Stratagems for survival

by K. G. H. Munidasa

The stratagem certain birds resort to when their eggs or young are in danger is quite amazing. The Plover family is the most cunning in this respect. For instance, the breeding Kentish Plover will not take to wing immediately on the approach of an enemy. Instead, it will leave the nest stealthily and run along the ground for some distance before taking off. If the ruse fails, it tries to distract the intruder by other tactics.

The Ringed Plover may try to decoy the enemy away from its nestlings by tumbling about the ground in excellent imitation of an injured or disabled bird. The Little Grebe is seen to cover its clutch over with a pad of weeds before leaving the nest, however hurriedly it may have to depart, at the approach of a predator.

The other day a Fantial Warbler played a similar trick on me. I observed the warbler flying to a patch of tall grass carrying in its beak a green larva. I watched it from thirty yards away with binoculars, but the bird would not go to the nest. After about ten minutes deliberation it finally dived into the grass. As I hurried up to the place it emerged three yards away from where it entered and flew away. In the next twenty minutes I looked in every possible tussock but I could not detect the nest.

I took up a position twenty yards away and trained my glasses on the site. Soon the warbler returned with another beakful of food. This time it approached from a different angle and jumped underneath without much ado. Apparently, its idea was to play me out. For, no sooner had it gone in than it was out again, still holding the food in the beak. It started, watched me a couple of minutes and then swallowed the morsel of food itself. Wiping the bill against the perch with a casual air, it left.

Not satisfied, I once again searched about the grass and eventually the nest of three chicks was found, three to four yards away from either place the warbler had entered.

Master Mimic

The Chloropses are apparently fast masters at mimicking other birds. At least the pair of Jerdon's Chloropses that regularly visit my home garden to drink at the bird bath are so. I have noticed that they imitate to perfection every common bird seen around the garden and a number of others which do not visit it, at all. For instance, the other day I was in the back-yard of the house watching with great interest a mason wasp working hard on its mud nest, when I heard the cheery-wee note of a Black-backed Robin in the Avocado branch above me. I promptly looked up but failed to find any bird there. Just then a Shikra called out, immediately followed by the scold note of a Common Drongo, and I at once knew who the actor was. It was the male Chloropsis who sat preening on a topmost branch of the adjoining Jak tree. On another day it imitated the Blyth's Reed-Warbler, long after that migrant bird had left our shores, and brought me rushing outside to investigate.

The birds which visit the garden welcome the water left out for them in the bird bath, under a shade tree in the compound. Once every two days I replenish the bath so that there would not be a shortage of water for the birds. The Red-vented Bulbuls, Magpie Robin and the Purple-rumped Sunbirds always come there to drink or bathe. A family group of the Common Babblers are regular visitors and spend much time at the bath, chattering to each other. One particular, perky Red-Vented Bulbul actually bathes there three times a day. Once a Black-Headed Oriole, passing through the garden stopped at the bird bath to drink and playfully splashed the water with its bill before flying away. Once or twice a week a wary party of Black-Fronted Babblers steal out to drink and dash back to cover in the adjoining coffee bushes.

Punctual

The pair of Chloropses, too are very punctual. They would arrive in the shade tree daily between 2.45 and 3 in the afternoon and come down to the water in stages mimicking every bird in the neighbourhood. They spend a full fifteen minutes at the water and before leaving whistle back to me their thanks.

The cock Magpie Robin who lives in a nearby Rambuttan tree was very annoyed one afternoon when it came round for its regular bath and found no water in the receptacle. It expressed its disapproval by hysterical cocking of its tail and few to a branch from where it watched the water being poured out by me. In a couple of minutes it was back and having bathed to its heart's content sang a tuneful note in appreciation of my prompt attention to its needs.

Nesting Bulbuls

Much has happened since I last wrote, the most significant being that we have had some rain. In little over eleven minutes we had .23 of an inch, Several pairs of White-Browed Bulbuls were obviously nesting, and it did not take me long to find two nests one of which had the unusual number of four eggs in it. I have also found a nest of the Yellow-Browed Bulbuls, but, unfortunately, the birds deserted the nest, before laying the clutch.

In view of the prevailing favourable weather there is much courtship going on among many commoner garden birds. The other day, I watched a Black-Backed Robin engrossed in its courtship display. Ordinarily, Black Robin is not a bird that one would turn round to look at a second time. But this particular chap looked positively handsome while it courted its Lady Love.

He puffed out himself and strutted around the hen with the air of a turkey cock. When she flew off he followed, sat on the branch beside her, and repeated his attention.

Eventually, I suppose he succeeded in winning her over, because she is already carrying nesting materials to a cavity among some rocks deep inside the scrub. Soon, I hope to see their young. That is if that nasty pest the Common Coucal does not find the place.

During regular rambles, I have come across numerous other nests scattered all over the scrub, in various stages of construction. A pair of Red-Vented Bulbuls, spent hours a previous week building a neat little nest in the fork of a Mango tree, beside the house, hardly 10 feet above the ground.

They had almost completed lining the nest when a pair of Spotted Munias, out hunting for nesting sites, decided that the branch the bulbuls had selected was just the ideal site for their own nest. So, without probing about any longer, they proceeded to collect grass blades and flower stalks of grass. And built right on top of the bulbuls’ nest a globular structure as big as a foot ball. The bulbuls are now building a second nest in a coffee bush further down.