The Green Ogre Weekend Update July 31

Alaska, Gaia and birds whose presence is dwarfed by their voices -- that's what The Green Ogre was all about this week 

It's the last day of July with the monsoon still in full force over the subcontinent. In the rainforests of Agumbe, the frogs must still be calling, their trails of spawn must have hatched into little tailed tadpoles, and the snakes must be making merry at the abundance of chow. Over in Bangalore, pelicans have joined cormorants and herons in our lakes, feasting on the seasonal glut of fish. And here at The Green Ogre, we've been housebound, office-bound and our mindwalks have been extra vivid with the afterglow of unrealised dreams. The bright side: deprived of the outdoors, we sat down to write. 

Andy recalled his ramble through Alaska's Denali National Park and his encounters with moose, elk, caribou and grizzlies. In weather that was all but conducive to hiking, his friends and he flirted with the possibility of catching a glimpse of the mist-shrouded Mount Denali. Interestingly, they drove through the city of Wasilla on the same night that its former mayor and Alaska's then governor Sarah Palin was announced as John McCain's running mate in the 2008 US Presidential Election.

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On Tuesday the birds came back to The Green Ogre. Recollecting a drive through his native land of Rae Bareli before the birding bug had bitten him, Sahastra described in all self-deprecation his first encounter with the Rufous-tailed Shrike. Many passers-by must have walked past the bird that day without as much as glancing at it. However, to a birder, its presence there at that time of the year was an epiphany: it was way out of its known range. Such are the serendipitous joys that await the birdwatcher, even in his or her backyard.

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July 26 was the 92nd birthday of James Lovelock, who proposed the enchantingly controversial Gaia hypothesis. Offering an appreciation of the man and his work, Sahastra wrote: "Gaia as an idea has both scientific and spiritual sides. This is welcome since it helps us connect science to worldliness and makes us feel complete again. Many paint James Lovelock as a hermit scientist who never followed institutional science, has no specialization and worked in a remote corner of the British countryside rather than in a state-of-the-art lab. Lovelock said that it is precisely due to these attributes that he could think large, be moved by his own curiosity and inspiration and break the boundaries between disciplines. Eventually, inspired by the first space images of the beautiful blue planet with swirling clouds, he was able to theorize the self-regulation of Earth – true to his instinct, he called it a living earth."

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Among the most commonly heard but ignored birds of our urban landscape is the Coppersmith Barbet. Its penetrating took-took call is an indelible constituent of park birdsong. Indeed, the Coppersmith's penchant for monotony makes it the heavy metal percussionist of bird songsters. How much have you seen of the little bird, though? Take a good look, for Sandy has an excellent photographic profile of this little whiskered noisemaker.

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Look out for more good stuff next week. Enjoy your weekend!

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)