I've had a hectic start to the new year as far as bird-watching and
travel are concerned. I went on a solo trek to Dayara bugyal in
Uttarakhand in late December, participated in the annual waterfowl
census at the
Pong dam reservoir in
Himachal Pradesh in mid-January, did a lightning weekend trip to the
Chambal river in UP a week
later, and went to Harike in Punjab at the end of the month for another
waterfowl survey.
I've had a great time, of course, and it's been wonderful birding in new
places, but it's also been demanding and tiring. My memories of the time
I spent at Harike are already fragmented, and I don't feel up to writing
another exhaustive report. Instead, here's a selection of the more vivid
moments that I will remember the trip by—not in any particular order,
and with no attempt to fill in the fuzzy grey areas in between.
What happened at Harike?
The survey was organised by the Avian Habitat and Wetland Society in
Chandigarh, with the support of the Punjab Wildlife Department. Nearly
fifty volunteers from different parts of the country had arrived at
Harike by the evening of the 30th. The next two days saw teams going out
to different parts of the sanctuary on foot and in boats to record the
species they saw, and count the waterfowl. Outside the two hour survey
sessions in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon, participants were free to
explore the area on their own.
Harike is an artificial wetland formed by the construction of a dam at
the confluence of the Beas and Satluj rivers in the early 1950s. Like
the much larger Pong dam reservoir some two hundred kilometres upstream
on the Beas river, it offers a variety of habitats (shallow water filled
with vegetation, huge reed-beds, marshes, light forests, sand banks) and
attracts many thousands of waterfowl and other species every winter. Its
location in the north-west passage corridor near Pakistan also makes it
an excellent vagrant trap.
I had visited the Pong dam reservoir just two weeks earlier, and having
a chance to see two such different aspects of the Beas river system was
the highlight of my trip. One noticeable difference was that there were
tens of thousands of Bar-headed Geese, and thousands of Brahminy Ducks
and Greylag Geese at Pong, while Harike was the province of a few
thousand Greylag Geese, a few dozen Brahminy Ducks, and no Bar-headed
Geese at all.
Travel details: I took the 0720 Swarna Shatabdi on the 30th from NDLS to
ASR (Amritsar), as did eleven other participants from Delhi. We were met
at the station and driven some sixty kilometres to the forest rest house
at Harike. I pitched my tent there, while the other participants went to
a hotel nearby. We returned on the evening of the 1st by the 2125 Golden
Temple Mail from ASR to NZM, reaching Delhi early the next morning.
The survey itself
On the first day, I was part of a four-person group assigned to the
Riyasat area, an expanse of shallow, stagnant water between the Beas and
the Satluj (and known to have a large number of Coots and geese, but not
many other waterfowl). We set off in a motorboat from the "nose" (a dock
near the dam) with four boatmen and a forest guard, and made our way to
a small island at the edge of the marshland, where we split up and were
each taken in a rowboat to survey a different section.
The coots were in two large flocks that we could count separately, and
most of the geese were hidden in the tall reeds, so once I got used to
the rocking of the boat, it was easy to keep up with counting the geese
and ducks (including a flock of 37 Ferruginous Pochards) that flew past
us. The soft, clear light that morning, and the interested but low-key
and undemanding company of Lakhbir Singh (the forest guard, who was in
my boat) and Amar Singh (the boatman) made it easy to enjoy the next
couple of hours of relative solitude. On the way back, I discovered that
rowing through a tangled bed of Water Hyacinth is really difficult.
The next morning, my group—Sarabjeet and Rima from Chandigarh, Vinay Das
from Bangalore, Saurabh Sawant from Bombay, and myself, accompanied once
again by Lakhbir Singh—were supposed to take the motorboat out into the
main lake, where the largest numbers of waterfowl were, and split up to
cover individual areas in rowboats. But the survey methodology we were
told to follow was sabotaged by the fact that the birds—many thousands
of coots and huge mixed flocks of ducks—were all concentrated into a
single dense stripe in one third of our survey area.
We stayed with the motorboat, and because a total count was impossible
in the circumstances (distance, rocking boat, lots of movement in the
flocks), we sampled parts of the flock from various locations to arrive
at an estimate of 18000 birds in total in our large section of the lake.
Pity we couldn't just take an aerial photograph and analyse it later.
(Sadly, I noticed that many people who had volunteered to help with the
survey treated the entire exercise as little more than a free vacation.
I thought this was a gross abuse of the forest department's hospitality
and the organisers' efforts, especially since generous arrangements had
been made for non-survey birding the whole time. I hope this situation
can be improved in future by better communication about the methodology
of the survey. I noticed the same thing at Pong dam, so I guess this is
a problem every volunteer-driven survey needs to address in some way.)
Update (2010-02-16): The above passage was creatively distorted
by an unscrupulous and incompetent journalist to try and make the case
that the survey was a waste of time.
Read all about it!
Beware the Rufous-vented Quicksand Warbler
One of the birds Harike is best known for is the Rufous-vented Prinia
Prinia burnesii, an inhabitant of the Saccharum spontaneum
(Sarkanda/Sarkhan) reed beds in the Indus valley and surrounding areas.
It is a large, grey Prinia with a long, ragged tail, a rich rufous vent,
and a
loud,
musical song; and it was, until recently, considered to be the same
species as the slightly smaller and less warmly-coloured Swamp Prinia
Prinia cinerascens of north-east India.
Saurabh (another person I had corresponded with, and was meeting for the
first time) had a recording of the Swamp Prinia's song, which brought an
instant response from more than one bird in the reeds by the Nose. Later
that day, I saw one bird diving into a clump of elephant grass from the
rowboat at Riyasat, but since that was during the count, I wasn't able
to wait to see it again.
After the morning session, I found Saurabh sitting by the same patch of
reeds, having just seen the Prinia at close range after playing back its
song. I went down to a muddy little clearing where I could hear it still
singing loudly, and waited for it to emerge. But despite my patience, I
caught only a brief glimpse as the bird scurried across from one clump
of reeds to the next, and then it was gone.
When I was sure it wouldn't come back, I turned around… and fell over. I
hadn't noticed that I was slowly sinking into the bog as I waited. Oops.
Still crazy after all these ears
One of the forest guards had reported "an owl with long ears" on the
bank of the Beas, a long way upstream. Somewhere along the way, that
became a sighting of the Long-eared Owl Asio otus, and had
everyone looking forward to seeing that extremely unusual species.
I heard that the bird was roosting in a burrow near some cliffs, and it
could be seen easily from a boat. I was surprised by the habitat when we
got there—it was a patch of broken hillocks and scrubby ravines, nothing
like the tall grass or dense-leaved trees that the Short-eared Owl (the
only other Asio owl I was familiar with) prefers. (Aside: I have
since learned that both species hunt over open grasslands, but that the
Long-eared is a bird of dense forests, while the Short-eared roosts and
breeds on the ground. Either way, this habitat was very different.)
I discovered after reaching the site that the owls were not, in fact,
visible from the boat. We had to go ashore and look for them, and after
walking around without much hope for a while, I looked up to see a large
owl in flight just ahead. I noticed that it was very orange below, which
fit Long-eared, and that its underwing was curiously buzzard-like, with
a dark trailing edge, pale primary patch, and rufous underwing coverts.
Vinita, who found the bird on the ground, had managed slightly fuzzy
flight photographs which confirmed my observations.
Someone flushed the owl again after it was lost to view, and we saw two
owls flying away in different directions, trying to escape a growing mob
of crows that were pecking at their head and wings. With Ramit Singal's
recent report of a Short-eared Owl being killed by crows at Okhla fresh
in my mind, I realised that we were leading the crows to the owls every
time we found them, and forcing them to seek another refuge. A number of
people still wanted to find and photograph the birds, but I was able to
convince everyone to return to the boat—the fading light perhaps working
in my favour. Four boat-loads of people in one day is probably quite
enough for any owl, no matter how long its ears.
I didn't realise it then, but the owls were much too big to be anything
but Eagle Owls. I had never seen either the Long-eared Owl or any Eagle
Owl before, however, and the first boat-load of people had managed much
better views of these birds than I had, so I went along with the general
consensus of Long-eared Owl. But Devashish's
excellent
photo of the bird perched against the cliff-face made it obvious
that it was a Rock Eagle Owl Bubo bengalensis. If any further
confirmation were needed, the underwing pattern I saw also rules out
Long-eared (but my field guide doesn't describe the wing pattern for
either species, so I had to wait until I reached home before I could
confirm this).
The irony is that, had the owls been correctly identified from the
start, not nearly as many people would have been interested in them.
An interlude in the ravines
While I was walking around looking for the "Long-eared" owl, I was
distracted by a small brown bird that flew across my path, perhaps five
metres ahead of me, and disappeared behind an outcropping of rock. I
thought it might be a wheatear, and I crept up to and around the rock,
coming face-to-face with a Long-billed Pipit barely three metres away in
a small gully. It was looking straight at me and crouched down, ready to
take flight. I stood still, and a few seconds later, after a questioning
chirp, it decided to ignore me and continue searching for food in the
gravel.
As it moved around, I saw it closely from every angle. It was in fresh,
adult plumage—so unlike the worn, dusty-looking birds I'm familiar with
from Sultanpur. I was close enough to count the fine pin-stripes on its
pink-flushed breast, and the faint streaking on its grey back. I saw the
facial pattern, with fine dark lores and a plain brown cheek; and the
long, heavy bill with pale-based lower mandible and dark upper mandible
with a curved culmen. I followed it around quietly and saw how it moved,
as it continued to pretend I wasn't there.
Eventually, the pipit flew away and I climbed out of the gully—only to
see the owl in flight moments later. But I really wouldn't have minded
spending five more minutes with the very accommodating pipit instead.
The natives are friendly!
The second morning of the survey was more foggy than the first, so we
had a couple of hours to kill before we could go out onto the lake in
boats. We drove to a likely patch of reeds, and I tried to imitate the
clicking of a Moustached Warbler—and got an immediate response (but the
bird chose to scurry away rather than come closer). At another patch of
reeds a few minutes later, two lovely Paddyfield Warblers in fresh, rich
brown plumage popped up in response to my hopeful call, and chattered
pleasantly at us before diving back into the tangle of leaves.
Where have all the Mallards gone?
When the second morning's count was done, we took the motorboat back to
the Nose, taking advantage of the light to watch some more waterfowl on
the way. (Most of the birds we saw were the ones we had counted already,
but we saw a Ferruginous Pochard, a Black-necked Grebe, and many Caspian
Gulls on the way, while passing through areas assigned to other groups.)
I was puzzled when the boat slowed down halfway through our journey. But
we were lucky to have Malkiyat Singh, the resident expert on Harike, as
our pilot; and knew exactly what he was doing. He cut the engines to a
soft purr, and we inched along for several minutes, rounded the corner
of a reed-filled island, and… were right in front of a flock of about
fifty Mallards.
They all took flight immediately, of course, but those green heads
gleaming in the sun for a few moments made my day like nothing else
could.
Stalking the Red-faced Pipit
Feeling very brave, Saurabh and I crawled under a wire fence to walk in
a promising patch of plantation forest. It was mid-afternoon, and quite
sleepy, but we saw a small flock of birds shooting up from the ground
into the lower branches of the trees surrounding a clearing. One bird
stayed on a convenient branch, and we both got a good look at it.
It looked like an Olive-backed Pipit—with the right proportions, streaks
above and below, a white belly, and a white spot on the ear coverts—but
its face and throat were quite distinctly pinkish. It flew away, with a
rapid tseep tseep tseep call, just as we started thinking about a
possible Red-throated Pipit. We both saw the white "teardrop", however,
and I noted that the supercilium was white behind the eye. I think that
combination is enough to rule out Red-throated. (The call also matched
my experience with Olive-backed, though I had to wait until I returned
home to learn that Red-throated has a more plaintive, slower call.)
I had seen some (not quite as) pink-faced individuals in a flock of
Olive-backed Pipits last year in an agricultural field in UP, much
further east, so I was happy to put this bird down as Olive-backed.
Saurabh agreed that, apart from the face, the bird strongly suggested
Olive-backed in appearance and behaviour, but he was more reluctant to
rule out Red-throated. Unfortunately, we never did see that bird again,
despite waiting for a while, and returning to the area later. (The flock
did stay in the same general area, however, and I did get a look at some
other birds a short while later. They were quite obviously Olive-backed,
with no traces of pink. Someone else also saw one of the birds pumping
its tail in typical Olive-backed fashion, though I can't find anything
to confirm that Red-throated does not do the same thing.)
Since then, I have read that Red-throated Pipits were considered regular
winter visitors to Harike not too long ago. I still think this bird was
an Olive-backed Pipit (although perhaps a very embarrassed one), but I
know I'll spend a lot more time looking at pipits on my next visit.
What do Penduline Tits eat?
Another scarce winter visitor that is a regular at Harike is the
White-crowned Penduline Tit Remiz coronatus. Up to twenty birds
had been sighted in the same patch of forest in the days leading up to
the survey, and I was looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with
the species, after seeing a small flock that had strayed unusually far
east to Okhla a few years ago.
I was watching a Graceful Prinia play hide-and-seek amongst some reeds
when I heard an unfamiliar plaintive, high-pitched seeeeuu call.
I had never heard penduline tits calling before, but I'd glanced at the
descriptions in my field guide, and something about this sound caught my
attention. I looked up and saw five small birds in a dry, leafless tree
nearby—obviously the ones Saurabh and I had been hoping to find. Once I
got over being pleased with myself, I noticed that the tits had bright
chestnut backs, something I'd missed entirely at Okhla because I was
almost directly underneath them.
The flock, by then slightly larger, was not at all shy, and I watched
them moving about and feeding in the brush-like tree for a long while. I
noticed them pecking at nodes on the branches, and wondered if they were
feeding on insects or on plant matter. Later, I saw them pecking at—and
in between—the broad, round leaves of another tree. We couldn't identify
the trees involved, but Rima and I found that neither tree had any green
buds or sap to speak of, but they did have spider webs and tiny
insects—in fact, I found a nutritious-looking caterpillar hiding between
two leaves stuck together (whether by itself or by its parents, we could
not tell).
Of course, the very sharp, pointed beak is further evidence that the
penduline tit is not a seed-eater.
Sand Larks and spot lighting
The Tamarisk scrub in the sandy area downstream of the Satluj dam is a
known roosting site for Sykes's Nightjar. I'd never been out hunting for
Nightjars, so I was happy to join a group of people who wanted to borrow
the spotlight after dinner and look for reflecting eyes in the dark. We
drove around for a while before walking along the river-bed, sweeping
the light back and forth every now and then, and seeing nothing but
bushes.
After trudging through the fine grey sand for an hour or so, we turned
back in consideration of the 2230 curfew at the GK hotel where a number
of people were staying. I continued to sweep the searchlight around the
base of bushes as we passed, and suddenly I saw a small bird fly up and
float to the ground a few metres away. I juggled my binoculars and the
light for a while, and found that we had woken up a very confused Sand
Lark. The photographers, full of pent-up energy, leaped into action and
spent several minutes crawling up to and photographing the bird, which
sat motionless, relying on its superb camouflage. I've rarely seen such
good photographs of a Sand Lark taken during the day.
I heard a soft chuk chuk call as we walked past a wheat field on
our way back to the jeep. It matched my field guide's description of the
flushing call of a Sykes's Nightjar, but it was—of course—not repeated,
and I saw nothing at all. (Does Sykes's Nightjar clatter its wings when
flushed, like the Eurasian Nightjar? Or is that a display behaviour?) In
retrospect, searching for a nocturnal bird roosting on the ground at
night may not have been the best idea—but that didn't stop us from
trying again earlier in the evening the next day. Once again, we saw
only a few Sand Larks in the spotlight.
An aside: the spotlight had a little LCD screen that said "Sat Sri Akal"
when it was switched on… excuse me, activated. It was much too
sophisticated to have an on/off switch, and instead featured a variety
of programmable modes and a button to cycle through them. But the fact
most relevant to this story is that the thing was bloody heavy.
Guess who volunteered to carry it around?
Species list
Here's a complete list of the species I saw at Harike.
- Grey Francolin Francolinus pondicerianus
- Greylag Goose Anser anser
- Ruddy Shelduck Tadorna ferruginea
- Gadwall Anas strepera
- Eurasian Wigeon Anas penelope
- Mallard Anas platyrhynchos
- Spot-billed Duck Anas poecilorhyncha
- Northern Shoveler Anas clypeata
- Northern Pintail Anas acuta
- Common Teal Anas crecca
- Red-crested Pochard Rhodonessa rufina
- Common Pochard Aythya ferina
- Ferruginous Pochard Aythya nyroca
- Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula
- Black-rumped Flameback Dinopium benghalense
- Indian Roller Coracias benghalensis
- White-throated Kingfisher Halcyon smyrnensis
- Pied Kingfisher Ceryle rudis
- Greater Coucal Centropus sinensis
- Alexandrine Parakeet Psittacula eupatria
- Rose-ringed Parakeet Psittacula krameri
- Rock Eagle Owl Bubo bengalensis
- Spotted Owlet Athene brama
- Rock Pigeon Columba livia
- Laughing Dove Streptopelia senegalensis
- Eurasian Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto
- White-breasted Waterhen Amaurornis phoenicurus
- Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphyrio
- Common Moorhen Gallinula chloropus
- Common Coot Fulica atra
- Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa
- Common Redshank Tringa totanus
- Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnatilis
- Common Greenshank Tringa nebularia
- Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus
- Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola
- Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos
- Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus
- Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus
- Red-wattled Lapwing Vanellus indicus
- White-tailed Lapwing Vanellus leucurus
- Yellow-legged Gull Larus cachinnans
- Pallas's Gull Larus ichthyaetus
- Brown-headed Gull Larus brunnicephalus
- Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus
- Gull-billed Tern Gelochelidon nilotica
- River Tern Sterna aurantia
- Whiskered Tern Chlidonias hybridus
- Black-shouldered Kite Elanus caeruleus
- Black Kite Milvus migrans
- Eurasian Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosus
- Shikra Accipiter badius
- Little Grebe Tachybaptus ruficollis
- Black-necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis
- Darter Anhinga melanogaster
- Little Cormorant Phalacrocorax niger
- Indian Cormorant Phalacrocorax fuscicollis
- Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo
- Little Egret Egretta garzetta
- Grey Heron Ardea cinerea
- Purple Heron Ardea purpurea
- Great Egret Casmerodius albus
- Intermediate Egret Mesophoyx intermedia
- Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis
- Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii
- Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus
- Black-headed Ibis Threskiornis melanocephalus
- Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala
- Asian Openbill Anastomus oscitans
- Long-tailed Shrike Lanius schach
- Rufous Treepie Dendrocitta vagabunda
- House Crow Corvus splendens
- Long-tailed Minivet Pericrocotus ethologus
- Black Drongo Dicrurus macrocercus
- Red-throated Flycatcher Ficedula albicilla
- Indian Robin Saxicoloides fulicata
- Black Redstart Phoenicurus ochruros
- Siberian Stonechat Saxicola torquata
- White-tailed Stonechat Saxicola leucura
- Common Starling Sturnus vulgaris
- Asian Pied Starling Sturnus contra
- Common Myna Acridotheres tristis
- Bank Myna Acridotheres ginginianus
- White-crowned Penduline Tit Remiz coronatus
- Plain Martin Riparia paludicola
- White-eared Bulbul Pycnonotus leucotis
- Red-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus cafer
- Rufous-vented Prinia Prinia burnesii
- Graceful Prinia Prinia gracilis
- Yellow-bellied Prinia Prinia flaviventris
- Ashy Prinia Prinia socialis
- Moustached Warbler Acrocephalus melanopogon
- Paddyfield Warbler Acrocephalus agricola
- Booted Warbler Hippolais caligata
- Common Tailorbird Orthotomus sutorius
- Common Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita
- Hume's Warbler Phylloscopus humei
- Striated Grassbird Megalurus palustris
- Common Babbler Turdoides caudatus
- Striated Babbler Turdoides earlei
- Jungle Babbler Turdoides striatus
- Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca
- Sand Lark Calandrella raytal
- House Sparrow Passer domesticus
- White Wagtail Motacilla alba
- Citrine Wagtail Motacilla citreola
- Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava
- Long-billed Pipit Anthus similis
- Olive-backed Pipit Anthus hodgsoni
- Baya Weaver Ploceus philippinus
By some strange coincidence, this is the same number of species that I
saw at Pong dam two weeks
earlier. In both lists, I recorded mostly whatever birds I saw during
the survey, and didn't spend much time looking in other habitats for
different species. In all, however, over 150 species were recorded
during the survey.
How many species have you seen so far?
someone at Harike
asked me. I didn't know. I've never been diligent about maintaining my
life list—though I did create one at some point—and this trip made me
realise that I'm not very interested in the tally. On the other hand, I
try to be careful about keeping lists for each site of the species I've
seen there. Perhaps I'll aim not to see as many species as I can, but to
see more than a hundred species at as many places as I can. :-)
Harike is, of course, not the sort of place one can see enough of in two
days. I look forward to visiting again, and I hope I won't have to wait
too long for another opportunity.