Listening to the Skylark

by K.G.H. Munidasa

I shall always remember the day that I came across a Skylark's nest, for the first time in my bird-watching career. That late June morning, I started from home before daybreak and arrived at the country favoured by skylarks. The first birds I noticed were a few Bush-Larks and Finch-Larks, which would generally be found in similar country.

Ceylon Bush Lark

Though the morning was still young, I could hear a Skylark vocalising on the margin of the lagoon in the distance, where I was aiming for.

"In spite of its insignificant appearance, the Skylark is a songster of exceptional merit and well deserves the reputation it has earned the world over" This in short are the observations of a renowned Indian ornithologist, who has a number of best-selling bird books to his credit.

Well, now I have been offered that rare opportunity to watch for the first time in my life and describe firsthand the singing display of the Skylark.

As I watched with binoculars, a male Skylark sprang into the air from its perch from a clod or so amidst the grass and soared vertically upwards on fluttering wings, singing as it rose higher and higher, until almost out of sight. There it remained more or less stationary, on vibrating wigs, and continued to pour forth an unbroken stream of loud, clear and melodious warbling.

Three little eggs

This lasted for over five minutes, at a stretch. When the singing was over, the bird dropped like a stone for some distance on closed wings, opened them back again to fluttered a little, dropped lower and lower, and so on by steps, until when within a few feet of the ground it shot out sideways and came to rest near the starting point.

Suddenly, the sun peeped over the crest of the shrub jungle to my left, bathing my world in a mellow light. I hasten my steps, but not before, from a bird flew off, and stooping I beheld Skylark's nest in the ground beside a terrace an inch or two in depth, not far from the margin left by the receding level.

Among the thin grass a shallow depression, deep enough for one to have placed a ping-pong ball, had been hollowed out, and lined with fine rootlets and dry blades of grass. The nest was protected from the Katchan wind by the way it was cited and from the gaze of passers-by by the taller grass around it.

In the nest reposed three little eggs, pointed ovals, still warm to the touch. They were dirty-white or greenish in ground colour, thickly blotched and speckled all over with grey and yellow freckles. When I held one in my palm I noticed a pinkish glow, perhaps from the yolk inside.

Skylarks: male (right)

I was thrilled. I placed the egg back in the nest, went and sat a hundred yards away, from where I watched through binoculars the parent birds return to the nest. It was indeed a Skylark's nest and I quite clearly discerned their crest when a guest of wind ruffled the head feathers.

On the next weekend however, when I passed that way again, the nest was empty and no birds around the place. Perhaps, with all that camouflaging effects some predatory animal or bird may have found the nest.

Natural time

It is the most natural time of the year for the birds to nest, and wherever your rambles take you, you will now find, nests with eggs or nestling.

Yet, you will not find certain others doing so. For instance, the sunbirds have finished their nesting by mid-June, though you may find a couple still carrying on.

Nonetheless, you are sure to find a number of other commoner species getting ready to nest. Certainly, all birds which place their nests on or about the ground, like waders and shore birds or larks and pipits, generally nest during the driest period from about July to September, every year.

If your rambles in the country take you over wider areas, you will also notice that the herons, cormorants, storks and egrets too, would have finished their nesting for the year. They generally start sometime in December and end by about March and April.

Such species as orioles, bulbuls, babblers and flycatchers that nest in trees or among the foliage will be prospecting for a second nesting season. It is obviously the assurance of favourable whether that is the cause for their nesting once again.

Ceylon Finch Larks: (male right)

I recently found a nest of the White-browed Bulbuls in a hedge, not far from home. I visited the nest daily awaiting to see how long will it take for the first egg to hatch, when some animal or human pulled the branch in which the nest was, spilling the eggs on the ground. It was a pathetic sight indeed to see three little embryos, fast growing up to be three little chicks, being devoured by vicious red ants.

Safe and contended

The same fate befell two chubby nestlings of the Purple-rumped Sunbirds. One day they were safe and contended in their cosy nest, the next it was a battered mass of fibre, cotton and cobweb I found. I was certain the culprit was the Coucal. The Coucal or Crow-Pheasant is a curse to the smaller birds, and to quote G.M. Henry: "few are the nests of smaller birds that escape its baneful attention."

The Black-headed Munias appear to have multiplied into thousands all of a sudden, and I thrill at the spectacular sight they make at sunset as flock after a massive flock of munias pass overhead to roost in the scrubland beyond.

Their little wings make quite a roar, very reminiscent of swarms of wild bees. The damage these birds do to the ripening paddy must be as enormous as their clocks.

Yet, it is possible they also do an iota of good to the cultivator by devouring larvae and insects injurious to his crops, when they are tending broods.

The munias maintain large families and breed several times a year.