Another winter visitor that cannot fail to attract attention is the white-eared bulbul (Molpastes leucotis), a bird loathed by the gardener on account of the damage it does to buds.
Two species of bulbul are abundant in Lahore: this one and the Punjab red-vented bulbul (Molpastes intermedius). The latter, like the poor, is always with us, while the former shakes the dust of Lahore off its feet and departs when the weather becomes hot. The permanent resident has a red patch under its tail and a black head and crest, while the migrant wears yellow under the tail and has white cheeks.
The family of birds of prey furnishes us with a large number of winter visitors. Those most likely to be seen in the neighbourhood of Lahore are the steppe eagle, the long-legged buzzard, the sparrow hawk, the peregrine falcon, the kestrel, and the merlin. It must not be thought that all our Indian birds of prey are migrants. A number of species remain in the plains throughout the hot weather to vex the souls of their weaker brethren. Curiously enough, there is among the permanently resident raptores a counterpart, a nearly allied species—I might almost say a “double”—of nearly every migrant. The tawny eagle (Aquila vindhiana) and the steppe eagle (A. bifasciata) are so alike that some authorities are inclined to regard them as a single species. But the former lives in the plains all the year round and breeds in and about Lahore, while the steppe eagle goes to the hills in the hot weather to breed, and appears quite unable to endure heat. The one caught at Wazirabad in the cold weather of 1906-7 and confined in the local “Zoo” died comparatively early in the hot weather, whereas the tawny eagle, kept in the same cage, has all along flourished like the green bay tree. The shikra (Astur badius) and the sparrow hawk (Accipiter nisus), although ornithologists now place them in different genera, are so much alike that it is easy to mistake one for the other, yet the former is a permanent resident while the latter is a migrant. Similarly the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) is a winter visitor to the plains of the Punjab, while its cousin the laggar (Falco jugger) is a permanent resident. In the same way the Turumti or red-headed merlin abides with us all the year round, while the common merlin (Aesalon regulus) visits us only in winter.
Almost the only raptorial winter visitor that has not a cousin who lives in the plains throughout the year is the kestrel (Tinnunculus alaudarius), the bird known in England as the Windhover. This is perhaps the easiest to identify of all the birds of prey, on account of its habit of hovering on vibrating wings, like the pied kingfisher, high in the air, over a spot where it thinks that there is quarry in the shape of some small rodent. If the surmise be correct the kestrel drops like a stone and seizes its quarry in its talons; if it sees nothing it sweeps away with a few easy movements of its powerful wings and hovers elsewhere. The only other bird of prey that hovers like the kestrel is the black-winged kite (Elanus caerulus). This is mainly white and so cannot be confounded with the kestrel.
The explanation of the fact that one species of bird of prey leaves the plains in the hot weather, while a nearly related species remains, may perhaps be found in the nature of their food. Birds of prey are to a greater or lesser extent specialists; while quite ready to devour any small bird, reptile, or mammal which comes their way, they lay themselves out more especially to catch one particular species, and if that species migrates it follows that the bird that preys upon it will also migrate. Thus the peregrine falcon lays itself out to catch ducks and naturally goes with them to their breeding grounds, just as the hawker of cheap wares, who preys upon the mem-sahib, follows her to the hills in the summer.
In conclusion mention must be made of the Corvi which visit us in winter. The arch-corvus, the grey-necked rascal (Corvus splendens), of course, abides with us all the year round. The raven, too, is to be seen at all times of the year, but is more abundant in the cold weather than in the hot. During the summer months we see comparatively few ravens; in the winter they are exceedingly numerous. Every evening towards sunset a long stream of them may be observed flying in a westerly direction to the common roosting place. There is a similar stream of crows that flies in a north-westerly direction. The rook (Corvus frugilegus) is a permanent resident of Kashmir and the North-Western Himalayas, but in mid-winter many individuals are driven by the cold into the Frontier Province and the Punjab; some come as far south as Lahore, where they consort with the crows. If the winter is a severe one large numbers of rooks come to Lahore, otherwise these birds are not very numerous. The same applies to the jackdaw (Corvus monedula), but he never comes in such numbers as the rook. There is in the octagonal bird house in the Lahore “Zoo” a compartment in which there is a “Happy Family” of ravens, rooks, and jackdaws, with an Australian crow-shrike and a Nicobar pigeon to keep them company. Thus every one who cannot already do so may learn to identify the various Corvi which visit Lahore in the winter.
XXVII
A KINGFISHER AND A TERN
Nearly every village in India has its pond which becomes filled with water during the monsoon and grows drier and drier during the winter and hot weather. The pond is usually a natural depression, sometimes enlarged and deepened by human agency. Occasionally a village is situated on the edge of a lake, or jhil, but such fortunate villages are few and far between; the average hamlet has to be content with a small tank. This morning I came upon such a tank, in which the water had become low, leaving a wide margin of mud between it and the artificially made bank. At one end a couple of people were squatting. Mirabile dictu, there was not a paddy bird to be seen, and the only feathered creature disporting itself along the edge was a grey wagtail. In mid pond four domestic ducks were feeding. A tern—the Indian river tern (Sterna seena)—was busy at the tank, flying gracefully over the water and dipping into it every few seconds. Judging from the frequency with which the bird dived, the water must have teemed with food, but there were no signs of fish rising, so that how the eye of the tern was able to penetrate the very muddy water is a mystery. However, the tern did manage to distinguish its quarry, for, although its movements were so rapid that I was not able to discover what it was catching, I could see distinctly that, when rising, it carried something tiny in its bill.
Terns are especially addicted to pieces of water that are rapidly drying up, for under such conditions they find the creatures upon which they prey literally jostling one another. After the water has been run off from a canal, dozens of terns congregate at each hollow in the canal-bed in which water lies.
The tern, when it plunges after its quarry, takes great care not to wet its wings. Its habit is to drop from a height of about twenty feet head foremost. In the course of the plunge the head and body are often submerged, but, I think, never the wings; during the operation, these are held almost vertically. So assiduously was this tern plying his profession that he made thirty dives in about six minutes.