July marks the end of one breeding season and the beginning of
another. As regards the nesting season, birds fall into four classes.
There is the very large class that nests in spring and summer. Next in
importance is the not inconsiderable body that rears up its broods in
the rains when the food supply is most abundant. Then comes the small
company that builds nests in the pleasant winter time. Lastly there
are the perennials--such birds as the sparrow and the dove, which nest
at all seasons. In the present month the last of the summer nesting
birds close operations for the year, and the monsoon birds begin to
lay their eggs. July is therefore a favourable month for bird-nesting.
Moreover, the sun is sometimes obscured by cloud and, under such
conditions, a human being is able to remain out of doors throughout
the day without suffering much physical discomfort.
With July ends the normal breeding season of the tree-pies,
white-eyes, ioras; king-crows, bank-mynas, paradise flycatchers, brown
rock-chats, Indian robins, dhayals, red-winged bush-larks, sunbirds,
rollers, swifts, green pigeons, lapwings and butcher-birds.
The paradise flycatchers leave Northern India and migrate southwards a
few weeks after the young birds have left the nest.
Numbers of bulbuls' nests are likely to be found in July, but the
breeding time of these birds is rapidly drawing to its close. Sparrows
and doves are of course engaged in parental duties; their eggs have
been taken in every month of the year.
The nesting season is now at its height for the white-necked storks,
the koels and their dupes--the house-crows, also for the various
babblers and their deceivers--the brain-fever birds and the pied
crested cuckoos. The tailor-birds, the ashy and the Indian
wren-warblers, the brahminy mynas, the wire-tailed swallows, the
amadavats, the sirkeer cuckoos, the pea-fowl, the water-hens, the
common and the pied mynas, the cuckoo-shrikes and the orioles are all
fully occupied with nursery duties. The earliest of the brain-fever
birds to be hatched have left the nest. Like all its family the young
hawk-cuckoo has a healthy appetite. In order to satisfy it the
unfortunate foster-parents have to work like slaves, and often must
they wonder why nature has given them so voracious a child. When it
sees a babbler approaching with food, the cuckoo cries out and flaps
its wings vigorously. Sometimes these completely envelop the parent
bird while it is thrusting food into the yellow mouth of the cuckoo.
The breast of the newly-fledged brain-fever bird is covered with dark
brown drops, so that, when seen from below, it looks like a thrush
with yellow legs. Its cries, however, are not at all thrushlike.
Many of the wire-tailed swallows, minivets and white-browed fantail
flycatchers bring up a second brood during the rains. The loud
cheerful call of the last is heard very frequently in July.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account