Encounter: The Coppersmith Barbet

More often heard than seen, the diminutive Coppersmith is a thousand times smaller than its enormous voice

Once a while we may be treated to the sight of a coppersmith perched this low

I was on my first ever trip to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary near Mysore, when I had a flat tire halfway through. As I pushed my two-wheeler along with my friend for kilometers looking for a pile of tires or a board screaming "puncher" (or variants of it) advertising a puncture mechanic in these parts of the world, I saw a strikingly colorful bird on an electric line. It was predominantly dark green, with striking red tufts above the beak and under the chin. It sat there, tilting its head left and right, and then took off. And I came home, thumbed through my Salim Ali (this was before I graduated to Grimmett and Inskipp) and found the name -- Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala).
 

A not-so-ripe fig makes a Coppersmith look elsewhere...

I had to wait a while before I came to realize the philosophy behind the intriguing name. I came to hear (and see) it calling high up from a treetop with its neck craned -- whatever little it could manage with that short neck - and letting out a full-throated but short ringing tuk... tuk.... Apparently, this call earned the bird its name as it sounded, to the imaginative listener, like a coppersmith flattening out a sheet of his metal with a mallet.

Once his mind is set on it, no fig is too large!

Sexes are alike and juveniles are cute variants of the adults sans the red above the beak and below the eyes.

A juvenile, lacking the red crest and throat patch

The coppersmith is mostly a frugivore and a voracious fig eater -- if you see a fig tree with a large number of ripe fruits, take a closer look: the coppersmith barbet is invariably in there.

Who said three's too many?

The Coppersmith Barbet has survived in semi-urban areas and cities that offer fruiting trees for food, and cavities on tree trunks for nesting. If you still find the bird uninteresting you also might change your opinion when I tell you that it is the official bird of the city of Mumbai. That is a fitting honor for a resilient bird that is clinging on despite rampant urbanization.

Text and photographs by Sandeep Somasekharan

On World Environment Day, out with Eucalyptus

A new directive of the Karnataka forest department boosts our hopes to end the scourge of eucalyptus monoculture. Will it also address our water crisis?

An informative signpost in Dandeli speaks fondly of the virtues of the aggressively introduced eucalyptus

As with Indian cities coping with the many-tentacled monster of unplanned urbanisation, Bangalore faces a humongous water crisis. While that is no closely guarded state secret, it is a dismaying paradox for a city that was once abundant with standing freshwater reserves despite not being close to a river. With myopic and foolhardy urbanisation, we have squandered our gifts. 

In 1960, Bangalore had 280 lakes; today there are 17. Of these, most are contaminated by untreated sewage and are unfit for use as sources of potable water. Over time, Bangaloreans have encroached upon the city's lakes to reclaim land for construction. Some of the city's major residential areas, stadia and transport terminuses stand on reclaimed wetlands. During a malarial outbreak a few decades ago, authorities blamed these marshy tracts for supporting breeding grounds of mosquitoes. Soaking up the stagnant water, the authorities decreed, would address the problem. 

In came Eucalyptus, a tree native to Australia that has been traditionally used to drain swamps, most notably by Jewish settlers in Israel in the previous century. First introduced in India in the 1790s by Tipu Sultan in Nandi Hills near Bangalore, Eucalyptus globulus was subsequently planted on a vast commercial scale in the Nilgiris in 1843 to meet demand for firewood and pulpwood. In fact, eucalyptus has been in the Nilgiris for so long that some people argue that the hills are so named for the bluish hue imparted to them by stands of Blue Gum viewed through the mist. In truth, the hills take their name from the indigenous Kurinji, which carpets the meadows of the sholas when it blooms every twelve years.

Hybrid varieties of exotic eucalyptus have been reared in nurseries and planted across the country, where these fast-growing trees have gradually replacing native mixed indigenous forest. The drive gathered steam in the early 1980s with administrations advocating “social forestry” to generate a replenishable supply of fuel and timber for rural communities. 

Eucalyptus has a lot going for it as a commercial plantation tree. It grows quickly, producing more wood every year than many native species for a comparable volume of water intake. Eucalyptus cultivation offers livelihood opportunities for planters, who sell the wood harvested to brick-making kilns, where it is used as firewood. Eucalyptus oil is also used in aromatherapy and medicine. 

Though studies attempting to prove the role of eucalyptus in lowering the water table have yielded mixed and often conflicting results, opinions stand enthusiastically divided on the role that the tree plays in depleting the table as test results show wide local variation. In April, however, Karnataka's water minister blamed eucalyptus plantations for depleting groundwater levels in the basins of the Arkavathi and Kumudvathi rivers, which originate in Nandi Hills. That was sort of like pointing the finger at Tipu Sultan, while it is the forest department's unmitigated enthusiasm for social forestry that really calls for containment. 

Under the aegis of social forestry, standing tracts of natural indigenous forest have often been replaced with commercial eucalyptus monocultures (as also varieties of introduced Australian acacia and casuarina). A paper authored by a conservator of forests in 1996 defending the forest department's stand on promoting eucalyptus extols the tree's many virtues including “drought resistance, fast growth and fire hardiness” among others. 

The chief bone of contention for environmentalists, apart from the tree's many debated negative properties, is its virulent exoticity. Over this issue, environmentalists and planters have clashed frequently. Apart from flower nectar, the tree offers nothing to animals or birds. However, planting has continued unmitigated. It is possible to observe, deep inside wildlife sanctuaries in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, luxurious stands of eucalyptus flourishing in the native forest. 

In March, C H Vijayashankar, Minister for Forests in the Karnataka cabinet, announced that eucalyptus monocultures on forest land would be stopped. The ministry, he said, recognized that eucalyptus has contributed to serious environmental degradation, especially of arable soil, and depletion of the water table. 

Only time will tell if the move will address, at least in part, some of Bangalore's water woes. Meanwhile, nature enthusiasts will unanimously give eucalyptus the finger.

A farewell salute?

Raptor Friday - The Shikra

I have a faint memory of my grandmother telling me about a small bird that swooped down from the trees and picked up the young chickens that she reared on her little farm. She called it "eramullan" in Malayalam. I had always wondered what it might have been but I never had a chance to see it considering that my visits were brief ten-day affairs. 

An adult, probably male (from the orange eyes), stretching on its perch on an early morning

An immature, with the underside plumage showing indications of transition 

 

My first brush with the Shikra (Accipiter badius) was at Mysore. I saw it perched on the branch of a small tree at Kukkarahalli Lake. The bird also goes by other names, such as Little Banded Goshawk, Little Banded Sparrowhawk, Indian Sparrowhawk, Northern Shikra, Shikra Goshawk, etc. Though I had seen the bird in photos my first sighting was so close that I got a very good look at its hooked beak and severe-looking talons.

An adult male, clearly an older one as indicated by the red eye

An adult, probably male, in flight

Ever since I have seen the Shikra everywhere -- atop the terrace of the building next door, on electric poles, coconut trees, circling above... The flight pattern is like that of other Accipiters -- a series of quick wing-flaps followed by a glide.   

The Shikra exhibits two plumages, primarily. The young ones have brown upperparts and are heavily barred with yellow eyes. As they mature, the upperparts turn uniform slate-gray and the underside becomes heavily barred with horizontal rufous stripes. The mesial stripe becomes less distinct as the bird ages. The male, as it becomes older, develops a red iris while the female, larger in size as with most raptors, have deep yellow or yellow-orange eyes.

A fully grown female

Shikras feed on a variety of prey. I have seen them pick up winged termites immediately after the rains, chase pigeons unsuccessfully, swoop down upon Calotes lizards and -- on one occasion -- I saw it attack a grey francolin (Francolinus pondicerianus). In the last case, the francolin made a desperate attempt to get away by taking to its wings, though I couldn't see what became of the chase that ensued.

An adult, older male perched on a gate in the outskirts of Mysore 

 

Shikras are hardy birds that have managed to survive the threats of urbanization. They are found all over the varied landscape of the Indian subcontinent, except on the upper reaches of the Himalayas. 

Trivia - the Indian Navy has named one of its helicopter carriers INS Shikra. The word is derived from the Hindi "Shikara", meaning "hunter".

Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan

Raptor Friday - Raiders of the honeycomb

Until five years ago, every bird that soared was an "eagle". I had just started birding and I don't know how many times until then I had let pass this intriguing bird as an eagle. And by "eagle" I would have meant the ubiquitous Black Kite or Pariah Kite (Milvus migrans).

The high flying male. Note the barred undersides of the wings and tail, and the small head and slender neck

I have spotted the Oriental Honey Buzzard (Pernis ptilorhynchus) in a variety of habitats -- flying high over scrublands, in eucalyptus plantations, over my office campus, and in dense forests. One of my friends was lucky to see one perched on his compound wall. 


Its name, of course, comes from its habit of pursuing its favourite diet, the larvae of honey bees and wasps, which it catches by attacking honeycombs. In my mother-tongue, Malayalam, the bird is known as thenkothichi -- literally, she who is greedy for honey. Evidently, those who named it mistook (and romanticised) the raids on the honeycombs as attempts to find honey.

Female perched. The yellow eye and the dark brown plumage are distinctive

The best way to identify the bird is by the shape of its head. Unlike the rounded and large head of a kite and the flat head of an eagle, the honey buzzard's head is slender -- more or less similar to a pigeon's -- with a thin neck. In flight, the honey buzzard's neck and head stick out at right angles to the outspread wings, and in most cases the six primaries (flight feathers at the edges of the wings) are fanned out like open fingers.

Male perched. Note the red eye, pigeon-like head and banded tail

The male has red eyes and a rather featureless blue-grey head, while the female has yellow eyes and brown plumage. Apart from feeding on the larvae of bees and wasps, the Oriental Honey Buzzard also preys on other insects and the commonly seen garden lizards (Calotes versicolor).

Ok, you have seen enough!

Honey buzzards need large trees both for nesting as well as to host honeycombs, their primary source of food. The rapid advent of urbanisation, which affects almost every species of bird, has also led to a marked decline in the habitat available to the honey buzzard. 

Encounter - the Short-toed Snake Eagle

Meet the Short-toed Snake Eagle (Circaetus gallicus) or plain "Short-toed Eagle". It is a raptor of open countries, grass/ scrub-lands and semi-deserts, which, as its name suggests, loves to devour snakes and reptiles and occasionally mammals as well. And yes, the toes (or talons) are shorter compared to other birds of prey. Among raptors, this one is quite easy to spot and differentiate. When flying, it showcases a wide wingspan, and pale, almost white underside. When perched, its yellow eyes and almost owl-like two-eyed stare bores right through you...