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Reflections In Ranganthittu

Ranganthittu is not the best place in the world for bird photography, but it is one of my favorite places to observe bird behavior. The quarreling Painted Storks, the perennially surprised Openbill, the clumsy Pelican, the proud Egret, the always hungry Cormorant, the is-it-daylight-already Fruit Bat, the impatient Kingfisher, the attention seeking Wagtail, the shy Flycatcher, the angry Spoonbill; all of them play out their lives in a cacophonous symphony carefully laid out for your entertainment.

Did a dip-n-dash this morning.
           
 

On Birdwatching

An overheard conversation between a Steppe Eagle and a Black Eagle. The Steppe Eagle is an amateur humaner and the Black Eagle is the experienced humaner.

Steppe Eagle: "Is that an European Blondcrown?!"
Black Eagle: "Where? At this time of the year, it is highly unlikely. They are normally winter migrants. Rarely seen here in summer. It could be an Aryan Flightcatcher; pale morph."
"But the blond crown is evident and moreover the call is not like the Aryan Flightcatcher, which has a call that mimics the American Bald Eater."
"You are right. It is an European Blondcrown. Also, the Asian Brown Moneyaskers approaching it is the typical behavior pattern i have noticed several times earlier. This must be a new record for this time of the year. Bonelli should have been here; he would have loved this!"

Black Eagle: "Ah! A bunch of Japanese Flashers."
Steppe Eagle: "Where?"
"Do you see that clump of colorful ceramics? Look to the right and follow the street. You will see them."
"Unh... where?"
"Do you see that red pillar and the green car parked opposite it?"
"Yes..."
"Now, look to the right of the red pillar, up the brown road in the direction that the green car is now heading until the pink monument. There you'll see a bunch of humans moving together; that is the Japanese Flashers."
"Ah, i see them now! I can never differentiate between a Japanese Flasher and the Oriental Closedmouth."
"It is fairly obvious. The Oriental Closedmouth has a wider range of calls and it generally has a higher pitch call than the Japanese Flasher. Also, the Japanese Flashers tend to flock together more than the Orientals."
"Are those males or females we are looking at?"
"I can see 3 of each. You can tell the female by looking at its rump. Slightly rounder than the male."

Black Eagle: "Black-Whiskered Rusty Dravidian doing a courtship display for the female!"
Steppe Eagle: "Wow! This is so amazing!"
"Yes, notice the drink that the male will offer the female, then they attach the forelimbs to one another and finally the mouths."
"Wow! This is so amazing!"
"Ah, the female is spurning his advances. Bonelli would have loved this; he could have shot a documentary."
"Wow! This is so amazing!"
"And the female walks away with Aryan Flightcatcher! This behavior has been recorded extensively by Montagu, et al in 2004."
"Wow! This is so amazing! I love nature and wildlife!"

[Bonelli's Eagle flies in]
Bonelli's Eagle: "Guys, you will never believe what you missed. I just spotted an Orange Holyspeaker mating with two Long Haired Heartstealers (dark morph)! Got amazing shots!"

-------

At the same time, an young birder and an experienced birder are out in the field.

Young Birder: "Wow! A Steppe Eagle, A Black Eagle and a Bonelli's Eagle all soaring together!"
Experienced Birder: "Don't be silly. That's impossible. They are just three Black Kites."
Young Birder: "Okay."

 

Building A Time Machine

Wikipedia tells me:
... in the year 1120 AD, the Chola King, Veera Ballalla ruled the Deccan plateau or the South of India. On a hunting trip in the forest he lost his way. After a long search he met an old lady in the forest who offered him shelter for the night and served him baked beans for dinner. To show his gratitude to this lady for having saved his life, the King constructed a town and named it as Benda Kalooru which means Baked Beans...

I began to think about what Veera Ballalla might have seen. Would MG Road have been a stream, Jayanagar a wooded area and Indiranagar chockablock with tall evergreen trees? More interestingly, what kind of birds and animals might have existed - species that thrived then that we might have lost now or the other way around. Was it a place with tigers lurking around the corner, elephants announcing their mighty presence, warblers darting from one branch to another trying to sell their wares while pink headed ducks calmly waded in the streams wondering what the excitement was all about. Maybe there were racquet tailed drongos imitating and making fun of the winter immigrants just as the cormorants waved their wings in disgust at the pelicans, "These foreigners are spoiling our city!". The woodpeckers would have asked for "one and aff" for use of their tree-holes during the rains and the babblers would gather every evening to gossip about the neighbors, "Did you notice what happened to the oriole that was showing off near the mango tree? He got a white eye! Har har!" The wily dholes would have been upto no good near the race course, while across the street the huge gaurs would be sauntering across the golf course. All the animals would jostle for space on lazy evenings to watch performances by the dancing peafowls, the singing tree frogs (who got booed off stage every time) and the acrobatic hanuman langurs.

Yes, it was a lazy Saturday morning with nothing good on television. But, let's not allow a little weird imagination to get in the way of an interesting science project. Aside from this being a fun project, it could have implications on conservation efforts.

Building this time machine is straightforward on paper, but is incredibly hard in practice because of the lack of information and appropriate maintenance of records. Probably the main ingredient is the landscape ecology data of the area. Another incredible datapoint would be any historic maps made by the Cholas or Hoysalas, the icing would be if these maps are of the natural environment. Co-relating these maps with any existing ruins within the city and entering these in a GIS database would give a fairly accurate picture of what each part of the city might have looked like back then. Now, given that we have specific environment information, we could construct a probability continuum of the possible species and their likelihood of being found in the region given their natural habitats (as a factor of time and space, of course. You can't expect Mammoths because they would not have been found during the time or in the region, even if the environment suited them).

A new pet project, however inane, is always something exciting. Watch this space.