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?

A Snakebird taking to the skies

What does it mean to be a bird? What does it mean, to be able to fly; to be of this world (when perched on it) -- the terrestrial range of hooves, paws, feet and other rooted things -- and also intimately know the realms of another?

Mankind can only imagine, and fail. Because for all our imagination, we are a species totally lacking in bird sense. And, (even if I say so, strictly in passing), a species utterly incapable of piloting away from the traps that we, in our so-called evolution, have set for ourself -- development, consumerism and greed. 

But then, I digress. This isn't about man, anyway.

What does it mean, to be a bird of the water? What does it mean, to be able to lord it over another realm that is not exactly terrestrial, to be able to dive and scythe through the water, with a fluidity and grace akin to someone born to it?

If I could talk in the language of the birds, and had to pose these questions to any one of them, it would have to be to the Snakebird. For this is one bird that rules both of its realms with supreme elan -- a powerful flier capable of really long hauls (unlike Cormorants, Snakebirds don't really "colonise" a particular lake / pond, and are relatively footloose), it can also prowl the waters with the silent menace (and relative invisibility) of a submarine.

All that is visible (that too, if you have a really keen eye) is that slender neck, gliding through the water snake-like, as the bird darts this way and that -- reading the scripts of bubbles and fish-tails on the surface of the water, and readying for another dive.

And then, it will disappear. Most often than not, to come up with a smallish fish -- already impaled and half-dead, in its bill. Then, with the nonchalance of a master conjurer, that snake-like neck comes into play again, as the fish is tossed up, to be gobbled down head first.

Seen here as it is about to take off -- in a welter of water drops -- the Snakebird is a bird neither of water, nor of air; and also, Janus-like, for this one captured instance, one of both.

There are two stories being told here; the immensity of that wingspread can only mean a mastery of the skies. And, of what happens below the waters, we can (again with the limited grasp and imagination of our kind) make a guess.

With that powerful neck cutting through the murky depths like a boat's prow, propelled (among other things) by the working of that tail -- what chance does a fish stand?