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| Sunday, 3 November 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Birds in Colombo 7 Just in case you get the wrong idea about the headline , let me confirm at the very start, that the birds I watch are the feathered variety. Yes, I gave up watching the non-feathered 'Birds' long ago!
Our three gardens are all inside our house, but open to the sky. Hence, we have no trees as such in our gardens. Birds fly across our rooms from one garden to the other, to or from our neighbours' gardens which have plenty of attractive trees and which invite a sizeable number of various species. Our flat concrete roof over part of our house, is the ideal place for bird watching. Armed with 'The Birds of Ceylon' by that eminent and celebrated ornithologist, G. M. Henry to help, me, I have identified a good number of feathered friends, often by their characteristic and distinctive bird calls. Let me list a few. The cuckoo The koha or Koel, the cuckoo, is an early bird and unmistakable - its call is so strident and plaintive that it is very easy to whistle in imitation. Each time it calls, I whistle the tune loud and clear and the replies and so do I until he flies closer and closer inquisitively, to sit on a branch of my neighbour's Karapincha tree, to peer into our bedroom, with his red beady eyes to locate what he thinks is a competing male! The advent of the Koha is associated with the Sinhala New Year, so much so that the bird is called the Avurudhu Koha the New Year cuckoo. Although I cannot vouch for it, the legend is that the Koha never makes a nest of its own. It takes a free ride by laying its eggs in its cousin the crow's nest. And the silly Mrs. Crow unsuspectingly sits on the cuckoo eggs in addition to her own and not only hatches them all very obligingly, but tends and feeds the fledglings until they are able to fly. "Thanks! Ta ta!!" from Mrs. Cuckoo! Crow The Crow, Kaputa or Karkka in Sinhala, is black - blacker up country than the Colombo crow. In Africa, I have seen the crows which are black and white. Unique! Crows caw ceaselessly to keep the family and friends together. They pair off. I have seen two crows, husband and wife, I presume, sitting close together on an iron stanchion at the Race Course and one picking nits or whatever, from the other's head bent obligingly close. Their mating habit is shocking: also seen on the Race Course. No privacy at all: rather, a public exhibition! About thirty or forty crows collect at the nuptial site and while the couple are unconcernedly mating on the ground, the friends crowd round to watch the event, each contributing a loud cacophony of comments and advice. When its all over, they all fly away, still criticising the technique of the bridal couple. From my roof top viewpoint, I notice that all the city crows seem to fly in one particular direction starting at 6.45 p.m. the late strugglers leaving by 7.15, towards 'Crow Island' in the north of Colombo. They must surely have inbuilt alarm clocks to prompt them when to start for home! Magpie The best of the songsters by far, is the common magpie robin, the Polkichcha. The male sings a song of may be five or six notes, repeatedly. Never does he go flat on a single note. When he gets tired of that song, he switches to another tune, also of not more than six notes and he repeats it accurately. May be his songs are love songs, but although I have seen the mate close by. I have never seen her swooning or even being attracted by the melodious singing of the swim. Quite unconcerned! Bulbul The red-vented Bulbul, is another of the garden denizens. In Sinhala name Kondaya is very appropriate as it has a prominent knot of black feathers at the rear-top of its head like a konde - a top knot. They are trusty birds which would prefer to build their nests in the safety of home gardens, where they could be sure there are no cats to ravage their eggs or fledglings. One such pair built their nest in our Asparagus creeper. She laid her four eggs, sat on them during their incubation period when he brought home titbits of choice food like worms, flies and other delicacies, so that she should not have to scour the garden for food, leaving the eggs to get cold. When the eggs hatched, the fledglings were bare of any feathers but were blessed with wide, gaping mouths into which the parents would drop the baby food. This is the most vulnerable stage of their lives, when prowling cats, snakes etc., are attracted by their chirping. House sparrow Have you noticed that the once common house sparrow (Ge Kurulla) is a marked absentee now? Not only in Colombo but even in the outstations, these household birds are missing. Has the species become extinct in accordance with Nature's law of survival of the fittest as expounded by Charles Darwin? I recall that when we were on the estate, we had made miniature one-room house of planks, fixed to the wall, out of reach of cats, to replace the shoe box with a hole in it, or the earthen pot with its mouth to the wall and a small entrance hole at the bottom. These residences were inhabited by generations of sparrows. Sometimes they would have noisy disagreements resulting in the lady sparrow flying away, never to return. Good for her! Barbet The commonest of the four species of barbet, is the one with the brown head - the Kottoruwa in Sinhala. It is a regular visitor to the trees around our home. They keep singing an incessant song - a trill followed by a three note stanza. I hear him as I write this note. Rather annoying and disturbing to some, but delightful to me. Its plumage is green and blends well with the foliage. Some people mistakenly call the Ceylon red-backed woodpecker a Kottoruwa because in Sinhala, kotanawa is to peck and as its name implies, it pecks wood. However, the woodpecker's correct Sinhala name is Kaarala. Mynah Not to be outdone by the Magpie (Polkichcha), the ubiquitous mynah (Mynah) shows off its repertoire of songs often with a choir of two or three others, especially towards evening. But it cannot match the magpie for sheer dulcet lyrics. The mynah that loses its freedom to fly in the open sky, is often found in a wire cage, in horrible captivity. In his cage, he learns, with his head held to a side, to speak the domestic language quite well, but mostly in single or double words, sometimes amusingly incongruous. Its favourite food in freedom, which was insects or small fruits, is replaced in captivity with ripe plantations and papaya - (papaw = gus labu). Babbler The Babbler is said to fly in groups of seven and are therefore called 'Seven Sisters'. Believe me, I have, more often than not, found these birds in groups of seven! They inquisitively venture into our dining room, flying in from one garden and out to the other. Their characteristic chatter has been likened to the tinkle of crystal glass. Their plumage unfortunately, is an unattractive, dull, pale brown. Their Sinhala name is Dhemalichha, because they chatter incessantly. The sun birds (Chootikka) are also known as honey suckers as they hover over a flower and insert their long, curved, pointed, tubular beaks, to suck up the nectar from flowers. To enable them to hover, they have a very rapid wing-beat which keeps them in one place. The male is blessed with brilliant purplish blue, shiny plumage while the female is a dull brown, very inferior by comparison. A pair built their ball-shaped nest with an entrance hole on the side, in the same Asparagus creeper as the bulbuls but at a later season. She lad her eggs and we saw her hatching them, but the fledglings disappeared before they could fly and the parents, after much sorrowful chirping and hovering near the nest, left is in sorrow and disgust. We did see a stray cat in the vicinity, the previous night. The green Parakeets (girawas) with a red collar, fly in and out of the surrounding trees in noisy flocks. They follow their leader closely and the formation swings from side to side before they settle on a tree for a brief, noisy rest, only to take off boisterously again, at short notice and high speed. The parakeet, mistakenly named a parrot, is another domesticated bird which in captivity, is called a Peththa and confined to a wire cage with a stick across it as a perch. Here he learns to speak Sinhala words and short sentences - "Peththa bath kawadha? (Did Peththa eat rice?), Kohedha Yanne? (Where to?) etc. Its natural food which was all manner of fruits, is, in the wire cage, limited to vegetables with seeds like beans and the favour it, green chillies which it holds in its claw and nibbles and, of course, cooked rice. Bee Eater The blue green Bee Eater (Kurumini Kurulla) is mostly solitary, perched along the telephone wires to take off in hot pursuit of any small insects, not necessarily bees in keeping with its name, and to return to the identical spot on the telephone wire. They hunt for prey mostly in the evenings when beetles, bees, flies, wasps and moths are in flight. My pet aversion is the Common white-breasted kingfisher (Pilihoodoova). I saw it perched on the concrete beam of pergola, peering down into my outdoor fishpond on the first floor, which has purple and red Manel lotuses. As a less important addition. I have some red Swordtail fish breeding very freely (they are live bearers) under the protection of the Manel pads. Their sizes vary from 2 mm. at birth to 7 cm. as adults. Kingfisher The kingfisher was observing the ripples on the surface of the water caused by the Swordtails as they innocently surfaced. The bird marked its prey and with a swift dive from its perch, swooped into the water and flew away with an adult Swordtail in its beak, much to my horror and annoyance! It sat on the opposite pergola, relishing its easy catch and perkily winking at me. How I missed my childhood toy - the Daisy airgun which shot dead pellets with considerable force and accuracy. I had to devise a scheme to prevent the chuckling kingfisher from repeating its dive. The quick solution to the problem lay in the tin of roofing tar. I gave the concrete beam a thick coating of the sticky black liquid and watched development from a distance. The kingfisher, not to be outdoor, returned after I set my trap, hovered over the tar, sensed the ambush, thought better of it and flew away with a loud, shrill call, never to return. The Red swordtails raised three cheers! Golden Ioras I often see groups of the small Golden Ioras and the Orange minivets which fly together, busily chattering in the branches before taking off for the next halt. They don't stay long at each stop. The pair of Brahminy kites, occasionally calling to each other, soar up in the sky in ever increasing spirals, with the occasional wing-beat, almost as high as the eye could see and then, either swoop down to grab a prey or glide down in smaller spirals to almost ground level, only to start the upward flight all over again. Unmistakable in their flight, on their way back to the Aththidiya marshes, are the Whistling Teal (Seruwa) (which are prime targets with the Snipe (Vatuwa) for the sapid, savory barbeque) and the Cormorants (Dhiya kawa). They fly in geometrically perfect arrowhead formation. The scientific explanation for this unusual configuration is that the flight at high speed, of each bird, creates a sort of vacuum or jet stream behind it, which is eagerly taken up by the next in line, as flying is less strenuous in this airspace. To change direction, the arrowhead moves like a solid regiment, in perfect formation. This exhibition of formation flying would defy any aeronautical manoeuvre by the air force. Pelican The ungainly Pelican (Pasbaara) slowly wings its heavy weight to the Beira Lake where he sometimes meets friends, placidly sailing on the murky water and systematically collecting the unsuspecting fish, large and small, into its capacious beak which looks like a malformation but which is the result of evolution for the specific purpose of harvesting fish. Sitting at leisure in my flat concrete roof-top. I observe quite a variety of birds in the trees of my neighbours' gardens or flying overhead. But I do miss the exotic species which were a common feature on the tea estate. Exotic species The Indian Paradise Fly Catches with very long, ribbon-like tail feathers, white in the female (Redhi hora) and red in the male (Gini hora) the four-note call of the Indian Pitta (Avichchiya) the Golden oriole (kaha kurulla), the Red crested Hoopoe (Porowa Kurulla), the Grackle (Sala Lihiniya), the colourful Ceylon Jungle Fowl (Vali kukula) - the National Bird and other rare and colourful species. It is night and as I write, I am reminded by the Ceylon Fish Owl (Bakamoona) that he is perched on a nearby tree. He and his mate call to each other "Ohhh" - long drawn out, and after a brief duet, they fly away to their night rendezvous. As I cast my mind back, I get goose pimples and shudder when I recall the hideous abominable, gruesome, blood curdling shriek of the Ulama, not yet positively, undoubtedly and finally identified, perhaps belonging to the Eagle family. The wail of the Ulama is seldom heard, impossible to imitate and is believed to portend death, or is some other calamitous omen for those who hear it. I have heard it just once on a moonlit night and please, I wouldn't want to hear it again. Not me! |
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Did you notice that a vast concourse of avifauna are not limited to our
wildlife parks and reserves such as Bundala, but are, in fact, found at
our doorstep, in the very heart of the capital?
