tale signs – dug-out orchards, scarred fields, huge red chimneys belching smoke, chimneys under construction, fields full of clay bricks ready to be being carted to the ovens... 


Fuelled by the recent shift in economy, construction activity has boomed. New houses, shops, godowns, roads, panchayat houses, schools, hospitals and more brick kilns – everything requires them. It has become a lucrative industry. 


This is a photo-feature on the brick kilns and their impact on the surrounding environment. 


The Dug Out Orchards

Fresh land is acquired for brick kilns. Often, these are orchards with standing trees

Land is cut away around the roots of trees

This is a very common practice and a slow killer. The land surrounding the trees is cut away. The idea being that mature trees can keep producing the fruits anyway, at least for a few years after which they will collapse due to root injuries or erosion of the remaining soil. Then the orchard will be used as a regular field.

Over time, the trees die from root damage

The Scarred Fields

After the trees are gone the fields, divested of topsoil, turn fallow

Steep banks are formed by continuous water erosion

These are either the unproductive “usar” or fallow lands, usually in the village commons or bought off from farmers in need of money. The contract is for 3-5 years post which the hollowed out fields are returned to the farmers to eke out the meager and largely diminished harvests. Sometimes the soil removal is opportunistic and helps carve out fields from uneven ground. This results in steep banks where the field rat holes become nesting holes. A bank near my home is now used by swallows.

Holes in the banks can sometimes support animal life, like rats and hole-nesting birds such as swallows, hoopoes, bee-eaters and rollers

Breaking New Ground 


To keep the kilns running, new fields are obtained every few years. They are then dug upto 6 feet deep – a process that can take 3 years.

New fields are acquired to keep the kilns running

The Kiln

Enormous chimneys crown the furnaces in which the bricks are baked

The chimney is a part of the huge central semi-circular furnace surrounded by a U-shaped moat-like space, which is stacked with bricks. One batch can run for almost 6 months. The kilns are fired using local wood which, apart from topsoil consumption, constitutes the second huge impact on the local environment.

Fresh bricks are cut out from the kilns

Brick-making consumes a large quantity of firewood, taxing the local environment further

Text and Photographs by Sahastrarashmi