The Mountain’s Avian Friends

The Great Himalayas—that mighty barrier separating the north Indian plains from the cold and inhospitable plateau of Tibet—is not simply a perennial source of water to the multitude of rivers that spring from its glaciers; they are also home to a wide variety of avifauna.

On a dark, moonless night, many springs ago, I heard that familiar cry once again. The honking of a skein of wild geese winging their lonely way over the valley of the Doon. A sound reassuring the residents—things could never be so bad. Once again, these visitors from the north defy those boundaries men draw to really go where few have dared, ever.

The simplistic western view, at the turn of the century held firm: no bird could possibly cross the insuperable barrier of the Himalayas. True, they could skirt by the low-lying valleys but how could a feathered thing cross the most gigantic of barriers on the earth’s face? Mountaineering moderated this naïve view as expeditions followed one another in quick succession. They reported in unison: birds seen in the sky, heard at night as they flew over peaks man had yet to get to. Explorers like Seven Hedin reported ducks in the fall at the very source of the Indus in windswept Tibet. While later, Eric Shipton found frozen ducks in the Karokorams. Irrevocable proof of this that birds had been doing for centuries what man had just taken to in the last two hundred years—the quest for going beyond the ranges.

Welcome immigrants these, who colonize the hostile environs of the remote mountains during the winter to head home triggered by a biological clock on a journey both long and fascinating. Where is this invisible clock? Well! All around us. Without a tick, it tells the dead twig to let the sap rise and turn itself into a flowering chimul bush. Spring’s songs have arrived.

Down the rugged slopes is the vernal head of the grassy Terai forests, almost up to the ramparts of the Sivalik ranges, these winged visitors populate the region. Perhaps their ancestors came from distant Europe or even from the shores of Africa.

Our avian untouchables – hunters and carrion lay claim to be highest realms. Obviously, what better place could there be? In the frozen zone, death is the constant companion of despair. Only the really fit can hope to survive. The weak and infirm perish to provide a ready larder for the airy ones moving in decreasing circles overhead.

The shadow you espy moving across the shimmering mantle at your feet is no passing clouds across the sun. Rest assured the griffon vulture is checking you out. He is in no hurry! So move on. Sometimes at over 25,000 feet, wafted by the eddies of Himalayan winds, he glides so effortlessly as the ten-foot wing-span catches the rising thermals like a billowing sail of a phantom ship at sea driven by the gusts. Tremendous distances are to be covered in the never-ending search for food. ‘You get more by trying less!’ seems to be the motto of this follower of Lao Tzu.

The Lammergeier’s pronounced goatee give it its other name—the Bearded Vulture. Seen in silhouette against the sun or the face of the mountains, it reaches incredible speed of up to 80 miles an hour, skimming the contours with its eagle eyes scanning the earth below for a skeleton polished clean by the griffon vultures. Then, diving down like a fighter plane, it will pick up a large bone, fly back up and let go to shatter on the harsh rocks below. Lunch is served: marrow and bone as usual.

Of all the birds in the high altitudes, my favourite is the chough. It looks like a crow but minus the greed. It is, I am convinced, an aesthete. This most accomplished of acrobats turns the Himalayas into an amphitheatre of pure delight as it flies to incredible heights, suddenly folds its dark wings and plunges thousands of feet to the valley floor like a rock, pulling out most reluctantly just before smashing to smithereens.

And then to do it again and again… what else is it but ‘art for art’s sake?’ Sir Edmund Hilary wrote of one persistent member of the family who insisted on accompanying him as he climbed from the last camp to 28000 feet.

Not to be forgotten in a hurry are the smaller birds who do their bit in Alpine pastures keeping a check on the insects hiding among the grassy slopes. I remember this pesky Simla-tit, the size of a sparrow, which would start its breakfast of moths who had flown in from the forest of the light outside our house in the dark.

With the march of winter, the mountains are touched with a mantle of snow and an exodus of birds begins. Feathered flocks descend to the foothills, joining the hordes down below in forays for food and shelter. A miracle of adaptation is underway.

Mother Nature, we are told, takes care of its own. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the Blood Pheasant you will meet up to 15000 feet. The male is a gaily coloured game bird named after its distinctive stripes. However, the female does not have these bright colours as she must incubate the eggs in her perch on the cliffs face. So she takes her colouring from the surrounding rocks, a dull, tedious brown. A classic case of camouflage.

The ornithologist’s favourite is the one that got away—the elusive Mountain Quail, the Ophrysia superciliosa. Salim Ali spent time, in what is our backyard, looking for them. The last live specimen was collected in 1876 from the area around Mussoorie in the Garhwal Himalaya. Little is known of the bird with early collectors telling us the birds lived in groups of five or six, refusing to move out of the grass unless they were almost trampled upon.

Its habitat was from Jharipani (home of the exiled Ranas of Nepal) through to Begon and Bhadraj at 7000 feet. Little of the area remains as it must have been in the last century. First they ‘discovered’ what everybody knew: the place was rich in limestone. The quarries began. You can still see the ugly scars for as far as the eye can see. Then came the carpetbaggers—the developers—and nothing was ever the same again. Tonnes of concrete were poured to build dream homes. “If you stand still for five minutes,” says author Ruskin Bond wistfully, “they’ll build a hotel around you!” For posterity, we have ten specimens of the Mountain Quail: five in the British Museum and the rest in America. Yet, not all birds are simpletons like the Mountain Quail. The naughtiest of them all is the Honyguide of Nepal who takes after its African cousins in utter audacity.

Simple. It specializes in knowing the location of all the beehives in the forest. Be it a sharp rock-face, a bee-nesting cliff or a hollow tree, the bird is willing to act as a willing guide to lead the seeker of honey there. By a series of ingenuous give-always it can take the hunter—man or bear to the hive. All this effort is for a share of the spoils: honey, larvae and wax after the honey has been taken!

If you think this game of deception and betrayal was bad enough, you have another thing coming. The male Honey guide has been reported to take home bits of bee-comb to his personal territory throughout the year. Come breeding season and he mates with all females with a sweet-tooth that visit him.
They tell us ingenuity is the mother of invention. In the mysterious ways of the Honey guide, it is the smartest and not the fittest who inherit the planet.
Not all is quiet in the Himalayas. Often by a gurgling stream you will hear the plaintive call of the Whistling Thrush – the hillman’s kastura. A distinct single note that ends most abruptly as if the bird had forgotten its song.

Legend has it that Lord Krishna was playing on his celestial flute when he fell asleep on a warm summer’s eve. A playful boy chanced upon the spot, picket up the flute the tried a note. Startled by the sound, Krishna awoke and in a fit of picque turned the boy into a bird. But all was not lost for the bird had taken with it the immortal song of the Gods.

Slightly smaller than the grey partridge, the Mountain Quail is perhaps the least known of our Indian birds. With only 11 specimens of the bird collected so far, the Mountain Quail is an enigma in more than one way. The earliest authentic record of its existence dates back to 1836, when a British sportsman, Mr. Tucker, collected a pair of the Mountain Quail from the vicinity of Mussoorie. Both these specimens are at the Derby Museum of Liverpool, U.K.

During its known existence in India, the collection of only 11 specimen from the vicinity of Mussoorie and Nainital is on record, and of these nine are held in various museums of the world. Unfortunately, none of these is in India.

Its natural habitat is still reasonably intact and the bird has certainly not been over hunted! Logic, therefore, forces one to believe that this extremely shy bird is still alive, somewhere in the lower Himalayas, where suitable conditions still exist. A.O. Hume, the famous British ornithologist, writing about the Mountain Quail in his 1879-81 publication ‘The Game Birds of India, Burma and Ceylon’, states, “It is as yet only known to occur occasionally, and during the cold season, in the neighbourhood of Mussoorie, and again he neithbourhood of Nainital. But it is a bird of singularly retiring habits, can scarcely be induced to show itself unless pressed by a dog, and occurs only at a season when our hill stations are nearly deserted, and I dare say that it will prove to be a migrant.” About other traits Hume adds, “They keep habitually in groups of six to ten, though single pairs may be met with. The frequent grass jungle and brushwood…, fly slowly and heavily, and soon drop again, Quail-like, into cover. They feed on grass seeds (and probably insects and berries), and when feeding, call to each other with a low short Quail-like note, their alarm note and call when separated being a shrill whistle. Their range in the Himalayas in winter is probably from five to eight thousand feet.”

While writing about the Mountain Quail, Hume has basically relied upon the inputs provided by only three British sportsmen who between them shot a total of eight birds over a span of eleven years (1865-76). This can hardly be termed, nor is it claimed by Hume to be, a comprehensive study.

However, as per studies made later, it will be reasonable to assume that the distribution of the Mountain Quail extended from Mussoorie in the West of Nainital and onto the Indo-Nepal border. How much further east did it extend is impossible to state, unless fresh evidence is obtained.

For a species to become extinct, there have to be important contributory reasons like the loss of habitat, over hunting and over exploitation. None of these are applicable to the Mountain Quail. Species do not normally perish unless circumstances, man-made or otherwise, bring about their doom. In this particular case, man, the villain in most other stories, has not played a significant negative role.

Thirty year ago it was believed that the white-winged wood-duck and Jordon’s double-banded Course were extinct. Thanks to the efforts of a few dedicated individuals, these birds were rediscovered and are now safe for posterity. Is such a happy ending possible for the Mountain Quail? We simply have to put our act together and search hard enough.