Wordless Wednesday: The hues of advancing autumn

Photo: Sahastrarashmi
Chopta, Garhwal Himalaya, Uttarakhand

Encounter: Brown Headed Gulls in the City of Light

One does not usually associate birding with Varanasi’s riverfront. This ancient and holy city, which is amongst the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, is crowded, filthy, crassly commercial, oozes religiosity, garishly dressed up, loud, endlessly fascinating, photogenic, friendly, unpretentious and very often sublimely beautiful -- even spiritual. Bird life is limited to the commoners – Bank Mynas, Rock Pigeons, Black Kites, Rose-ringed Parakeets (both free and caged), Common Crows, Sparrows, an occasional Pond Heron, White-thoated Kingfishers (and sometimes it’s Pied cousin), Wagtails (a few Grey Wagtails in the winters) and an occasional Magpie Robin. The river front is over built and the entire 6 km long curve of the Ganga is choked with ghats, steps, temples, teashops and people. Successive generations of preachers and princes have all strived to leave behind a legacy and ghats are the scene of round-the-clock outpouring of humanity and its rituals. The entire spectrum of life’s chores, from deep meditation to sewage disposal, are carried out with the same fervour.

However, in winter this city is host to a beautiful migrant – the Brown-headed Gull (Larus brunnicephalus). On chilly and calm mornings, as the fog reluctantly rises above the languid river and the boats disgorge the lighted diyas on the frigid waters, one can notice skeins of dim white birds doing low passes on the river’s surface. Soon enough, as the day warms and visibility improves the cries of “aaaao – aaaao” are heard from the ghat steps and the boats. The gulls recognize it, in fact are waiting for it. They mob the source of the sound - boats in midriver, bathers on the banks and regular bird feeders – all are distributing food and a feeding orgy ensues. Residents love the birds for they break the monotony of the riverscape which has few waterbirds if any at all. The tourists are pleasantly surprised at this unexpected bounty from nature in a city where their purpose is mostly religious. Those who feed birds regularly at dawn and dusk relish this novel punya and for once the pigeons, monkeys and the sparrows take a backseat. The food offered to the birds is mostly fried savouries (namkeen), which are by no means suitable but the gulls seem to relish and fall over each other to get to the salty morsels. They are fed all through the day, every boat with tourists wants to experience this thrill and the fish and the turtles (introduced to help clean this stretch of Ganga, which carries a more than normal share of bio-waste) are the lucky beneficiaries of this largesse. The demand for gull feed has led to a seasonal occupation – a few boats in the river are there for the sole purpose of selling “bird namkeen” to the boaters and the enterprising boatmen advertise their wares by calling out “aaaao – aaaao”, getting the birds to fly in but hold back the food. The Brown-headed Gull breeds in the marshes and bogs of the Central Asian plateau and high-altitude lakes of Ladakh in India (among them Pangong Tso). It nests on the ground (usually a mound of grass on marshy terrain) in large colonies and is a gregarious species. It is migratory, wintering on the coasts, tidal creeks and large inland lakes of tropical southern Asia. In India it is found along the coasts, large lakes and river systems of northern India. I have seen it on the Ganga-Yamuna river system at several locations including the confluence (Sangam) at Allahabad. While wintering they often flock with other gulls and terns and we have seen them in large flocks with Caspian (Hydroprogne caspia, formerly Sterna caspia) , Greater Crested (Sterna bergii) and Lesser Crested terns (Sterna bengalensis), on a coastal sand bar near Marakkanam in Tamil Nadu (November 2010). It is a bold and opportunistic feeder. It scavenges and also eats small invertebrates and winged quarry. The dark brown hood is seen only in breeding plumage. In winter plumage, the head is white with a prominent dark spot behind the eye. The bill is dark red with a black tip. The legs are red and the eyes are white. It has a grey upper wing and broad white primary base, creating white half-moon against black wing-tip with prominent white mirrors (a diagnostic help). The tail is white and quite prominent in flight.

The residents love the birds and it is with a sense of pride that they tell the Indian tourists about this “safed kaowa” from Siberia (literally white crows) which is a regular visitor to the holy city. Bizarre as it may seem, this appellation is not such a farfetched one – for the gulls are numerous, mob the feeders like crows do, and for once they outnumber the crows ten to one. This is the only urban landscape where there are fewer crows than gulls or for that matter any other species of birds (mynas included). Text and photographs by Sahastrarashmi

With warmer winters, migrants shift north

A study among North American birds shows that more and more species are moving their winter migration grounds further north as a possible outcome of global warming. The Audubon Society has published a report (download) that clearly shows that species such as the Purple Finch (top), Wild Turkey, Marbled Murrelet, Red-breasted Merganser (below) and Spruce Grouse have moved their winter migration grounds northward by hundreds of miles. The trend may be similar the world over. Winter bird records in India have indicated that some wintering species have arrived later than usual in some of their wintering grounds. Photographs: Purple Finch - © Ashok Khosla Red-breasted Merganser - © USFWS, Dave Menke Audubon Birds and Climate Change Press Room

When Bangalore winters were cold

A winters day In a deep and dark December - Simon & Garfunkel, I am a rock It's been a long, long time since my teeth have chattered in Bangalore. While the reason for that may be partly due to my accumulated reserves of adipose (I always tell anybody who asks that I'm fattening up for the winter), there's no denying the fact that Bangalore's winters are anything but cold anymore. As a child, I loved winter because it was the only time of the year when my breath floated out like fog. This time round, I waited and waited till winter showed itself, then took a break and reappeared looking washed out. Most days don't even pass my 'exhale test'. January was the month that school reopened after the Christmas holidays. I would walk 2 km from what was not yet known as BTM Layout to a bus stop in Jayanagar 9th Block every day at 6:45 AM to catch a bus that left at 7:20. I would chuckle at how the local people wrapped themselves silly in mufflers and monkey-caps instead of enjoying the cold, which was about 14 degrees at its coldest. The fog, in particular, was most enjoyable. I loved fumbling about in it, playing guessing games with the shapes of morning walkers, dogs, newspaperboys and flower-sellers. One day, when I was much older, I was cycling to the gym at 5:30 AM in dense fog. I hit something on the road and toppled over. As I gathered myself, I felt a hot blast of breath on my face and stared into the surprised eyes of a large but benign cow. There was one morning, in January 1993, when I was out birding near Maddur in southern Karnataka. Our group of 15 spent the night in a farmer's house. Next door, the farmer's oversexed ram brayed and bleated gruffly all night while his chickens kept up an insomniac clucking. And I kept thinking I could hear the silkworm caterpillars in their wicker baskets munching away at their mulberry leaves. Somewhere around 2 AM, I felt like a piddle. I remember climbing out of my sleeping bag and trudging towards the door with stiff limbs and standing there under the stars listening to my water trickle away. Also, most of all, I remember the sudden sensation of penetrating cold invading my body when I had compromised a bladderful of body heat. I shivered and shuddered for an hour before I was able to get back to sleep. And in the morning, my jaw had frozen stiff and made an embarrassing clicking noise when I opened it. Along with a lancinating pain that made me grimace. We met more birders that morning, and all those who were introduced to me did a double-take at the grimace and sound effects. It was only around 11 AM that the sun thawed me out. Our high-rises, vacant green lungs and traffic exhaust have taken the chill out of winter. Only 25 years ago, I'd play outside in the afternoon under a gentle hazy sun. Not so, anymore. I worry when my little daughter gets beads of sweat on her brow when I wrap her up. Will there come a time when Bangalore will have no winter to call its own?