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.

Wordless Wednesday : The Bird Trappers

A Spotbill Duck trapped for the pot in western Uttar Pradesh

Amid caged quails trapped for the pot, a girl holds a Yellow-fronted Green Pigeon

Text and photographs by Sahastrarashmi

Echoing the darkness - Water wells after the borewell revolution

As a child, they could not keep me from wells 
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. 
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells 
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss. 


~ Seamus Heaney

I vividly remember the first time a bore well was dug on our fields. It involved a manual dig to locate water and then began the long and back-breaking effort to create the deep shaft, all the time praying that the initial promise of water at the site held.

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

Agriculture and bird diversity - some findings

The winter of 08-09 has now packed away its woollies and headed off into the southern hemisphere to cool things off. But while we argued about the patterns of bird migration, the late arrival of migrants (some entirely absent) and blamed global warming for our frustrations, a biologist I know has braved the odds and conducted one of the most comprehensive bird surveys conducted in Uttar Pradesh in recent times. Streams in the agricultural landscape make excellent foraging grounds for a variety of waterbirds. The man (not in picture) is Gopi Sundar, whom readers of this blog have met virtually many times over. Gopi, as the International Crane Foundation's research associate and principal coordinator of the Indian Cranes and Wetlands Working Group, is well known for his study of Sarus cranes and their habitat in the rice-dominated agricultural landscape of Uttar Pradesh. Gopi spent the winter braving dense fog and the political mafia to execute a painstaking survey of the bird diversity in this ecosystem. He used a grid-based sampling design with space-for-time replication to test for variations in "observed patterns of bird species richness and abundance due to four different intensities of rice cultivation". His study documented 198 bird species in 160 transects. Yellow Wagtails are a relatively common species in Uttar Pradesh's cultivated areas. They are one of the last migrants to leave and can be seen feeding on insects in ripening wheat fields in early summer. Gopi's report begins with this arresting declaration: "Agriculture is the biggest threat to bird diversity worldwide." The Hindu published a report based on his work in its national edition. It opens with the very same statement. Gopi's findings suggests that agriculturists hark back to traditional land-use methods, which preserved natural habitats and enabled bird diversity. Preserving islands of natural habitat and avoiding mono-cropping or monocultures can be important steps in this direction. The Hindu report can be read here. PHOTOGRAPHS: © K. S. GOPI SUNDAR/ ICF. USED WITH PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

In Sarus Crane country, a bushel full of lifers

Between November 21 and 25, I was in Rae Bareli, a place whose name most of us remember only during the elections (it happens to be the constituency of the Gandhi family). Rae Bareli and Unnao districts are in the heart of the Gangetic plain. The countryside is characterised by flat, dusty terrain: thickets of thorn scrub and acacia, marshes and reed beds, saline mudflats, occasional orchards and a great abundance of wetlands and foodgrain cultivation - wheat, bajra, lentils, paddy, sugarcane and water chestnuts among others. The soil is a fine, powdery yellowish dust, which motor vehicles whip up into enormous clouds. Trapped in the mist, it lingers, hindering both visibility and breathing. But there is no doubt that it is fertile soil, being rich in silt washed down by the rivers. We birded every day, sometimes rising as early as 4:30 AM to be earlier than the earliest bird. Winter has set in nice and firm over northern India, and the mercury hovered around 10 degrees C on some days. We covered many of the wetlands of the districts as well as a sampling of orchards. In the reed beds and alkaline scrublands of Samaspur Bird Sanctuary, we went looking for winter arrivals. Since my trek to the Garhwal Himalayas, I have not added so many lifers on a single birding trip. Of these, our standout sightings are the Red-necked Grebe at Samaspur, the Richard's Pipit at a very disturbed wetland near Khiron and the Steppe, Imperial and Bonelli's Eagles. We got a very good look at a Red-necked Falcon, and an obliging Wryneck posed for my video camera. Among the grass stalks and reed beds, Bluethroats displayed their painted chests with aplomb. Prinias - Jungle, Plain and Graceful - joined Zitting Cisticolas and Common Stonechats in creating that ever-mellifluous marsh chorus. At Samaspur, the Striated Grassbird announced his territorial claim with a pretty little song, and much fluttering and displaying. Warblers were alive in every bush. We had a couple of excellent views of the Greater Whitethroat. Wagtails - Grey, Yellow, White and Citrine - were everywhere. And our resident White-Browed felt a little edged out, methinks. The migrant waders fed busily. There were Storks and Ibises, Little Ringed Plovers, Little and Temminck's Stints, Sandpipers (Common, Green, Marsh and Wood), flocks of Ruff, Redshanks and Greenshanks, as well as visiting White-tailed and Grey-headed Lapwings. We detoured to the banks of the Ganga at Dalmau to catch a glimpse of a handsome resident - the River Lapwing. The little guys were at their best. I had the best look I have ever had of the Red Avadavat, picking seeds off the ground only feet away from my feet. But most of all, I acquainted myself with the reigning monarch of these wetlands - the enchanting Sarus Crane. We counted (as part of a census) over a hundred Sarus cranes. This is a sentient creature - let me tell you that. No bird can inspire so much respect. Several times, as I stood watching a pair of Sarus (often less than 50 feet away), I have been struck by the dignity with which this bird carries itself. There's a certain indulgence and aloofness about the Sarus that can only come with immense power and pedigree. Mostly, they mate for life and bring up one or two chicks every year. I was lucky to see plenty of chicks - from downy, tottering ones a few days old to some that were as tall as their parents. More on that later in a separate post. Enough said. Here's the species list:

1. Ashy Drongo
2. Ashy Prinia
3. Ashy-crowned Sparrow Lark
4. Asian Barred Owlet
5. Asian Koel
6. Asian Openbill
7. Bank Myna
8. Barn Swallow
9. Black Drongo
10. Black Ibis
11. Black Kite
12. Black Redstart
13. Black-headed Ibis
14. Black-headed Munia
15. Black-headed Oriole
16. Black-shouldered Kite
17. Black-winged Cuckooshrike
18. Black-winged Stilt
19. Blue Rock Pigeon
20. Bluethroat
21. Blue-winged Leafbird
22. Bonelli's Eagle
23. Booted Warbler
24. Brahminy Starling
25. Bronze-winged Jacana
26. Brown Hawk Owl
27. Brown Rock-Chat
28. Brown-headed Barbet
29. Cattle Egret
30. Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch
31. Chestnut-shouldered Petronia
32. Chiffchaff
33. Citrine Wagtail
34. Common Coot
35. Common Flameback
36. Common Iora
37. Common Kestrel
38. Common Kingfisher
39. Common Moorhen
40. Common Myna
41. Common Peafowl
42. Common Pochard
43. Common Redshank
44. Common Sandpiper
45. Common Stone Chat
46. Common Tailorbird
47. Common Teal
48. Coppersmith Barbet
49. Cotton Pygmy Goose
50. Coucal
51. Crested Lark
52. Crested Pochard
53. Darter
54. Egyptian Vulture
55. Eurasian Collared Dove
56. Eurasian Spoonbill
57. Gadwall
58. Graceful Prinia
59. Great Egret
60. Greater Whitethroat
61. Green Bee Eater
62. Green Sandpiper
63. Greenish warbler
64. Greenshank
65. Grey Francolin
66. Grey Heron
67. Grey Hornbill
68. Grey Wagtail
69. Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker
70. Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher
71. Grey-headed Lapwing
72. Hoopoe (Eurasian and Indian subspecies)
73. House Crow
74. House Sparrow
75. House Swift
76. Hume's warbler
77. Imperial Eagle
78. Indian cormorant
79. Indian Robin
80. Indian Roller
81. Indian Silverbill
82. Intermediate Egret
83. Jungle Babbler
84. Jungle Prinia
85. Large Grey Babbler
86. Large-billed Crow
87. Large-billed Pipit
88. Laughing Dove
89. Lesser Whistling Duck
90. Lesser Whitethroat
91. Little Egret
92. Little Grebe
93. Little Ringed Plover
94. Little Stint
95. Long-tailed Minivet
96. Long-tailed Shrike
97. Marsh Harrier
98. Marsh Sandpiper
99. Northern Shoveller
100. Oriental Honey Buzzard
101. Oriental Magpie-Robin
102. Oriental Skylark
103. Oriental White-eye
104. Paddyfield Pipit
105. Paddyfield Warbler
106. Painted Stork
107. Peregrine Falcon
108. Pheasant-tailed Jacana
109. Pied Bushchat
110. Pied Kingfisher
111. Pied Starling
112. Plain Prinia
113. Plum-headed Parakeet
114. Pond Heron
115. Purple Heron
116. Purple Sunbird
117. Purple Swamphen
118. Red Avadavat
119. Red-necked Falcon
120. Red-necked Grebe
121. Red-throated Flycatcher
122. Red-vented Bulbul
123. Red-wattled Lapwing
124. Red-whiskered Bulbul
125. Richard's Pipit
126. River Lapwing
127. Rose-ringed Parakeet
128. Ruff
129. Rufous Treepie
130. Rufous-tailed Shrike
131. Sand Lark
132. Sarus Crane
133. Scaly-breasted Munia
134. Sind Sparrow
135. Small cormorant
136. Spotbill Duck
137. Spotted Dove
138. Spotted Owlet
139. Steppe Eagle
140. Streak-throated Weaver
141. Striated Grassbird
142. Tawny Pipit
143. Temminck's Stint
144. Verditer Flycatcher
145. White-breasted Waterhen
146. White-browed Wagtail
147. White-tailed Lapwing
148. White-throated Kingfisher
149. Wire-tailed Swallow
150. Wood Sandpiper
151. Woolly-necked Stork
152. Wryneck
153. Yellow-crowned Woodpecker
154. Zitting Cisticola

Videos and photos coming soon.