Why birds are just like us

What is a fowl? Textbook definitions would say ‘warm-blooded vertebrates that have feathers, toothless, beaked jaws and lay hard-shelled eggs’. But there may be rather more to them — their lives have sufficient drama, journey, hazard and romance to place a film script to disgrace. And if you begin them carefully, you realise there’s a lot for you as a human to narrate to.

One of the only joys of watching birds stems from the truth that they’re as distinctive and distinct as us. Let me begin with meals fads. Some birds such because the Oriental Honey Buzzard, well-adapted to prey on bee larvae, have a candy tooth. Others such because the Hoopoe love some leisurely ‘me-time’, with sun-bathing an indispensable a part of their routine. And many such because the Bar-headed Geese and Brahminy Shelducks — among the highest flyers on the planet, who can soar over Himalayan peaks — adhere strictly to a high-fibre weight-reduction plan of grass, placing your go-to health influencer to disgrace.

Daredevils assemble

Speaking of health, birds such because the Shaheen Falcon, the quickest fowl in a dive, are born athletes. When it spots a goal (typically a luckless pigeon), it takes place and transforms right into a missile, launching into its famed 390-kmph dive. Such is the affect of the dive {that a} mere contact of the talon is sufficient to take the lifetime of the prey.

Birds are just as assorted relating to perceptions of danger. The acquainted Black Drongo is a daredevil that loves enjoying with fireplace — fairly actually — utilizing bushfires to its benefit by preying on bugs that are disturbed by it. Ibisbills, nevertheless, favor to play protected, pretending to be rocks alongside river rapids.

Are you a hornbill or a rock pigeon?

Bird parenting kinds may fill a ebook (and their love lives are made for the flicks, however extra on that later). Hornbills make for overly devoted dad and mom, with the mom sequestering herself in a tree gap when nesting, and the male working additional time to feed his mate and the rising chicks. Cuckoos, alternatively, would make for embarrassing visitors to have on a parenting podcast. Pied Cuckoos are thought-about harbingers of rain in India. The monsoon can also be the time when the Jungle Babbler, the popular host for this brood parasite, breeds. The cuckoo lays her egg within the babbler’s cup-shaped nest, and bids goodbye to any parental worries.

Hornbill father or mother
| Photo Credit:
Illustration: Rohan Chakravarty

Rock Pigeons deliver the identical lazy carelessness to their nests — shabby clusters of twigs put collectively half-heartedly — which look unworthy of even being referred to as nests. Tailorbirds, in distinction, are expert embroiderers meticulously stitching leaves collectively to construct their famed nests.

Nature’s Romeos and Don Juans

Speaking of feathered love, Sarus Cranes, the avian embodiment of tacky romance and unwavering marital constancy, are identified to mate for all times. Snipes and Phalaropes lead extra bohemian lives, the place females take a number of mates and depart the clutch within the males’ care, hopping over to her subsequent Bumble date.

Sarus courtship
| Photo Credit:
Illustration: Rohan Chakravarty

Pheasants like Monals and Tragopans come wearing beautiful regalia and placed on elaborate courtship shows of gleaming ornaments to woo females. But Nightjars sport drab plumages and mix completely with their environment to evade consideration, just like me at household weddings.

Himalayan Monal
| Photo Credit:
Illustration: Rohan Chakravarty

Left or proper, choose your facet

Not all birds fly undercover although. Malabar Whistling Thrushes are musical prodigies, and are not shy of flaunting their talent. You know you are within the Western Ghats when the melodious whistle of the thrush reverberates by means of the hills. Such is its human high quality that it led ornithologist Salim Ali to nickname the fowl ‘whistling schoolboy’.

Art, within the avian world, goes past music. Artisans amongst birds, such because the Baya Weaver, can put even probably the most diligent conventional media artists to disgrace, making over 500 journeys to finish making their pendulous nests. Others, together with remorseless thieves such because the Skuas. who fortunately steal a tern’s hard-earned lunch, evoke the picture of wannabe artists on social media utilizing generative AI to make ‘art’.

Other pursuits smack of left mind savants. Bearded Vultures are maths and physics wiz youngsters — their manoeuvre of carrying bones from a carcass and dropping them from the suitable peak and angulation over rocks to crack them open and feast on the marrow, takes as much as seven years to grasp.

Bearded Vulture
| Photo Credit:
Illustration: Rohan Chakravarty

Bird watching, a silent riot

Do birds have hobbies and passions? Some dwell the gourmand life, and use precision cutlery for the weight-reduction plan of their alternative. Case in level: the Asian Openbill’s rigorously designed invoice hole, suited completely for sliding the our bodies of snails off their shells. Other shut cousins of the identical stork, the Adjutants, will eat completely something that they’ll catch, and even scavenge readily. If you’ve a penchant for killing houseplants with unintended neglect, flowerpeckers, India’s smallest birds, are who you want to flip to for recommendation. These nano-sized gardeners plant mistletoes throughout our forests, and have devised novel and intelligent methods to take action. As the fowl pecks on the mistletoe flower for nectar, the petals pop open scattering pollen everywhere in the fowl’s face, which it dutifully deposits on the subsequent flower it visits.It additionally eats ripe miseltoe fruit, and when ingested, these move by means of the intestine quickly, prompting the fowl to wipe its rear finish awkwardly towards the bark to detach the seed enclosed in sticky sap. Both these occasions occur to be a part of nature’s grand horticultural plan – planting the mistletoe seed immediately on the host tree.

Rohan Chakravarty’s new ebook, Bird Business

Social behaviours are just as assorted. Racket-tailed Drongos that mimic different birds and provoke the formation of blended species feeding flocks, love a very good occasion. Pittas favor solitude. While some like the Indian Scimitar Babblers can chat incessantly, others like the Yellow-crowned Woodpecker are nice listeners, and might typically be seen putting their ears towards timber to hear for ants contained in the bark, earlier than they begin hammering it. Birds such because the leaf warblers appear to have a hyperactivity downside, continuously and restlessly flitting about from leaf to leaf, typically to the annoyance of a birdwatcher making an attempt to get a very good look, as a result of they’re additionally a nightmare to establish appropriately! Herons have most likely taught samurais the virtues of endurance — they’ll standstill for hours earlier than placing potential prey.

Birds include an astonishing number of options and traits unfold throughout households and genera, making even probably the most carefully associated species distinctly distinctive from each other, because of minor evolutionary tweaks. The Brahminy and the Black Kites are shut cousins on the evolutionary tree. But a easy tweak in design — the fork in its tail — has made the latter a grasp of exploiting scavenging alternatives even in densely populated city settings, whereas the Brahminy Kite lags. That’s because of the sheer vary of stunts and manoeuvres this characteristic helps.

In an age the place devices command our fixed consideration, and when our consideration spans, and the way we are entertained and knowledgeable, are commanded by technocratic firms, the act of sitting by a lake and observing a reed fowl for so long as you want, feels like a silent riot to me. It is that this riot that I invite you all to take part in with me.

The author, cartoonist and naturalist’s new ebook, Bird Business (Juggernaut Books), is out on May 10.