Asian Openbill

For my review of 5D mark III which I published last week, I was scouting out for suitable subjects. The review was a huge task and took all my spare time during last two weeks. For me it was a very ambitious project and most detailed review I did till now. So I wanted to test the camera in various situations. I was pretty disappointed with the very mediocre auto focus performance of its predecessor 5D mark II. So my main aim is to try the auto focus ability in a low light situation in the field.

Asian Openbill

As I was going to Mangalore that Saturday evening, sky was getting cloudy and light was just right to test my camera’s auto focus capabilities. I spotted these two Asian Openbills in a marshy wetland near Gurupura River. One was looking little younger than the other one. I was able to photograph the the adult and as I approached closer it took to air and flew off. The younger Openbill stayed back and was seen preening its body. I was able to take sufficient photographs and I found the new camera did excellent work in focusing, tracking in the field. In fact the result was so good That I have only 5 out of focus pictures among the 45 photos I clicked during my 20 minute encounter. You might see my figure of 45 photos during 20 minutes is very slow in this digital era, but I come from film photography background and still is very conservative on what I press my shutter on. I don’t click as though I have a machine gun in my hand and then pick the best few out of the thousands. Only time I use burst mode is when shooting birds in flight. Even during bird in flight the camera performed very well latching on to the subject and performing AI-Servo efficiently.

Asian Openbill

The Asian Openbill or Asian Openbill Stork (Anastomus oscitans) is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. Asian Openbill has a conspicuous gap in its bill, allowing the bird to catch its preferred food, the freshwater snails. Adult has white plumage in breeding season, and pale grey for rest of the year. Scapulars, flight feathers and tail are black. Head is white or grey. The open bill is formed by a hollow in the lower mandible. Both mandibles meet at tip. Large, strong bill is pale pinkish-grey. Eyes are dark brown. Lores are greyish to pinkish. Long legs and feet are pinkish to red. Both sexes are similar. Juvenile have brown tinge, instead white or pale grey. Bill is dark grey with lower mandible almost straight. Gap forms later.

Asian Openbill

Asian Openbill is the most common Asian stork, and populations are not threatened. Asian Openbills are very noisy while flying in flocks. We can hear a continual hubbub, as the gabbling of hundreds of ducks. Call is a mournful hoo-hoo. They feed in rice-fields and marshes in freshwater. Asian Openbill breeds near inland wetlands. They live in shallow marshes and flooded areas. They are resident in tropical southern Asia, from India and Sri Lanka, east to south-eastern Asia. Asian Openbill populations are resident in their range. Some groups may move after breeding season, but most of them are sedentary. Breeding season depends on the location. Northern populations breed from July to September, and southern birds breed from November to March. They are very social birds.

Asian Openbill

Asian Openbill feeds mainly on molluscs, and particularly freshwater snails, Apple Snails, (genus Pila – Ampullariidae), living in rice-fields and swamps. Prey is located by touch and sight. The gap in the bill allows good grasp of the snail’s shell. Asian Openbill walks slowly in shallow water, searching for prey. It extracts snail from the shell, with pointed lower mandible. The usual foraging habitats are inland wetlands and are only rarely seen along river banks and tidal flats. Birds may move widely in response to habitat conditions. Young birds also disperse widely after fledgling. Individuals ringed at Bharatpur in India have been recovered 800 km east and a bird ringed in Thailand has been recovered 1500 km west in Bangladesh. Storks are regularly disoriented by lighthouses along the southeast coast of India on overcast nights between August and September. The species is very rare in the Sind and Punjab regions of Pakistan, but widespread and common in India, Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand.

Asian Openbill

They nests in colonies, with numerous nests in the same tree, up to 40 and more. Long courtship displays occur at the beginning of breeding season. In threat displays, Asian Openbill has open wings and neck outstretched. Usually, rivals threaten each other, but rarely fight. Asian Openbill uses warm air stream for rising in the air, and flies high in the sky. Then, it glides to destination. Landing is spectacular. Asian Openbill drops from the air as a parachute, with dangling legs, and lands.

Asian Openbill

Asian Openbill nests in colonies with other species, such as Ardeidae and acacia. Nest is located in trees or bamboos. It is made with sticks, and interior is lined with green leaves. Female usually lays 2 to 4 white eggs. Incubation lasts about 27 to 30 days, and young fledge at 35 to 36 days after hatching. Young birds are greyish, with dark bill. They stand and wait for adults. Parents approach the nest cautiously, and regurgitate the food. Adults shade their young in the nest, to protect them from sun. One of the parents stands in the nest with semi-open wings above the chicks. Asian Openbill is usually monogamous, but polygamy exists. In this case, all members of polygamous nest raise the young, and brood success is more important than in monogamous nests.

Pied Cuckoo

As I am writing this blog, it is drizzling outside giving a much needed relief from searing heat which started few days ago. But this is not really a monsoon rain. In the month of May-June, India awaits eagerly for the south west monsoon rain which brings much needed relief from the sweltering heat of summer. Pied cuckoo is partially migratory and in India, it has been considered a harbinger of the Monsoon rains due to the timing of its arrival.

Last November I saw this Pied Cuckoo(Clamator jacobinus) on a Singapore cherry tree (Muntingia calabura) which had young berries all over. It flew and landed on a branch very close to me. I was using my Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM fited with Canon EF 1.4x III Extender on my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV. The bird was at the closest focusing distance from the lens. Unfortunately the background where the bird was sitting was not clutter less. There was quite a bit of shrub & grass between me and the bird.

Pied Cuckoo

The Jacobin Cuckoo, Pied Cuckoo, or Pied Crested Cuckoo (Clamator jacobinus) is a member of the cuckoo family that is found in Africa and Asia. Appearance is distinct. It is a slender, long-tailed, crested, black-and-white bird larger than bulbul. The spot on the wing appears as a white band in flight. Sexes alike. In juveniles, the crest is less developed and the wing patch is smaller than in adults. What is deep black in adults is dull and sooty in juveniles. The species is mainly arboreal and is very conspicuous during breeding season (June-August). Call is a metallic peew piu-piu-(piu); pee-ew; piu… (piu… pee-pee-piu).

In his epic poem Meghaduta, Sanskrit Poet Kalidasa draws parallels between the thirst of the Pied Cuckoo for the rain and the yearning of a pious heart for the divine. In parts of north India, the bird is known as the chatak, or the one that lives on drops of rain. Its black crest is construed as a second beak that points up at the sky, waiting for rain to quench its thirst. Farmers in Gujarat have christened the pied cuckoo kharadiyo, because they believe that its song is louder and more plaintive during kharad, the intermittent dry period between rainy days. Similar anecdotes are found in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, but as interesting as they might be, they don’t qualify as scientific evidence.

Pied Cuckoo

Does the bird always arrive before the monsoon? In all parts of the country? How does it know when the monsoon is going to arrive? Couldn’t the relationship between the two be purely coincidental? The bird is an exception on two counts compared to other migratory birds. It is the only bird that migrated from Africa to India; and did so in summer. The only real evidence, apart from stray sighting records over the years, was a paper by ornithologist Hugh Whistler in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1928. In his paper, Whistler wrote an impressive collection of sighting records of the bird from across the continent. According to him, all of them pointed to the fact that the bird was an abundant rains visitor for breeding purposes over a very large portion of India. But Whistler was candid about need for more detailed evidence. The records he had collected spanned many decades and were from different parts of the country.

Migrantwatch took up the challenge to test this scientifically and has been doing this since 2009 with the help several volunteers to collect data across India and the sightings from places to where the Pied Cuckoo migrates shows that it does, by-and-large, arrive in advance of the monsoon, but the exact dates are variable. It is been tabulated into Pied Cuckoo Campaign. You can checkout more details on their blog

Check this Pied Cuckoo animated map which shows the progression of Pied Cuckoo migration across the country in advance of the monsoon.© MigrantWatch

In March and April, almost all sightings are from southern India, where the species is known to be resident year-round. This remains so until the middle of May. In the third week of May, the first migrant sightings appear, in the West and the North-east. As the monsoon hits the Andamans, the first birds in northern India are seen. More and more birds are subsequently seen across the West, North and East. By the time the monsoon reaches Kerala (in the first week of June), Pied Cuckoos are everywhere, except perhaps the extreme West and North-West.

The species is distributed south of the Sahara in Africa and south of the Himalayas in India. Also found in SriLanka and parts of Myanmar. Within Africa, there are movements of the species although they are resident in tropical Africa. The east African population is migratory and moves over southern Arabia into India during April. The habitat of the species is mainly in thorny, dry scrub or open woodland avoiding areas of dense forest or extremely dry environments.

Pied Cuckoo

In the breeding season, birds call from prominent perches and chase each other with slow wing-beats and pigeon like clapping flight. Courtship feeding has been observed in Africa. The species is a brood parasite and in India the host is mainly species of babblers in the genus Turdoides. The color of the eggs matches those of the host, typically turquoise blue. The eggs are slightly larger than those of the Common Babbler (Turdoides caudatus) or the Jungle Babbler (Turdoides striata). Other hosts include the Red-vented Bulbul, and the eggs laid are then mostly white. Eggs are laid hurriedly in the morning into the nest of the host often dropped from while the bird perches on the rim of the nest and over the host eggs often resulting in the cracking of one or more host eggs.

The skin of young birds darkens form pink to purplish brown within two days of hatching. The mouth linking is red with yellow gape flanges. Unlike some cuckoos, nestlings do not evict the eggs of the host from the nest although they claim most of the parental attention and food resulting sometimes, in the starvation of host nestlings. These cuckoos feed on insects including hairy caterpillars that are picked up from near or on the ground. Caterpillars are pressed from end to end to remove the guts before they are swallowed. They sometimes feed on fruits.

Pied Cuckoo

Coppersmith Barbet

I saw this Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala) on a late evening sitting on branch next to a white house. White background of the house, the dry tree branch it was sitting and colorful bird made a very nice setting. I was using my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV fitted with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM and a Canon EF 1.4x III Extender supported by Benro C45T Carbon Fiber Monopod. I wanted a greater depth of field to encompass the beauty of the dry branch. So I used aperture of f/8 & Shutter speed of 1/250th of second. But the light was insufficient. I raised ISO to 12800 as I knew that on 1D Mark IV I can afford to go that high and expect minimal noise. Bird heard my shutter sound and got alarmed. I was able to capture this beauty in few shots before it flew away.

Coppersmith Barbet

The Coppersmith Barbet, Crimson-breasted Barbet or Coppersmith (Megalaima haemacephala), is a bird with crimson forehead and throat which is best known for its metronomic call that has been likened to a coppersmith striking metal with a hammer. It is a resident found in South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. Like other barbets, they chisel out a hole inside a tree to build their nest. They are mainly fruit eating but will take sometimes insects, especially winged termites.

Coppersmith Barbet

This species of barbet is found to overlap in range with several larger barbets in most of South Asia. In the Western Ghats, it partly overlaps with the Crimson-fronted Barbet (Megalaima rubricapilla) which is of a very similar size but having a more rapid call. The red forehead, yellow eye-ring and throat patch with streaked underside and green upper parts, it is fairly distinctive. Juveniles are duller and lack the red patches. The sexes are alike. The Sri Lankan form has more black on the face, more red on the breast and darker streaks on the underside.

Coppersmith Barbet

Throughout their wide range they are found in gardens, groves and sparse woodland. Habitats with trees having dead wood suitable for excavation is said to be important. Birds nest and roost in cavities. Keeps solitary, pairs, or small groups; larger parties occasionally on abundantly fruiting Ficus trees. Fond of sunning themselves in the morning on bare top branches of tall trees, often flitting about to sit next to each other. The flight is straight, with rapid flaps.

They compete with other cavity nesting birds and frugivores. Megalaima asiatica have been noted to evict them from their nest holes, while Red-vented Bulbuls have been seen to indulge in kleptoparasitism, robbing the male of berries brought to the female at the nest.

Coppersmith Barbet

The nest holes are also used for roosting and some birds roost alone in cavities and these often roost during part of the day. Immature birds will roost with the parents but often return to roost early so as not to be prevented by the parents from entering the roost cavity.

The call is a loud rather metallic tuk…tuk…tuk (or tunk), reminiscent of a copper sheet being beaten, giving the bird its name. Repeated monotonously for long periods, starting with a subdued tuk and building up to an even volume and tempo, the latter varying from 108 to 121 per minute and can continue with as many as 204 notes. They are silent and do not call in winter. The beak remains shut during each call – a patch of bare skin on both sides of the throat inflates and collapses with each tuk like a rubber bulb and the head is bobbed.