The Hindu Business Line : Feathered friends for company

DINESH spotted the raptor first, braked his Maruti Zen and reversed the vehicle to be near the bird resting on the top branch of a tree. Its breast was white while its top was dark brown, but P.M. Lad and Nishikant Kale were not able to place the bird. Nishi thought it could be a white-bellied sea or fishing eagle when Lad identified two small, dark brown crests on its head. "Is it a juvenile," wondered Lad when a hovering black-winged kite swooped on the raptor with a peck. The raptor did not protest even after a second attack from the black-winged kite, which then thankfully flew off. As the bird of prey sat still, Nishi and Dinesh clicked their cameras in the hope that the colour prints would help identification after referring to Dr Salim Ali's many volumes on birds.

For three days the powerful bird haunted us, and Lad desperately searched his memory pad to place the bird, as for an experienced birder it is an admission of failure. We made amends on Raksha Bandhan Day by sighting three varieties of nesting swallows and Dinesh labelled it as the day of the swallows. Lad spotted swallow activity while passing Bola village in Dhar district and we halted to search the area.

We climbed down a slope to a thin thread of a stream dropping into the river and chose our spots on the grass. After some time, a wire-tailed swallow landed beside the stream where the soil was soft and started scooping the mud with its beak. After about six scoops, its beak full, the bird flew below the bridge to build its nest on the wall. The wire-tailed swallow (Hirundo smithii) has a pleasing colour mix and Dr Ali puts it well when he writes, "It is very like Crag Martin but glossy steel above, chestnut forehead and crown, whitish below streaked with brown on throat and upper breast." It took me a while to spot the two long thin wires on the tail as one was taken up with the twittering notes of the few birds cutting and diving in the air before landing. It was around 10 in the morning and the weather was pleasant, allowing us to have a look under the bridge.

As the wire-tailed swallows went about their masonry job they were joined by a couple of redrumped or striated swallows. They flew down to the same place, some 30 feet away from where we were scattered and started collecting the soft mud in their beaks. The striated swallow (Hirundo daurica) scooped the soil with its beak about seven or eight times, with the last scoop of the beak holding a thick clod of mud. They were building their nests away from the bridge and one could not locate them. It has a deeply forked tail and a chestnut rump and a neckband and stands out from its probable cousin, the wire-tailed swallow.

An hour had gone and we were back on the road. We took a break at Labariya village where a young girl, Tina, roasted for us on a wood fire juicy bhoottas (maize). She did not know her age though she said she was going to school. The girl was waiting for her brother, who was busy selling fruits, to tie the rakhi.

P.M. Lad told us of the time when moving with Dr Ali, a bhootta vendor in a village identified the great birdman and offered him free roasted bhoottas. After eating the bhoottas, Dr Ali handed over a Rs 20 note which the vendor refused. The doctor finally had his way when he told the vendor that the money was not for him but for his children.

Around noon, we reached Semalkheda village on the Bagedi river and, as usual, Lad was the first to see the nesting activity of a few hundred cliff swallows under the bridge spanning the river. The Indian cliff swallow (Hirundo fluvicola) has a chestnut forehead with brown on throat and upper breast. They nest through the year and, as Dr Ali writes, the nesting is "colonial." "A large agglomeration of mud, like a disorderly honeycomb, sometimes with hundreds of pots fused together, each with a short tubular entrance," writes Dr Ali and that is the apt description. The large number of birds, whirring around in the air squeaking (in a way), did not go anywhere near the honeycomb a few feet away from their colony. One was amused to see the colony of cliffs swallows sharing their homes with a few common sparrows.

On the last day near the Dholakpur beed (grassland) near the road, we spent about 30 minutes watching the nesting of the Franklin's wren-warbler (Prinia hodgasonii) on a shrub. It took this writer about five minutes to spot the nest, so well was it hidden.

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Feathered friends for company

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