The migrating birds continue to pour into India during the earlier
part of November. The geese are the last to arrive, they begin to come
before the close of October, and, from the second week of November
onwards, V-shaped flocks of these fine birds may be seen or heard
overhead at any hour of the day or night.
The nesting activities of the fowls of the air are at their lowest ebb
in November. Some thirty species are known to rear up young in the
present month as opposed to five hundred in May. In the United
Provinces the only nest which the ornithologist can be sure of finding
is that of the white-backed vulture.
Some of the amadavats are still nesting. Most of the eggs laid by
these birds in the rains yielded young ones in September, but it often
happens that the brood does not emerge from the eggs until the end of
October, with the result that in the earlier part of the present month
parties of baby amadavats are to be seen enjoying the first days of
their aerial existence. A few black-necked storks do not lay until
November; thus there is always the chance of coming upon an incubating
stork in the present month. Here and there a grey partridge's nest
containing eggs may be found. As has been said, the nesting season of
this species is not well-defined.
The quaint little thick-billed mites known as white-throated munias
(_Munia malabarica_) are also very irregular as to their nesting
habits. Their eggs have been taken in every month of the year except
June.
In some places Indian sand-martins are busy at their nests, but the
breeding season of the majority of these birds does not begin until
January.
Pallas's fishing-eagle is another species of which the eggs are likely
to be found in the present month. If a pair of these birds have a nest
they betray the fact to the world by the unmusical clamour they make
from sunrise to sunset.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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