Part 1

Produced by Ron Swanson

BY THE SAME AUTHOR ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE THE INDIAN CROW: HIS BOOK BOMBAY DUCKS BIRDS OF THE PLAINS INDIAN BIRDS JUNGLE FOLK GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS BIRDS OF THE INDIAN HILLS

IN COLLABORATION WITH FRANK FINN THE MAKING OF SPECIES

A BIRD CALENDAR FOR NORTHERN INDIA

BY DOUGLAS DEWAR

LONDON: W. THACKER & CO., CREED LANE, E.C. CALCUTTA AND SIMLA: THACKER, SPINK & CO. 1916

WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND.

I am indebted to the editor of The Pioneer for permission to republish the sketches that form this calendar, and to Mr. A. J. Currie for placing at my disposal his unpublished notes on the birds of the Punjab.

Full descriptions of all the Indian birds of which the doings are chronicled in this calendar are to be found in the four volumes of the Fauna of British India devoted to birds; popular descriptions of the majority are given in my Indian Birds.

D. D.

HARROW, January 1916.

CONTENTS PAGE JANUARY . . . . . . 1 FEBRUARY . . . . . 18 MARCH . . . . . . . 33 APRIL . . . . . . . 61 MAY . . . . . . . . 79 JUNE . . . . . . . 103 JULY . . . . . . . 116 AUGUST . . . . . . 136 SEPTEMBER . . . . . 152 OCTOBER . . . . . . 165 NOVEMBER . . . . . 178 DECEMBER . . . . . 189 GLOSSARY . . . . . 199 INDEX . . . . . . . 201

JANUARY

Up--let us to the fields away, And breathe the fresh and balmy air. MARY HOWITT.

Take nine-and-twenty sunny, bracing English May days, steal from March as many still, starry nights, to these add two rainy mornings and evenings, and the product will resemble a typical Indian January. This is the coolest month in the year, a month when the climate is invigorating and the sunshine temperate. But even in January the sun's rays have sufficient power to cause the thermometer to register 70 degrees in the shade at noon, save on an occasional cloudy day.

Sunset is marked by a sudden fall of temperature. The village smoke then hangs a few feet above the earth like a blue-grey diaphanous cloud.

The cold increases throughout the hours of darkness. In the Punjab hoar-frosts form daily; and in the milder United Provinces the temperature often falls sufficiently to allow of the formation of thin sheets of ice. Towards dawn mists collect which are not dispersed until the sun has shone upon them for several hours. The vultures await the dissipation of these vapours before they ascend to the upper air, there to soar on outstretched wings and scan the earth for food.

On New Year's Day the wheat, the barley, the gram, and the other Spring crops are well above the ground, and, ere January has given place to February, the emerald shoots of the corn attain a height of fully sixteen inches. On these the geese levy toll.

Light showers usually fall in January. These are very welcome to the agriculturalist because they impart vigour to the young crops. In the seasons when the earth is not blessed with the refreshing winter rain men and oxen are kept busy irrigating the fields. The cutting and the pressing of the sugar-cane employ thousands of husbandmen and their cattle. In almost every village little sugar-cane presses are being worked by oxen from sunrise to sunset. At night-time the country-side is illumined by the flames of the megas burned by the rustic sugar-boilers.

January is the month in which the avian population attains its maximum. Geese, ducks, teal, pelicans, cormorants, snake-birds and ospreys abound in the rivers and jhils; the marshes and swamps are the resort of millions of snipe and other waders; the fields and groves swarm with flycatchers, chats, starlings, warblers, finches, birds of prey and the other migrants which in winter visit the plains from the Himalayas and the country beyond.

The bracing climate of the Punjab attracts some cold-loving species for which the milder United Provinces have no charms. Conspicuous among these are rooks, ravens and jackdaws. On the other hand, frosts drive away from the Land of the Five Rivers certain of the feathered folk which do not leave the United Provinces or Bengal: to wit, the purple sunbird, the bee-eater and, to a large extent, the king-crow.

The activity of the feathered folk is not at its height in January. Birds are warm-blooded creatures and they love not the cold. Comparatively few of them are in song, and still fewer nest, at this season.

Song and sound are expressions of energy. Birds have more vitality, more life in them than has any other class of organism. They are, therefore, the most noisy of beings.

Many of the calls of birds are purposeful, being used to express pleasure or anger, or to apprise members of a flock of one another's presence. Others appear to serve no useful end. These are simply the outpourings of superfluous energy, the expressions of the supreme happiness that perfect health engenders. Since the vigour of birds is greatest at the nesting season, it follows that that is the time when they are most vociferous. Some birds sing only at the breeding season, while others emit their cries at all times. Hence the avian choir in India, as in all other countries, is composed of two sets of vocalists--those who perform throughout the year, "the musicians of all times and places," and those who join the chorus only for a few weeks or months. The calls of the former class go far to create for India its characteristic atmosphere. To enumerate all such bird calls would be wearisome. For the purposes of this calendar it is necessary to describe only the common daily cries--the sounds that at all times and all seasons form the basis of the avian chorus.

From early dawn till nightfall the welkin rings with the harsh caw of the house-crow, the deeper note of the black crow or corby, the tinkling music of the bulbuls, the cheery keky, keky, kek, kek ... chur, chur, kok, kok, kok of the myna, the monotonous cuckoo-coo-coo of the spotted dove (Turtur suratensis), the soft subdued cuk-cuk-coo-coo-coo of the little brown dove (T. cambayensis), the mechanical ku-ku--ku of the ring-dove (T. risorius), the loud penetrating shrieks of the green parrot, the trumpet-like calls of the saras crane, the high-pitched did-he-do-it of the red-wattled lapwing, the wailing trill chee-hee-hee-hee hee--hee of the kite, the hard grating notes and the metallic coch-lee, coch-lee of the tree-pie; the sharp towee, towee, towee of the tailor-bird, the soft melodious cheeping calls of the flocks of little white-eyes, the chit, chit, chitter of the sparrow, the screaming cries of the golden-backed woodpecker, the screams and the trills of the white-breasted kingfisher, the curious harsh clamour of the cuckoo-shrike, and, last but by no means least, the sweet and cheerful whistling refrain of the fan-tail flycatcher, which at frequent intervals emanates from a tree in the garden or the mango tope. Nor is the bird choir altogether hushed during the hours of darkness. Throughout the year, more especially on moonlit nights, the shrieking kucha, kwachee, kwachee, kwachee, kwachee of the little spotted owlet disturbs the silences of the moon. Few nights pass on which the dusky horned owl fails to utter his grunting hoot, or the jungle owlet to emit his curious but not unpleasant turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, tukatu, chatuckatuckatuck.

The above are the commonest of the bird calls heard throughout the year. They form the basis of the avian melody in India. This melody is reinforced from time to time by the songs of those birds that may be termed the seasonal choristers. It is the presence or absence of the voices of these latter which imparts distinctive features to the minstrelsy of every month of the year.

In January the sprightly little metallic purple sunbird pours forth, from almost every tree or bush, his powerful song, which, were it a little less sharp, might easily be mistaken for that of a canary.

From every mango tope emanates a loud "Think of me ... Never to be." This is the call of the grey-headed flycatcher (Culicicapa ceylonensis), a bird that visits the plains of northern India every winter. In summer it retires to the Himalayas for nesting purposes. Still more melodious is the call of the wood-shrike, which is frequently heard at this season, and indeed during the greater part of the year.