Cattle Egret

The Cattle Egret (Bubulcus Ibis and Unni Kokku = Tamil) is a species of Heron found in the tropics, subtropics and warm temperate zones and is seen throughout Tiruvannamalai. In non breeding birds its pure white plummage is distinguished from the Little Egret by the colour of its bill which is yellow not black. The Cattle Egret is white and adorned with buff plumes in the breeding season. 

Cattle Egret, notice the yellow bill

Its wingspan is around 22 in and the bird weights up to 18 oz. It has a short, thick neck, sturdy bill and hunched posture. The positioning of the egret's eyes allows for binocular vision during feeding and it may be capable of nocturnal activity.

Cattle Egret with retracted neck

Cattle Egrets exploit drier and open habitats more than other Heron species. Although the Cattle Egret sometimes feeds in shallow water, unlike most herons it is typically found in fields and dry grassy habitats, reflecting its greater dietary reliance on terrestrial insects rather than aquatic prey. This bird often accompanies cattle, catching insects and small creatures such as frogs disturbed by its attendant cow. 

Arunachala Field with Cow and Egret

The Cattle Egret adapted to a relationship with large browsing animals, but was easily able to switch to domesticated cattle and horses. When foraging with cattle, it has been shown to be 3.6 times more successful in capturing prey than when foraging alone. Its performance is similar when it follows farm machinery, but it is forced to move more. In urban situations cattle egrets have also been observed foraging in peculiar situations like railway lines 

Egret and Grazing Cow

Egret with Grazing Horse

This species gives a quiet, throaty rick-rack call at the breeding colony, but is otherwise largely silent. Its nesting season in South India is around November to March. It often nests in mixed colonies in large leafy trees, not necessarily near water. The male displays in a tree in the colony, using such behaviour as shaking a twig and pointing into the sky with a vertically upward bill. 

Male with material for nest

Its nest is a platform of sticks in trees or shrubs and is constructed by both parents with the male collecting sticks and the female arranging them. 

Nests in large colonies of mixed birds

The clutch size can be anywhere from one to five eggs, although three or four is most common. Eggs are pale bluish-white. 

Abnormally large clutch of Egret eggs

Cattle Egret in Breeding Plummage

Incubation lasts around 23 days, with both sexes sharing incubation duties. The chicks begin to leave the nest and climb around at 2 weeks, fledges at 30 days and become independent at around the 45th day. 

Bird in Breeding Plummage with chicks

House Sparrow

The Indian House Sparrow (Passer Domesticus Indicus) belongs to the Passeridae family and is common in urban areas and human settlements. They are small passerines with short and heavy bills and strong legs, who hop to move about on the ground. They do not possess a true song and instead communicate with chirps. The female is dull and pale in comparison to the male. 

This bird, which is the most common avian in India, is known as Adaikalang Kuruvi in Tamil. Its size is the same as the Bulbul.

Male of species

The plumage of the House Sparrow is mostly different shades of grey and brown. The female is mostly buff above and below, while the male has boldly coloured head markings, a reddish back, and grey underparts. The male also has a dark grey crown from the top of its bill to its back, and chestnut brown flanking its crown on the sides of its head. The female has no black markings or grey crown. Its upperparts and head are brown with darker streaks around the mantle and a distinct pale supercilium. Its underparts are pale grey-brown. The female's bill is brownish-grey, and becomes darker in breeding plumage, approaching the black of the male's bill. 

Male House Sparrow

This bird is very social. It is gregarious at all seasons when feeding, often forming flocks with other types of bird. It roosts communally, and its nests are usually grouped together in clumps, and it engages in social activities such as dust and water bathing, and "social singing", in which birds call together in bushes. 

Birds taking a communal bath

Nesting season lasts practically throughout the year. With the most favoured months varying with locality. Its nest is a collection of straw, rubbish and feathers in a hole in ceiling, niche in a wall, an inverted lamp shade—and every conceivable site, within or without any occupied building. Its clutch usually ranges from 3 to 5 eggs, that are pale greenish white stippled and blotched with brown. Several successive broods are often raised. 

Large clutch of 7 eggs

The House Sparrow is monogamous with both the male and female helping in nesting activities, which are normally found in small crevices of traditional Indian homes, ground, banks and sometimes in trees. 

Female with different markings feeding young

The House Sparrow is believed to have been closely associated with people for around 10,000 years. This bird is inseparable from human habitations. It is a confirmed hanger-on with man, in hills and plains alike, whether in a bustling noisy city or outlying forest hamlet.

It is an omnivore and its food is comprised of; grain, insects, fruit buds, flower nectar and kitchen scraps. This bird sometimes collects in enormous flocks and does damage to ripening crops and in market gardens. In common with many other birds, the House Sparrow requires grit to digest the hard seeds it eats. Grit can be either stone, often grains of masonry, or the shells of eggs or snails; oblong and rough grains are preferred. 

Juvenile with pink bill and nestling gape—the soft, swollen base becomes harder and less swollen as the bird matures

Below is an eloquent narrative on the House Sparrow by Baljit Singh which originally appeared at this link here. 

The House Sparrow 

“A bit of cereal, the right kind of garden hedge or even just a nesting box are all that it will take to protect a bird that lives alongside humans but is fast disappearing. 

In the midst of much informed and universal concern about the future of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus), one of man’s oldest living commensals, there is a ray of hope yet. For, returning home on the first sun-drenched mid-morning of January 2013, I experienced the heart-stopping moment of seeing 23 house sparrows, basking in the warmth of the sun! Given a conducive habitat, all other side effects of modern day life-styles notwithstanding, the house sparrow should be the last of all to wander off the living planet. 

The house sparrow is a sober-looking bird with a ubiquitous spread — from Leh in the North to Cape Comorin in the South and from the Somnath Temple in the West to the Camorta Island in the East. With that kind of a presence, we should be able to spot them anywhere. Ornithologist Salim Ali had labelled them as “man’s hanger-on” for they are known to enter homes nonchalantly, chattering non-stop as they set about arranging their personal living comfort by adding heaps of straw to any potential nest-site, quite unmindful of the householder’s presence. 

New lifestyles to blame 

But today, most Indians would perhaps know this bird only through photographs. Not even two out of 10 may be able to lay claim to having seen the bird in the outdoors. So why do so few of us encounter the bird despite its worldwide spread? As the bird lives only among humans, it’s not about disappearing forests, but about the pollution around us, including from communication towers, the use of steel and glass in our buildings that has reduced the availability of nesting sites and food, and, where there are gardens, the partiality for exotic rather than indigenous vegetation. 

This shift to new lifestyles, even in rural communities, is at severe conflict with the house sparrow’s basic existential needs. In China, the house sparrow was exterminated by about the end of the 1960s after being declared the number one crop pest. On the other hand, that very “pest number one” became the angel of progress in America and Australia where it was not native but consciously introduced for pest control in agriculture, to cut down the reliance on chemical alternatives. With time, the house sparrow came to be equivocally feted in both continents. Today, the bird figures high in their avian literature and is much cherished. 

Coming back to the large number of resident house sparrows at our home in Chandigarh, there are two contributing factors. One is that my wife has always spread abundant food on the rooftop, every morning. Coupled with that is the availability of secure roosting and nesting niches by way of thick, tall hedges on two sides of the house. Of course, there is natural predation of fledglings by crows and by an odd Shikra (a hawk sub-species) but the house sparrow is a sturdy breeder raising three broods of two to five chicks, thrice each year. So the population does not merely “hold” at the optimum survival figure for the given area at our home but also feeds the neighbourhood. As simple as that! 

No description of the bird will be complete without a mention of the strong streak of tenacity in its character. And here I can do no better than quote the master, Edward Hamilton Aitken (born in Satara, Maharashtra, in the mid-19th century to Scottish parents) from his book “Common Birds of Bombay” (1900): “And when a Sparrow makes up its mind nothing will unmake it except the annihilation of that Sparrow. Its faithful spouse is always, and very strongly, of the same mind. So they set to work to make a hole in the corner of the ceiling-cloth and they tear and tug with an energy which leaves no room for failure. Then they begin to fetch hay and the quantities which a couple will carry in a day is miraculous…. I declare solemnly that you might have fed a horse on the hay which I removed daily as most of it tumbled down….” 

Much like most bird species the house sparrow is highly adaptable. Even though its traditional wilderness has been usurped and its living niche inside man’s once mud-and-thatch dwelling replaced with glass and concrete, the house sparrow could well be the last on this living-planet if mankind were to spare just one hundredth of its cereal intake for the bird and make space for it around homes, where possible by planting indigenous hedges, and if there is no garden, by simply providing a nesting box. That’s not too much to ask.” 

[Baljit Singh]

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There seem to be an equal number of friends and foes to the House Sparrow. Some see the birds' value in ecology as a natural answer to pest reduction, and others, more so in the Western World, view them as pests to be eliminated. For those "friends" to the House Sparrow, here is a nice link about how to purchase and order small, inexpensive homes for the House Sparrow. 

Ways to deal with Bully Birds

Bully birds include Crows, Blackbirds, Pigeons, Starlings, Mynahs and House Sparrows. These hungry avians are often attracted to a yard by cheap wild birdseed mix or suet that's made available on the ground or in easy-access feeders. 

Bully birds are a nuisance, but you can take some simple steps to prevent the larger birds from dominating feeders—thus allowing less aggressive birds to get close and feed. Here’s how: 

1. Modern Feeders: As bully birds are generally larger than most of the more “desirable” feeder birds, look for a rubber-coated mesh that surrounds traditional tube, suet and tray feeders. It allows smaller birds to pass through and enter the feeding chamber. Bullies such as Blackbirds, Pigeons, Crows and Mynahs can’t squeeze through. 

The photographs in this posting are of different styles of Bird Feeders readily available, if not at local shops here at Tiruvannamalai, then easily ordered and purchased online.

Squirrel proof baffler

2. Take cover: Many bully birds are known for their love of suet cakes, and it is not unusual for them to eat a whole cake in a single day. To prevent them taking advantage, hang suet feeder under a domed squirrel baffle or buy a Starling-proof suet feeder, which allows birds access to food only from beneath the feeder. Starlings are reluctant to go under any sort of cover. 

Impossible for larger birds to perch at

3. Catch seeds: Many find that foiling bullies at feeders isn’t quite enough because they often eat the food that the other birds drop on the ground. To solve this problem, place a large container under a hanging feeder. Bully birds are unlikely to fly into the container to get discarded seed. 

Keeps all the Crows and Blackbirds at bay

4. Be selective: Selective feeding is another way to control the kinds of birds that eat at your feeders. Generally, bully birds prefer bread, corn millet, wheat and sunflower seeds and do not like safflower or nyjer (thistle) seeds. By offering just selective seeds—and not wild bird seed mixes—only smaller less aggressive birds will come to the feeders to eat. 

If you feel tube feeders with with only nyjer seed (thistle) and safflower seeds in hopper or tray feeders, such birds as Crows and Blackbirds will generally look elsewhere for the foods they like. 

Suet Cake Feeder

Another type of suet feeder uninviting to large bully birds

5. Aid acrobats: Bully species usually require a perch to hold onto while eating, but most finches and many other small feeder birds can eat without perching at food ports. Finches can cling to the sides of a tube feeder and eat all day long. Bullies can’t. Some commercial tube feeders have perches above the food ports, where the birds have to stretch downward to feed—something that bully birds can’t do either. 

Nice Baffler bird feeder

6. Use bottles: Thwart suet-eating bullies at a cage like feeder by inserting a long perch that extends out both sides, placing a small soda bottle over each end. When a bully lands on a soda bottle, the weighty visitor rolls off the perch. Smaller birds are too light to roll off the bottles while feeding, or they can cling to the wire cage.

7. Offer alternatives: A male hummingbird is often aggressive and protective of a sugar-water feeder that he considers his own. Only “his females” and their young are allowed to feed undisturbed. The simple solution is to set up an additional sugar-water feeder on another side of your house, out of sight of the other male’s domain. 

Happy, thriving birds at feeder

8. Buy weights: Look for a bird feeder that has a weighted perch or treadle. When larger, heavier birds land on a treadle, it drops down over the bird food. (This device works against squirrels, too.) Lightweight birds can reach the food because the treadle does not drop down when they perch. 

When this big, NOTHING is going to keep you out!

Easy ways to discourage bullying birds and to make a haven for small indigenous birds: 

Keep less open, grassed areas in your garden. This type of open environment tends to encourage the bigger birds. For smaller birds, set aside at least a part of your garden and allow them some territory of their own. 

Create a garden with dense plants. The creation of denser foliage and the reduction of grassed areas will create a safe haven for smaller birds. Grow thickets as they are ideal hiding places and homes for smaller birds. Experiment with thick rows of shrubs rather than just having one or two here and there. 

Rock Pigeon or Rock Dove

The Rock Pigeon or Rock Dove is a member of the bird family Columbidae (doves and pigeons). In common usage, this bird is often simply referred to as a "pigeon". 

Pigeons come in many different shades and plumage patterns. There is the typical “blue-bar” form (a bluish-gray bird with two black bands on the wing and a black tip to the tail); a “red bar” version (similarly marked, but with rusty red replacing bluish gray); “checker” (birds that have spots on the wings); “spread” (all black or all gray); “pied” (birds of any color that are splotched with white); and mostly red or mostly white forms. They average 13 oz. in weight and are about 11 inches in length. 

Feral pigeons form the majority of prey for several raptor species (who live in urban areas) like Falcons and Sparrowhawk, who are adept at catching them. 

Although the Rock Pigeon is a relatively strong flier, it also glides frequently, holding its wings in a very pronounced V shape as it does. Though fields are visited for grain and green food, it is often not plentiful enough as to be a viewed as pest. 

Excellent at flying

This bird is distributed throughout Tiruvannamalai District. In its perfectly wild state it lives in open country with rocky hills and cliffs. But mostly seen in a semi-domesticated condition, it lives in an urban environment close to man. The semi-feral stock has become inured to the noise of urban life and is now well established in most Indian towns. Grain warehouses, railway stations and old or disused buildings are their favourite places. 

Their food is comprised of cereals, pulses and groundnuts. Pigeons feed on the ground in flocks or individually. They roost together in buildings or on walls or statues. When drinking, most birds take small sips and tilt their heads backwards to swallow the water. Pigeons are able to dip their bills into the water and drink continuously without having to tilt their heads back. 

There are few visible differences between males and females. The nesting season of this bird is practically all year in semi-feral birds. Its nest is a flimsy collection of a few sticks on a ledge or in fissure of rocks, or on rafters and ceilings of dwelling houses, occupied or deserted. It generally lays two, white elliptical birds. Both sexes share all the domestic duties. 

The call of this bird is a deep gootr-goo, gootr-goo. The species is generally monogamous, with two squeakers (young) per brood. Both parents care for the young for a time. Baby pigeons are called squabs.

Pied Rock Pigeon nesting at Adi Annamalai Temple

Pigeon at Palani Andavar Temple, Girivalam Road

The Pigeon's happy abode

Nesting inside Temple, outside the Sanctum Sanctorum. Good Karma!

Cycle of Pigeon Hatching:  Hatching takes around 18 days. 

The newly hatched squab has pale yellow down and a flesh-coloured bill with a dark band. For the first few days, the baby squab is tended and fed (through regurgitation) exclusively on “crop-milk” (also called "pigeon milk" or "pigeon's milk"). The pigeon milk is produced in the crops of both parents in all species of pigeons and doves. The fledging period is about 30 days. Males guard and care for the female and nest. 

Young birds show little lustre and are duller. Eye colour of the pigeon is generally orange but a few pigeons may have white-grey eyes. The eyelids are orange in colour and are encapsulated in a grey-white eye ring. The feet are red to pink. 

The young mature and leave the nest 4 to 6 weeks after they hatch and more eggs are laid before the first young leave the nest. Breeding occurs during all seasons but mainly in spring and fall. Pigeons commonly live up to 15 years, but in more urban areas they tend to live only 3-4 years 

Cycle of Pigeon Hatching

Elliptical Egg

Usually there are two eggs per batch

1 day old "Squabs"

5 days old "Squab"

Age 10 days old

Age 22 days old

Adult Blue Rock Pigeons

The bird cycle sequence came from this link here.

The below narrative is taken from “Garden and Aviary Birds of India” by Frank Finn (1915) 

The Pigeons 

Pigeons form a family of birds which are found all over the world, and, like Parrots, are very distinct from all others, so that they are given an order to themselves. Their characteristics are easily seen in the common tame Pigeon—the weak bill, soft and swollen over the nostrils, the small head, powerful wings and heavy body clothed in close powdery plumage. The feet are also very noticeable, with three toes before and one smaller one behind, a single row of scales down the front of the shank and none at all at the back, which is covered with soft skin. Most Pigeons have red or purple feet, a few yellow ones. 

Pigeons build very slovenly nests of twigs or dry grass, generally on the bough of a tree, but sometimes, like the tame Pigeon, in holes. They never lay more than two eggs and the young from these are usually cock and hen. The eggs are always white or—very rarely faintly tinted and never show any spots. 

Rock Pigeon Nest Building 

The young are hatched blind and nearly naked and are very ugly helpless little things with swollen soft beaks. They do not gape for food like most young birds, but put their bills into that of the old one, which thereupon throws up the food from its crop and lets them suck it in. The proverbial Pigeons' milk really does exist as a matter of fact, for during the first few days of their lives the young Pigeons are fed on a secretion from the crop of the old birds, which much resembles milk in appearance and chemical composition. Later this is mixed with softened grain, until at length the old Bird gives the young the grain almost at once, merely keeping it in their crops till they have got enough of it. 

Grain of various kinds is, as everyone knows, the favourite food of most Pigeons, but as they cannot always get it they eat a good deal of green food and a few small snails as well. A good many species, however, are fruit-eaters, and never touch grain. These have stouter beaks and shorter shanks than the grain-eating Pigeons. 

Pigeons are strong fliers and use their powerful wings in fighting, their beaks being so weak, although they can do each other a good deal of harm with them if too closely confined. For, in spite of their reputation for gentleness, they are inveterate fighters in a petty nagging way. 

It is, however, in most cases almost impossible to tell the cock from the hen, as their plumage is exactly similar; the young are rather different in many cases. The actions of the cock when courting are very interesting and differ much in the different groups. 

Pigeons are not usually migratory and are most numerous in a hot climate; there are many wild species in India. 

White-browed Wagtail

The White-browed Wagtail (Motacilla Maderaspatensis) is known in Tamil as = Kulatthu Kuruvi. Their specific name is derived from the city Madras (i.e. the former name of Chennai, Tamil Nadu). Another local name for wagtails in India is dhobin (or washerwoman) which corresponds to the bird’s name in French i.e. Lavendiere. It has been suggested that the bird has derived its nickname because of its fondness for water and also comparison with its wagging tale to the battering action by the laundrywoman of clothes on the rocks.

This bird is the size of a Bulbul. It is a large wagtail of black and white plumage and with a prominent white eyebrow. In the female the black portions are duller and browner. It roams in pairs and can be found at streams and tanks. It is resident throughout Indian and can be found in the Tiruvannamalai District. 

This bird prefers rocky smooth-running streams with grass-covered islets but it is also found at village tanks and irrigation reservoirs. It also has adapted well to urban environment and is often found perched on overhead water storages in residential buildings. 

This bird lives almost entirely on the ground, running about instead of hopping like most small birds. When they do fly, they are extremely good fliers and when on the wing, they progress in bounds or curves, alternately closing and opening their wings. Most small birds fly in this way, but it is particularly marked in the Wagtails. They can fly fairly rapidly for long distances and have been recorded to travel at the speed of about 40 km/hr. 

  Video of the male White-Browed Wagtail

This bird is usually tame and confiding. However delicate and as fragile as this bird looks, they are most savage and it is impossible to keep even two of different species together unless they are cock and hen.

Female White-Browed Wagtail

The White-browed Wagtail has a number of loud, pleasant whistle calls. Its usual call is a wheezy "wheech During the breeding season, the male sings sweetly from a rock or house-top. In older times in India, the species was sometimes kept as a cage-bird and was acclaimed for its singing ability. 

Female at nest with chicks

Coppersmith Barbet

Coppersmith Barbet—Megalaima haemacephala (Tamil Name: Kukuravan) The first time I saw this bird was at the Animal Sanctuary on Chengam Road here at Tiruvannamalai. Some local kids had been roughly playing with the little bird and workers at the Animal Sanctuary rescued it and brought it into the shelter.

Coppersmith in cage at Animal Hospital

This pretty little bird is the size of a dumpy sparrow. The heavy-billed grass green Barbet has a crimson breast and forehead, yellow throat and green-streaked yellowish underparts. Its stout beak has a straggly moustache of bristles at the root.

Birding making its tuk-tuk-tuk call

Video of Coppersmith Barbets, female followed by calling male
 

Notice the Flesh-coloured feet

The Coppersmith which is a very well-known garden bird is not easy to discover at first; its green plumage blending with the foliage, while the yellow of its face, and the bright red of its forehead, gorget, and feet are not so noticeable. Sexes look alike. Young birds are still less striking in appearance in a tree, as they have no red on the head or breast, and their feet are merely flesh-colour. 

Feeding on Ficus Benghalensis

This bird has a short tail and appears triangular in its flight silhouette. Its feet has two toes before and two behind; but it does not climb, instead it simply hops from branch to branch, picking fruit on which to feed. When on the ground it also moves with a hopping motion. 

Bird at Nest

The birds’ notes are mellow but of a deadly monotony, being kept up with relentless regularity for a long time. Their call is a familiar loud, ringing tuk, tuk, repeated every second or two in long runs throughout the day, reminiscent of a distant Coppersmith hammering on his metal. 

Pair at Nest

The Coppersmith Barbet is arboreal and frequents Banyan and Peepul trees in fruit whether it is outlying forest or within a noisy city. It sometimes eats winged termites captured by flycatcher-like sallies. This bird nests from January to June; and its nest is generally a hole excavated in a snag of a dead softwood branch such as the Coral or Drumstick Tree at moderate heights. It lays three glossless white eggs with both sexes sharing domestic duties. 

Male and Female at tree-nest

The huge-billed Toucans of America are closely related to the Barbets, but are not found in India.