Some close encounters with Greater Painted Snipes

 Another "exotic" bird (at the Buffalo Wallow!)

Ringed as it is by a colony (and many a high-rise)...and not much more than a mere of water held back by an earthen bund, the Buffalo Wallow is a replete with murky pockets and shadowy, reed-fringed pools. Especially so, in the mornings and evenings, when the light is best for photography.

At other times, the surface of the water can be so dazzling as to be blinding...and the light so rude and harsh that photography is just an utter waste of time

And if that wasn't enough, a lot of the time, when the action happens, the sun is right behind the birds. One can of course walk around and get the sun behind one's camera, but then, it would mean having to be able to walk on water.

That too, water that is far from clean, even by the standards of a Buffalo Wallow.

Cumulatively, all these occupational hazards mean that, I get to watch more than I can get to photograph...which I will honestly admit, is a good problem to have.

Cumulatively, it also means that, many a time, months pass before I can get the chance (in my "stumble upon it" fashion) before I can get to properly photograph a bird that I am sure is somewhere there -- in that vast realm of "murky pockets and shadowy, reed-fringed pools".

Like the Greater painted-snipe for one.

Seen here is the female bird that I photographed today -- spending almost an hour to get not more than 10-12 usable photographs (because at first sight of me, the bird would simply sink into the grass, and become immobile, merging with the brown of the mud).

Surprisingly, it was only after Lady Painted-snipe did it for the umpteenth time (and when the light had more or less gone) that I could see the male bird. Relatively dull and smaller in size, and totally out in the open.

But then, with the way our water bodies are littered, even totally out in the open means a frame full of plastic and other shit of civilization.

So I will hope that I can get to photograph this couple again. And get to showcase the male too. In a frame worthy of such magnificent birds!

(First encounter, April 21st, 2015)

Her & Him...

One of the most peculiar things about the nomenclature of birds, and a very evident ornithological oddity is that it is mostly (almost always) the male of the species that is used to name (and ID the) bird.

When you think about it, it is natural...because among birds, it is (mostly) the male of the species that is dazzling and resplendent, while the female is relatively dull and drab.

But then, there are exceptions too; after all, these are birds we are talking of :P

The Greater Painted Snipe is one of them, and gloriously so. Not only is the female the nominative half of the pair -- by virtue of being both "greater" and "painted", relative to the male, it also "outshines" the male in other areas.

Like, for instance -- courtship. It is the female bird that actively courts the male bird...and from what I can see -- the female bird is by far the bolder of the two, many a time feeding out in the open unconcernedly, while the male is to be seen nowhere.
 
Hmmm....

(This photograph was made at the Buffalo Wallow today...and is as serendipitous as it gets. I was hunkered down and waiting for a male Greater Painted Snipe that had well and truly gone to ground in the grass and slush, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. And spied these guys totally out in the clear. By the time I could blink, these guys went to ground as well. Meanwhile, the camera did its work.)

(Second encounter, April 30, 2015)

The courtship rituals of Greater Painted Snipes  

With close to three days of (what the Met. Department is calling) pre-Monsoon showers here in Hyderabad, the heat wave that battered most of Telangana (and AP) now seems to be a thing of the past...but while certainly not as beastly, the humidity that the rains (and cloud cover) have brought with them is no less intimidating than the heat.

This relative "cooling down" and humidity is the trigger for a number of bird species which have paired (and probably even mated) to get around to the serious job of parenting and bringing in more birds into the world.

At the Buffalo Wallow, the star couple among these parent birds is a pair of White-throated Kingfishers, who start on a flurry of activity beginning about now.

But this is not their story :-)

While waiting for the Kingfishers, I tried sneaking up on the other star couple -- the Painted Snipes...and surprise, oh surprise, found both of them out in the open (at least by their standards) and gazing at each other in the lovelorn fashion of birds with barely 4-5 feet separating them.

While I waited and waited and went down on my haunches and then onto my knees -- sweating so profusely in reminded me of my hike up to Tungnath -- the birds stayed more or less in the same place, in the same pose, almost as if they were carved of stone.

They did not get down to courting, they did not get intimate. And I couldn't get them both in the same frame. But then, maybe it is early days yet.

After all, what do we know of the courtship rituals of these guys anyway?

Another photo-shoot of two well-behaved young birds

In between seeing the fledgeling Shikras for the first time and the time of writing this post (one day)   as is my wont, I spent a lot of time on the Internet, reading up and researching on my subjects, and it seems (on the basis of some reading material shared by a good friend who is a fellow birder and raptor aficionado) that Shikra fledgelings are more or less totally dependent on their mothers for something like two months!

When I do the math and recollect from my own memory of sightings past of these birds, Juvenile (as opposed to fledgelings) Shikras -- with noticeable barring on the breast and spots on the belly and legs -- seem to make their "first" appearance as the rains are at their fag end, in the first weeks of September.

So there, huh?

But two months does seem such a long period of time, for what look like so capable birds, no?
But then, they have so much to learn -- from their mother and Mother Nature, before they can be skilled hunters worthy of being called the Leopards of the Sky!

Meanwhile, on the basis of what I saw (after yet another long, sweaty and bone-numbing walk) they seem to be doing a good job of growing up and watching the world around while waiting for their mother like well-behaved kittens in the shadows of this protective Neem.

They did sally forth a couple of times, but their flying seemed to be imbued with a sense of wonder rather than the power and grace one would associate with an adult Shikra.

Seeing them fly was both fulfilling and bemusing...I have never seen a Shikra fly so slowly; for a minute I thought I was in the presence of Kestrels trying to hover in a strong crosswind!

(No, I did not even try to make a photograph; somehow I didn't even feel like raising the lens, I was so entranced.)

In between this and other photo-shoots, I spent some time snooping around to see the amount of human footfalls that this area gathers.

Two spotty teenagers with scraggly beards and tattoos were the first. They had come by on a Scooty with what looked like at least 6 bottles of beer, a packet of smokes, some paper plates, etc, etc. Their open air bar was barely 50 metres away from the Neem. I walked over to it and spoke to them at length about littering, Swacch Bharat, the Police, the Indian Army, etc, etc.

I also asked them to go and drink a bit farther, where they would be a bit less noticeable for the Police, the Indian Army, etc, etc.

By now, one of them looked as if he wouldn't notice it if a two headed snake popped up right in front of him and the other seemed genuinely contrite, so I decided I had done enough. Then came along some worthies out for a walk, headed generally in the direction of the Neem. These guys were easy meat. I just brought up the topic of snakes...politely asking them if they had seen any Cobras around.

When it was evident that they weren't exactly thrilled at the prospect of seeing Cobras -- I helpfully suggested that they could go on their walks on the paved roads (and away from the Neem) because Cobras stay away from paved roads.

I waited and waited for them to take the hint, and even turned my back on them...but they walked to the Neem and sat right under it. All this while, when I was indulging in these lies and deception and generally being a badass with both the teenage beer drinkers and the walkers, I was surreptitiously watching the Neem and hoping and praying that the Shikras don't sally out of it.

Luckily they stayed put there, swaying up and down in the breeze, and if I wasn't looking out for them, I wouldn't have seen them.

Two more months...