Wild Bird Wednesday 738 - Bronze-Winged Jacana

The Bronze-Winged Jacana (Metopidius indicus) is a wader that is part of the group of birds that are sometimes called Lilly Trotters or Jesus Birds.  Both of these names reference the apparent ability of these types of bird to walk on water.  In realty,  they use their very (very) long toes to spread their weight over floating vegetation and this avoid sinking!

The Bronze-Winged Jacana is found throughout most of India - it is absent from the North-western parts of the country and the high Himalayas.  It can also be found in East of India through Bangladesh, and south-east Asia as far south as southern Thailand.

The adult birds have a striking eye stripe, which actually makes then easy to pick out at distance, and one you 'get your eye in' they can be relatively common in the right sort of watery habitats.  I don't know if it was because of the time of year I was in India (March/April),  but I saw far more juvenile individuals than adults.

Like the other Lilly Trotters this is a very active bird that spends good deal of time rushing about on Lillies!

In the making of this post I discovered (for myself, not the world!!) that female Jacanas have an interesting mating strategy. 

Female Bronze-Winged Jacanas, like other female jacanas, are larger than males, territorial, polyandrous (a female that has more than one male mate), and compete with other females to maintain harems of males which incubate clutches of eggs. Each female's territory covers one to four males and their individual territories, and the males compete with each other to mate with the female.  Apparently, the loud calling of the males - termed 'yelling' in some descriptions - is used by the female for mate selection.  Again apparently, the louder the yell, the fitter the male!

As ever, to join in with WBW click on the link below.  Cheers  SM

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Wild Bird Wednesday 737 - Gray-Headed Swamphen

The Gray-Headed Swamphen (Porphyrio poliocephalus) is a large - up to about 45 cm - bluish-purple waterbird with a red bill and forehead shield, as well as red legs and feet with very long toes.

This bird was part of a group of birds simply known as the "Purple Swamphen" until the group was split into six separate species.  This species can be found throughout much of the Indian subcontinent, souther-estates Asia and parts of the middle east.  Interestingly, it has also been accidentally introduced into Florida in the USA where it now seems to have formed self-sustaining populations.

This species was a common sight in suitable habitat in India, and was often abundant in wet grassland and marsh areas.  It is a vocal, if not really tuneful, species.

As ever, to join in with WBW click on the big, blue button.  Cheers.  SM

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Wild Bird Wednesday 736 - Striated Laughingthrush

The Striated Laughingthrush (Grammatoptila striata) has a name that I would have suspected was invented as a joke had I not seen the bird a number of times in Northern India.  The general name Laughingthrush is (apparently) derived from their loud, social calls sound which sound like human laughter and cackling.  I have to say, this is a similarity that I did not notice.

The Striated Laughingthrush is a large Laughingthrush, with a stout black beak and very distinctive crest.  The presence of this crest makes it relatively easy to identify this species.  As you can see in the pictures, although the bird is more or less uniformly shades of brown its 'striations' do give a rather handsome look.

They were an active bird to watch, and I was glad to be able to photograph them from a hide where they were used to finding food.

As ever, to join in with WBW click on the link below.

Once more I will be away from my desk for a while, so visits and replies may be rather infrequent.

Cheers.  SM

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Wild Bird Wednesday 735 - Oriental Pied Hornbill

The Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) is not an uncommon bird, although in India it is restricted to the foothills of the Himalayas, NE and E India and parts of Bangladesh.

This species can often be seen in fruit groves around villages, as well as in its more natural damp open woodland habitats.   I saw these birds in the Jim Corbett National Park, which is north east of Delhi, in India.  This was the first National Park to be established in India, and was established in 1936.

The Oriental Pied Hornbill is small by Hornbill standards, with a head-to-tail length of 55–60 cm and a wingspan of 23–36 cm, a black-and-white hornbill with a whitish-yellow bill and casque.  Most of the plumage is black, but they have a white belly, facial patch, and wing and tail edges. Males have a much larger casque than the females, but in most other ways the sexes are very similar.

I think that this is a bird that ticks all the necessary boxes to be classified as exotic!

As ever, to join in with WBW click on the blue link below.  Cheers SM

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Wild Bird Wednesday 734 - Orange-Bellied Parrot

The Orange-Bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster) or the OBP is one of Australia's most threatened species. Although there is some uncertainty as to the exact number of individuals of this species that exist in the wild, most estimates are around 100 birds.  This year only 85 birds were counted as returning to their key breeding areas in Tasmania.

The OBP is a small parrot - being smaller than a common Blackbird - that breeds in limited areas south west Tasmania, before it migrates north to the coast of Victoria and South Australia.  The birds migrate to the mainland in March and April, and remain on the mainland until mid-October.

These are the first of these birds I have seen.

The location of 'reliable' sites to see these birds is a bit of an open secret in the birding community - although I suggest that less well know sites are justifiably suppressed for the sake of the birds.  I saw these birds at one of the 'open secret' sites.

It's a sobering thought to think that these pictures may contain more the 2% of the world population of this species.

As you can see, the orange belly is not exactly prominent, but it can be glimpsed in some of these pictures.  The bird with the most blue on its wings in these images is a male.  Although largely, these birds were strangely visible amounts the saltbush where they were feeding.

Finding these birds - with help from my friends - was a bit of a highlight really!

Small birds, at a long distance, don't make for the best images - but I was just so pleased to see these birds.

As ever, to join in withWBW click on the blue link below.

Cheers and hope all is well.  SM

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter