Birds and My Birding

ORIOLES ON THE GROUND -
 This refers to the NLBW [40 (4) Jul-Aug 2000] 'Golden oriole on the ground' by Zaibin A. P. According to Ali, S. & Futehally, L (1968), the black-headed oriole and the golden oriole are entirely arboreal and are never seen on the ground. On 26.5.2000, at about 3.45 p.m., I sighted a black-headed oriole on the ground in a well-wooded area near cultivation. A few minutes later, the bird saw me and flew off. A little later, I saw the brainfever bird on the ground. Next day, I wrote to Dr. Asad R Rahmani about the rare event. A few days later, I received a letter from Dr. Rahmani which read, 'The black-headed oriole is generally an arboreal bird but for drinking water it comes to the ground. I have seen a photograph of a golden oriole drinking water from a waterhole in a forest. Even brainfever bird is regularly seen on the ground picking up hairy caterpillars which have fallen down from trees'. I think, it is interesting to note that some species that are entirely arboreal and seen on ground are often omnivorous birds (eg., oriole, hawk-cuckoo, hornbill)

© Uruj Shahid

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our Journey - Meter Gauge Railway

Image
The journey of Meter gauge train used to be a world in itself. From late 80s to mid 90s when I had traveled the trains were operated with steam locomotive, then later from 1995 the train was began to operated with Ydm4 diesel locomotive  .Then two to three pairs of passenger trains and three pairs of express trains would pass through our lakhimpur railway staition which came from Bareilly, Palia and Mailani junction and reached Lucknow via Sitapur. I usually used to travel from Lakhimpur to Lucknow and return from Lucknow to Lakhimpur and it took about four hours to complete this journey as trains were often crossed due to single meter gauge railway line, which made trains had to stay at the station lying between this route . And as a crossed train passed through the station, the token is then given to the other train's loco pilot standing there and it used to move towards its destination . Between the train journey of Lucknow and Lakhimpur, it was necessary to stop every train at
Read more

Education is the solution 🎭

 If you are told that the dog living at the turn of your path is fierce, then whenever you pass through that turn, fear will arise itself even if that dog does not do anything to you . This is the only thing that is done for us by the people doing the business of news, so that an image is prepared in our mind for some person or religion or society, so that we start fearing everything which is related to it . Violence is either done under conspiracy or it is done in deception and violence done in it to get its basic rights is absolutely wrong according to law but it is also unfair to keep it in the category of terror . If you are a religious person, then you must have compassion for everyone equally, otherwise there will be no difference between you and the animal, because the feeling of anger is a reaction generated by the devil, but if it comes to your self-defense, then the answer  is entitled to take action that too without harming any innocent .  Our earth is the only planet on whi
Read more

My Life Story 🚵 - Part 3

Image
In the late 80s, when I was ten years old, the birds I saw around my house I was always be curious to see them and that's how I became fond of it and established myself as a birdwatcher .   The area where I had spent my childhood was filled with a lot of species of birds and probably because of the greenery of the trees, the birds loved this area very much .  It was my pleasure to be so close to the birds but at that time it was a challenge for me to identify birds by name . But wherever there is a will, there is a way and it happened that as my hobby grew, things got easier , I remember how I got some books on birds from a library in the city and I started identifying some common birds by name. Those days I didn't need binoculars because I could see birds very close and sometimes I even took some birds in my hands but once a small bird died of suffocation in my hands, which made me very sad and this is the first time I'm telling you .  You might be surprised th
Read more