Glimpses of Indian Birds

by Douglas Dewar

“As it nests in hollow stems, and hollow stems mean decay, there is invariably fungus on those stems. And how wonderfully the hoopoe’s white copies them, and how wonderfully the black represents shadows; and then again, in addition to colouration, is a crest to help break the outline.”

For the benefit of those who have not visited India I may state that in the greater part of the plains the trunks of old trees are not covered with fungus. Practically every hoopoe nests in a place completely hidden from the outer world. If the hen hoopoe were coloured with all the colours of the spectrum she would while sitting on her eggs be invisible from the outer world. It is sad to think that people exist who can bring themselves to write such nonsense as Mr. Oyler has inflicted on the readers of the Fortnightly Review.

It is said that a pair of hoopoes uses the same nest year after year. I have not been able to verify this statement owing to the demands on my peripatetic capacity made by the exigencies of the public service.

The eggs of the hoopoe are elongated ovals of a dirty white colour; euphemists describe them as dingy olive-brown or green, while euphuists portray them as having a delicate greyish blue tint. They are devoid of markings.

The clutch is said to contain from four to seven eggs. This is another assertion which I have never attempted to verify, because in order to reach the eggs of the hoopoe one has usually to pull down part of a wall or other edifice and at the same time wreck the nest. However, I can say that I have never observed more than two young hoopoes emerge from a nest, and on several occasions I have noticed that only one issued forth.

As concrete instances are more interesting than generalities I propose in what follows to give an account of the nesting operations of a pair of hoopoes that recently reared up a youngster in a chink in the wall of my verandah at Fyzabad between a wooden rafter and the brickwork. The cavity in question was so situated that I could see its orifice as I sat at my dressing table. I noticed for the first time a hoopoe bringing food to the nest on the 17th March. The food brought appeared to consist chiefly of caterpillars. Whenever the bird arrived at the nest it uttered a soft, pretty, tremulous coo-coo-coo. This was to inform its mate that it had come.

The hen hoopoe is said not to leave the nest from the time she begins to incubate until the young emerge from the eggs. This statement is, I believe, correct. It is not one that can be very easily verified because the sexes are alike in outward appearance. Certain it is that the hen sits very closely and the cock continually brings food to her.

As soon as the young are hatched out the hen leaves the nest and assists the cock in finding food for the baby hoopoes. I cannot say on what day the particular hen whose doings are here recorded left the nest. April 9th was the first date on which I noticed both birds feeding the young. At that period the parents were bringing food faster than the occupant of the nest could dispose of it, and one or other of them had often to wait outside with something in the beak until the nestling was ready to receive it. At that time I had no idea how many young birds were inside the nest. The chink that led to it was too narrow to admit of the insertion of one’s hand. It was not until the young bird emerged that I discovered that only one nestling had been reared.

While the parent was thus waiting outside with a succulent caterpillar hanging from its bill, it used to utter its call uk-uk-uk. Sometimes while one bird was thus waiting the other would appear. Then the first bird would transfer the quarry to its mate, and the latter would either devour it or wait outside the nest with the morsel.

Most birds when they feed their young collect several organisms in the beak between the visits to the nest. Not so the hoopoe; it brings but one thing at a time, which it carries at the extreme tip of the bill. The reasons for this departure from the usual practice are obvious. The long bill of the hoopoe, like that of the snipe, is a probe to penetrate the earth. During this operation any food already in the bill would be torn and damaged. Moreover, if the hoopoe were to carry the food to the nest in the angle of the beak as most birds do, it would be difficult to transfer this to the long bill of the young bird. Hence it comes to pass that hoopoes visit their nestlings a very great number of times in the course of the day.