Glimpses of Indian Birds

by Douglas Dewar

When young hoopoes emerge from the egg they are silent creatures, but before they are many days old they begin to welcome with squeaks the arrival of the parents with food. The older the young birds grow the more vociferous they become.

Like the majority of birds that nestle in holes, hoopoes with young display but little fear of man. The nest of which I write was situated over the door of the pantry, where servants work during the greater part of the day. The hoopoes did not seem to object at all to the presence of the servants, but they took great exception to my arrival. Whenever I came upon the scene the parent hoopoes used to greet me with a harsh chur uttered with crest folded back and tail expanded.

One day a corby (Corvus macrorhynchus), who doubtless had done to death many a promising nestling, alighted on a table placed in the verandah outside the pantry. The hoopoes were furious at the intrusion. They took up positions, to right and to left of the crow, at a safe distance, and scolded it with great vehemence. The crow took no notice whatever of this hostile demonstration. After a little one of the hoopoes flew to the ground, and from there continued its abuse of the crow. Then, while waiting to regain its breath, it expanded its crest and repeatedly bobbed its head so that the tip of the bill almost touched the ground. This bowing performance is evidently an expression of great excitement. I have seen doves behaving in a similar manner in the midst of a fight, and also when courting. Here, then, we have a case of what is usually considered to be showing off or display to the female, taking place at a time when a bird is very angry. The hoopoe in question was not showing off either to the crow or to its mate; it was assuredly no time, “no matter for his swellings nor his turkey cocks.”

On the 25th April the young hoopoe began to call even when its parents were not at the nest. Each time they brought food it uttered a series of squeaks much like those that emanate from a cycle pump when air is being pumped through it into a nearly fully inflated tyre. By this time the young bird had developed to such an extent that when a parent arrived it would push its head through the aperture of the nest hole.

On the 26th April the young bird left the nest. Assuming that the 17th March was the day when the hen began to sit, we find the young bird emerging from the nest forty days later. It is, however, improbable that I noticed the cock feeding the hen on the very first day of incubation. It is my belief that young hoopoes do not leave the nest for fully a month after they are hatched. When they do leave the nest they differ very little in appearance from the adult. They have the crest and the colouring fully developed. The only difference is that the bill is not quite so long or so curved.

From the time the bird emerges from the nest until the moment when it is gathered unto its fathers, the hoopoe’s plumage does not undergo any change in appearance. This being so I am puzzled to know what a correspondent meant when he recently wrote to the Field about a hoopoe in full breeding plumage that appeared in Yorkshire.

But let us return to the young hoopoe that emerged from the nest in my verandah at Fyzabad on the 26th April, 1912. Not content with thrusting its head and shoulders through the aperture at the visit of its father or mother as it had been doing for some time, it suddenly came right out on to the beam to meet its food-laden parent. After it had eaten the proffered caterpillar and the parent had left, the young bird caught sight of me. Immediately it opened out its crest and began bowing in the manner described above as betokening excitement. Then it fluttered on to a ledge at the distance of six feet. A minute later it flew out of the verandah and alighted on a creeper growing on a wall fifteen yards away. Its flight was wonderfully strong, but I noticed that it was breathing heavily after it had alighted, showing that the short flight entailed considerable exertion. It appeared to dislike the interest I was taking in it, and so flew on to the roof of the bungalow, where I lost sight of it.

These little incidents are, I submit, utterly subversive of the anthropomorphic theory, so much in favour nowadays and expounded by Mr. Walter Long in that much-read book The School of the Woods, that birds and beasts are born with their minds a blank, and that they have to be taught how to walk and how to fly just as human babies are taught how to talk and walk. As a matter of fact, young birds require and receive very little education from their parents. A young bird flies as instinctively as a baby cries.

I saw nothing more of the young hoopoe until the morning of the 28th April, when I noticed a hoopoe on the roof of my bungalow calling uk-uk-uk repeatedly, notwithstanding the fact that it had a caterpillar in its beak. Birds can sing with the mouth full! Presently a young hoopoe appeared on the roof. The adult bird ran to the latter and thrust the caterpillar into its mouth. This was acknowledged by a little squeak of thankfulness.

Most young birds flap their wings and make a great commotion when they think it is time they received a beakful of food. Baby hoopoes, however, do not behave in this way at all. They toddle sedately in the wake of the mother or father, but make no clamour for food. They receive this in a most dignified manner, merely uttering a little squeak of thanks.