The Hindu Business Line : Craning for a better perspective

WE drove down to the Sardarpur grasslands, a three-hour run from Ratlam, in search of the Lesser Florican (Sypheotides indica) and landed up in the company of the Sarus cranes (Grus antigone).

At around 2.30 p.m., with the temperature around 26 degrees and a strong breeze, we sighted a Sarus crane with its neck sticking out of the grass. Some close watching through binoculars and one realised it was an incubating male and had built its nest on a grassy elevation near a thin stream that flowed into a small wetland. The eggs were lying close together in the open on the ground.

Dr Salim Ali in The Book of Indian Birds writes of the Sarus nest being a huge mass of reed and rush stems and straw, in the midst of a flooded paddy field or a marsh. Around 2.40 p.m. the bird stood up to its full height of around 5 feet, went for a stroll while we gazed at its imposing profile from about 150 feet.

While we were focused on the doings of the male Sarus, the female Sarus, smaller in size, flew in from somewhere and landed a few feet away from the nesting site. It was the first time one was watching a pair of Sarus cranes. The Sarus is a large, tall bird with long bare red legs, red neck with a black band in the middle, yellow eyes and an off-white circular spot behind the eyes. "It is the largest of the cranes and is the only resident of India. The male and female take turns sitting on the eggs," explained Nishikant Kale.

For about 30 minutes, Nishikant, Dinesh Kothari, P.M. Lad and oneself noted their movements and then turned away to spot, if possible, any Lesser Florican. From a steel watchtower, Dinesh and Lad sighted one but the bird moved away while Nishikant sat behind some Palas bushes trying to capture the Sarus cranes on his lens.

At about 3.30 p.m., Lad glued to his camera and onself to a pair of binoculars left Nishikant near the bushes and started on a slow walk towards the nest. We crossed the stream and as we approached the nest, the male Sarus stood up and started assembling loose grass with its beak and toes in a bid to cover its two dirty white eggs, the size of one's palm, lying in the open. As we made it to around 15 feet of the male Sarus to see from near its body and eggs, the bird let out a loud trumpet call and the female Sarus, which was a few feet away, replied with a similar call and hurriedly made its way to her mate. We froze as the male and the female Sarus called to each other four more times and slowly retreated to where Nishikant was sitting.

"In my 40 years, I have never seen a Sarus pair holding to its positions. Usually, they walk away and come back to their nest after the danger has passed," remarked Lad.

The Sarus show had lasted for about 80 minutes. They live in pairs for life and "their marital devotion is legendary," writes S. Theodore Baskaran in his book The Dance of the Sarus.

On another day in the Amba beed (grasslands), near Sailana, one spotted a pair of Sarus cranes walking around a depression where rainwater had collected, nibbling at food in the wetland. The nesting, perhaps, had not started. "The Sarus has come to symbolise the health of our wetland. Due to rapidly expanding agriculture and human settlements, wetlands are disappearing fast and what is left is polluted with pesticides and industrial effluent," comments Baskaran and that seems to be happening in Sardarpur.

On February 10, 1983, Sardarpur was declared a sanctuary and today, has an area of 3,244.74 hectares of which forestland makes up 568.443 hectares. The Sardarpur grassland is a mix of private and government beed, with some 14 villages in the area. Under a convention, the private parties have been allowed tenancy rights under the revenue laws of Madhya Pradesh and, in turn, the government has the right to apply various provisions of the wildlife acts. In the process, one can see most of the private lands shifting from growing grass to soyabean and tomatoes, apart from cultivating rice and maize (bhutta). Pesticides are used heavily and the farmers cannot be blamed if they aspire for good returns. "Remember the pressures of a growing population," cautions Lad. This year the rains were late but the August rains have filled up every depression, pond and well in the area and the farmers are not unhappy.

In the finer calculations, the Sarus cranes have been left out, uncared for by the forest department with the staff in Sailana particularly insensitive to beast, bird and trees. On the last day we were shown a peacock (male) lying on the floor of a room in the forest office at Sailana with its legs paralysed. The vet had given the bird two injunctions, said an official. He was not sure of the disease but thought it could be due to eating pesticides.

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