Hamerkop, an interesting bird - Uganda...

It may be a little difficult to believe but it is a fact that I have been debating hard for last three full days as to what bird figures out in my next blog post. For a change I have a great database to play with. We saw a total of 167 birds in the eight odd days of birdwatching in Uganda. Out of that 60 or 70 of them were kind enough to pose - with patience I mean - to give me a great picture. In other words - they gave me quality time ;-).

Then this bird - the Hamerkop - an odd bird bird by looks for us the Indians made the grade. It made the grade with three points, it was intriguing, it was found commonly and most importantly molecular studies have shown it as the closest relative to the Shoebill, the bird that I had posted in my last blogpost.

Notice the Hammer ??

By reading this name - some may point out - oh the bloody bird has been spelled wrongly - well this bird actually is know by half a dozen names - like Hammerkop, Hammerkopf, Hammerhead, Hammerhead Stork, Umber bird, Tufted Umber or Anvilhead etc. However since my book on Birds of East Africa spelled it Hamerkop - I am sticking by it. 

It is a medium sized wader bird and abundant in Uganda (will stick to it but wiki says it is abundant in Africa). We saw it almost every where we went and had a waterbody. This bird has a lot of interesting behaviour that are intriguing at the least. Like I believe that upto 10 birds join in for 'ceremonies' in which they run circles around each other calling loudly and raising crests and fluttering their wings. The strangest behaviour is yet to come - this bird is a compulsive nest builder and builds four to five nests every year - whether breeding or not. The nest is huge, sometimes over 1.5 m across. it compromises of upto 10,000 sticks and can support a man's weight. The outside is decorated with bright coloured objects. The base of the nest is made by a platform of sticks held together with mud - then walls are made followed by a domed roof. The entrance is mud plastered and leads through a tunnel upto 60 cm long to a nesting chamber large enough to accommodate the parents and the young. There are so many animals and birds that use the hamerkop nests - snakes, genets, weavers, owls among others. Owls may usually force the birds out. The hamerkops will give away the nests - and usually reoccupy after the owl has left after breeding. During our visits - in the hindsight I have seen two such nests, unfortunately did not photograph them. 

This may be - what was described as 'Running in circles' ceremony...

Another very interesting ceremony that I was in which the birds do 'False Mounting'. I witnessed this three times and the entire group was present during one of this event - definitely.  During this one bird stands on top of the other and appears to mount it, but they may not be mates and neither will they copulate. The fun part was that the bird below was not perturbed at all during all the three times I saw them doing this. I was wondering this behaviour - and only read about it after I came back and studying about the birds in greater detail. 

The false mounting first noticed by me at Entebbe Botanical Gardens

The false mounting ceremony noticed and documented second time during my visit at Mobamba Swamps

Well that is that till the next bird pops along to be figuring here...
The birding book that I took along to Uganda

A bird with a Million Frowns... Shoebill - Uganda

I have been underground from blogging for past almost two weeks - the reason was not that I was being chased by agency but that I was having a gala time birding in Uganda.

Uganda? of course - a birding destination par excellence. The most sought out bird before I visited that place was the 'Shoebill' - well after I reached there - it was sill the most desired bird - that along with a a few more I suppose. The rumours are that there are only 150 odd birds in wild in Uganda.  And like always - habitat destruction is the biggest threat to this bird. The birds are prehistoric in the looks and the bill looks like a shoe - the old wooden shoe from the yesteryears. Standing tall at 110-140 cm - it is a big bird. This bird is mentioned as Abu Markub, which means - the one with a shoe. The wiki and a lot of other forums describe this bird as one of the five most desirable birds in Africa.

During our visit to Uganda we had two occasions where we could have found the bird - one - the visit to the Mbamba Swamps - two - the Murchison falls. The eBird statics were describing the chances 50% and that was not good enough after flying for 6,000 odd km from Chandigarh - Mumbai - Nairobi to Uganda. But then - as with birdwatching - 100% is just not done normally. All the same - there was nothing to do really other than pray perhaps. Pray we all did and on second day of our visit we were on our way to Mbamba swamps. We were a group of 20 birdwatchers and were divided in a group of 3 to 4 each along with a bird guide and were out in the swamps on motorised canoe.

The stare...

The beauty of a different kind...

We were transported to the Prehistoric times - an experience worth the travel across the oceans...

I am sure you would not have got bored staring at these pictures - after all I did not get bored clicking a thousand of these...

We were traversing narrow paths in the swamps created by passing boats - and getting excited by all the birds seen. After all - virtually every bird was a lifer. African Jacana, Yellow-billed Ducks, Long-toed Plovers, Cisticolas and others. But at the back of the mind the hunt for Shoebill was still on. I was on the first canoe among our group - leading the charge. After about half an hour of hunt in the far distance we saw a canoe (not from our group) standing staring at something in the distance - and bingo - there was a solitary shoebill standing majestically in the far distance. What a sight it was. It was like we have gone back in time a million years and standing with a dinosaur in front of us. A million clicks and almost half an hour in company of the bird was not the reason we moved on - it was just that we had to explore another sections of the swamps and who knew we might just catch sight of another one of these. 

As we stood there staring at the majestic sight we were fed a lot of stories in by our guide in hushed tones. That included that it is an opportunistic hunter and will grab a duck or a bird if it ventures nearby, also that the hooked beak can grab fairly large fish out of the water with a snap.

We were lucky and unlucky that day - all at the same time. Lucky because we saw it, unlucky because this was the only sighting. Even Murchison falls was a wash out - guess eBird was right all along.

The boat and the birders...

Rediscovering birding in my city... Brown Hawk Owl

I reside in Chandigarh, India. Being in army - I have spent more time outside the city than in this city. However after retirement the things have changed and I am discovering the joy of birding at places I have not visited for last 25 years perhaps. I was being told by everyone in our very own 'Chandigarh Bird Club' - Oh - the birds at Punjab University, Wow - the birds at butterfly garden - and though I was up and away roaming all places far and away, I was missing my own backyard. I decided to sort this problem out - and am now on a tour of visiting every birding place in and around nearby.

I took the big step to correct this anomaly by kicking myself out of the bed in the morning and going to Punjab University. The target being four Brown Hawk Owls residing there. I reached there at 0600 in and we had our Chandigarh Bird Club birders already there. As I greeted them (Mr Saiyam and Mr Palash) told me even before I asked them - in hushed tones - they are there and pointed to a bamboo thicket.

It was way too dark under the thicket canopy - all the same I could make out the faint outline of the birds sitting. As I brought up the camera to my eyes - the first problem surfaced - I mean that the light was low became problem no 2 and the fogging on the lens became a major concern. I had the camera with me in the room since yesterday and AC was on, then while I drove about half an hour to the University the car AC was also on. I did not realise that the hot and humid condition outside would fog up my equipment. Well I waited almost 15 minutes - spending time with the feathered guests. Eventually I got impatient and cleaned the lens with my hanky and got about shooting. First few shots were just that - shot in the dark ;-). It was only when I started ramping up the iso that the birds became visible. Finally it was 6400 iso that did the trick. The birds - as you would have guessed by now were a beauty to be in the company of. 

Okay - they were sleepy but took out time to open the eyes and stare at me...

 Okay - before I get carried away any further - something about this bird. These owls belong to the group of Typical Owls, the other being Barn Owls. This is a resident breeder in tropical South Asia from India, Sri Lanka, Indonasia and south China. It is a medium sized owl and gets its name from the Hawk like appearance due to long tal and lack of distinctive facial disk. The fun part of this bird is that there is only one record of this bird in the Western Hemisphere as per the Wikipedia - photographed in Alaska in Aug 2007.

Same Bird...

It had enough and turned her/his back on me - come on... - I was not even playing the calls...

Different bird - same place, infact they were all sitting pretty close to each other

Go Off - that's what this bird seemed to say - and I packed up and went back...

So with this begins my quest to rediscover the city I spent so much of my time in...

Bay-backed Shrike: the butcher of a bird....

I am sure that a lot us would be knowing this fact for sure. Shrikes are butchers. They capture a small animal or an insect and then take it and impale it on a thorn and eat them at their time and mercy. I had witnessed this a long time back - a time when I had nothing to record the event. Last week during my birding visit to Anantgiri I witnessed it again and this time I had a camera to record the event.

Let me just introduce the species for you first. They belong to family of Laniidae and it is composed of thirty one species in all. The family name, Lanius is derived from latin word for 'Butcher'. Interestingly these birds are found in Asia, America, Africa and skip Australia. India has ten of the thirty one mentioned above.

It may seem gruesome - and nature has its own way...  The bird is Bay-backed Shrike and the pictures below give the entire story that was captured. It started with a picture that I could not take. The bird jumped a few feet from me and picked up a huge insect and flew and sat down on a branch at some distance - but the one I could observe well.

It looks around searching for a spot. I suspect that it had come to the right place as the thorn it used later was just in front of it.

On second thoughts if you look carefully the thorn in front of the bird might be showing signs of having been used in the past.

The bird actually took time - like it was surveying around for any competitors ?

...and there it impales the insect right there in front of my eyes.

... Okay - it seems it is time to check out the handiwork.

I guess it is all fine...

...time to enjoy the meal - a bit at a time

...that's cruelly yummy I suppose.

Baya Weaver: the story of a Home Maker...

I will start this with a disclaimer - home builder and home maker are not the same, where in the home builder constructs the home - brick by brick or in case of our story - thread by thread - the home maker makes this place surrounded by these bricks or streaks of vegetation a home. Today I will talk about one such home maker…

 

The male weaver (House Builder) - deciding on the best location for the new house

Me and my fascination of Baya Weavers is not new. I remember being a kid looking up at these beautiful nest in trees - sometimes carrying one home to make it a piece of my decoration - the one that was fallen down was story of many boys and girls who have lived our times in 80s. Then there were period of times that I used to wonder why the nests were abandoned most of the times I saw them. Passing through that thought were times when I blamed myself that I bought that nest home, or touched it or God only knows what all crossed my mind where I blamed the empty nests because of my mis-conduct. Alas - it was only over the observation of these beautiful birds over so many years that I understood the entire process of a few drooping branches that become inhabited by these beautiful birds and then they construct their homes and raise the next generation and move on with life - moving to the next generation.

The first weave - the very foundation of the house is fairly difficult and time consuming it seemed

When I say beautiful - I mean every letter of the word flows from the bottom of my heart. Without rubbing in to my lady readers - the word beauty is more apt to males in the bird world than to a lady bird, hence to start where I left - the BEAUTIFUL males carry Yellow crowns and yellow breasts, with dark black masks over their faces.

 

Each thread of leaf is stripped, evaluated and then used for building

This thread would be stripped roughly 500 times by the time the house is ready

Oh - stop photographing me - get over with it...

Even with the house just starting to show - the male advertises the property

Get back to work boy - you are running behind schedule...

The breeding starts with the arrival of monsoons. The males who attain the breeding conditions by showing off the beautiful yellow at approximate one and half year of age starts looking for places to build the nest. Though the nests have sometimes been found at isolated places - the birds as a rule build nests as a colony with 15 to 20 in a group. There are some very strict rules governing the  colony - the nests are generally on the eastern side of tree - perhaps saving them from the punishing winds of  SouthWest monsoons. If the colony is established on a tree or trees of lower height - then they generally are built where droop over water and not so easy to approach and of course the low colonies are preferred on thorny trees. The colony also has to be near a source of  building material and wet mud. If the colony is established over tall trees then the thorny tree clause is struck off with the tall palm trees preferred.

After the colony location is shortlisted and approved by the house of majority - the males are a flurry of activity. They choose the branch over where the new house is to be built and off they go to get that first thin strip of a reed to make the knot. The first knot takes time and I saw many a males struggling, taking multiple attempts. After this the male makes multiple trips to get one string at a time and weave it to start making the nest. With the nest just about 1/4th done - the male starts advertising the property - after all if he sells the house right - he gets the home maker. The females behave - not unlike our species - minus the make up of course. They will stay at a distance and in a group observing and will come near the colony from time to time in a group. Whenever a female or a group of them approach the colony, it is a flurry of activity - the males shouting at the top of the voice to attract a mate - making full show of the plumage hanging from their (own) nests. Many a times the nest are not approved - and the female will come and tear it from the base - letting it to fall to ground. And this is not necessary  for the nest that are under construction - this may be the treatment given to nest that almost complete or even fully complete. There is no choice and the male starts all over again. This game continues till the nest is complete and a lady bird approves of it.

 

Stand fast: Inspector madam on site !! - the home maker (female)

Is it time already ?? - apprehensions of every male...

The male does the nest that are pendulous - with a retort shape and long vertical tube that leads to the nesting chamber. The nests have are either weighed down or lined with dung or mud. It is believed to give it more stability by adding weight at the right places. Once the nest is chosen by the female the inners are done almost exclusively by the female - lining it perhaps with mud, and soft material and converting this nest to a home.

 

A happy male - house done and accepted by the lady...

Recently - BHNS acknowledging that the weavers range has dwindled over the years in India and initiated a count across the country to count and report the weaver birds so that a study could be done to  mitigate the factors pushing these beautiful birds to the edge. I am writing this article to acknowledge these tiny birds who because of human greed and intervention are being pushed to a stage where they are becoming more and more rare to see and admire. It would be unfortunate for the next generation not to know the magic of building homes in nature. Each thread - stripped and converted to this nest is 20 to 60 cm long. The male takes almost 18 days to build the nest making upto 500 trips to complete one…

If you cannot appreciate it - you have no heart whatsoever…