Kingfisher: The Flying Fisherman

Its a hot summer's day and you are sitting on your haunches in the cool shade of the overhanging trees on the river bank, finger on the shutter-release button of your digital camera.

Suddenly, there is a streak of colours - brilliant iridescent turquoise, amber and a little white and then, a faint splash as the Kingfisher dives through the mirror-like surface of the water from his perch overhead.

You go trigger-happy, shooting ‘click, click, click…’ and barely manage to get a couple of shots as the little bird, with fish in beak gleaming silver in the sunshine, breaks out from under the surface into the air taking a steep flight path into the branches above.

You excitedly check the little LCD screen and discover that although the bird did a shallow dive of less than ten inches below the surface, your camera did not capture him underwater due to reflections off the placid surface of the water. If only you had a Polaroid filter over your zoom lens!

But then, how did the kingfisher, perched at a greater distance than you, see his prey under the surface? With polarizing filters over his eyes! Not only that - membranes automatically cover its eyes when it dives underwater. Hey, shutterbug, how’s that for shutter-priority?!

Back on its perch, holding the fish by the tail, it whacks it to the branch to kill it first before swallowing it head first, so that there is no chance of the fish’s fins piercing his gullet while swallowing it and choking to death.

This highly territorial bird defends its fishing grounds from rivals as if its life depended on it - because it does! The kingfisher needs to eat almost two-thirds of its body weight in fish, every day.

The Kingfisher courts the female by displaying his flying skills and finally catching a fish and presenting it to his queen.

The pair then take turns in stabbing at the earth with their bills to make a 3 feet upward-slopping tunnel in the river bank. A nest chamber is made at the end of the tunnel where the female lays about 5-8 little white eggs and starts incubation but is subsequently taken over by the male.

After about 21 days, the naked and blind hatchlings break free. The tubular sheaths holding the adult feathers break open much later. Till then, the little birds look more like prickly hedgehogs.

Kingfishers have a life span of about 20 years. Every year during the breeding season, a pair of them has been coming to nest in a hole in the inner wall of my well, just above the water level. They announce their arrival with their typically shrill calls. They get all the fish they need from the well itself. I guess this is their preferred destination over the highly polluted Daman Ganga River just a stone’s throw away!

Copyright © 2006 Noël Gama

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Indian Elephant: The Gentle Giant

Also known as pachyderms, which means "thick skin" these largest of the land-dwelling animals of Asia are well… very sensitive creatures!

Indian or Asian elephants as they are also called, are distinguished from their African counterparts primarily by their smaller pointed ears, which are networked with blood vessels to regulate temperature - by flapping the ears!

Other differences are: a more rounded back; a flat and tall forehead; a fourth toenail on each of their hind feet; shorter tusks which are really modified upper incisor teeth, with those in females being rudimentary; a single finger-like projection at the tip of its long trunk; a grey to brown skin with a small amount of stiff hair; and a tail with a tuft of hair at the tip - for batting away insects!

Elephants forage for food all day, using their long trunks to reach into trees for tearing off leaves and using their tusks for stripping bark.

They drink a lot of water at least once a day by noisily sucking up the water with their trunks and then pouring it into their mouths. Since they don’t have sweat glands, they bathe often to keep themselves cool. No wonder they are such excellent swimmers, sometimes even walking underwater, using their trunks as snorkels!

Asian elephants are very sociable and live in basic family units of one adult cow and her offspring. Daughters remain with their mothers, but sons leave at puberty, often joining bull groups or remaining solitary. These family units live together in herds of up to 40, headed by an elderly female or matriarch who is responsible for the herd’s safety.

Being more easily tamed than their larger African counterparts, they have been used as beasts of burden for centuries. When ill-treated by their mahouts, they have been seen crying in pain and misery.

In danger of extinction in the wild, due to human encroachment upon their natural habitat and poaching for ivory, they have been classified as ‘Endangered’ by the 2000 IUCN Red List at an estimated population of only 28,000 to 42,000 in the wild.

With an excellent memory and capacity to solve practical problems, they are known to have helped not only their own kind but even rescued humans caught in natural disasters like floods especially.

According to a report in The Economist of November 2nd, 2006, when researchers put a jumbo-sized mirror before three Indian elephants, they tried to look behind the glass! Then, all three appeared to inspect their mouths, and took to moving their food so they could watch themselves eating. One of the elephants even used her reflection to repeatedly touch a mark on her head with her trunk.

That’s no mumbo-jumbo!

Copyright © 2006 Noël Gama

Orca:The Killer Whale

Oops! Wrong title! The orca is neither a killer nor a whale!
18th-century Spanish sailors referred to the orca as ‘whale killer’ (because of their habit of attacking whales), which was incorrectly translated into English as ‘killer whale.’ But like the whale, it also is an aquatic mammal - the largest member of the dolphin family.

Because their behavior is similar to that of wolves, some also call them “sea wolves”. And for those of us who have never seen a live orca, there is the memory of Keiko who starred in all the three Free Willy movies.

The orca has a rubbery but sensitive black skin with a white underbelly, white patches over the eyes and saddle patch markings near the dorsal fin, which provide good camouflage in the flickering, underwater light.

With a weight of up to 10 tons and equipped with sharp, flesh-tearing teeth, the cetacean gathers tremendous momentum as it bears down on prey at speeds of about 55 km/hour.

Orcas hunt sea lions or penguins solo but herd fish together in groups called ‘pods’ and then attack them from different angles.

A pod is not just a group of orcas formed spontaneously but an extended family. Groups of pods sharing the same tradition of sounds by which they communicate (called ‘whale song’) are known as ‘clans’.

Two or more pods come together to form a temporary ‘superpod’ for breeding purposes. After a gestation period of one year and a half, a single calf is born which suckles for about 18 months, staying close to its mother’s side and later retaining a lifelong bond.

There are three types of orca: ‘Resident’ orcas stay within a home range and eat mainly fish; ‘transient’ orcas, as the name suggests, are nomadic in nature, living in the same areas as resident orcas but generally ignoring each other and feeding on whales, fish and marine mammals; ‘offshore’ orcas cruise the open oceans in groups of up to 60, feeding on fish, sharks and turtles.

Orcas socialize by rubbing their bodies together, slapping their tail and pectoral fins against the surface and lifting their heads out of the water, a process called ‘spy-hopping’. This makes them candidates for amusement parks, which hold them in captivity. Fortunately, this fell out of favour with the general public due to the huge success of Free Willy, which inspired a campaign for the release of Keiko.

Keiko was airlifted from the USA to Iceland in July 2002 where he was released into the open sea, but he swam 1400 kms straight to Norway and stayed in a bay there, keeping constant contact with humans till his death in December 2003.

Copyright © 2006 Noël Gama

King Cobra: The Original Face-Off Hood!

The Hooded One has been doing it much before the hood in the Hollywood blockbuster, Face-Off.

Not only that! He has also been doing a far better job than the world’s top surgeons are currently trying to do: the King Cobra peels the skin off his head even uncovering new fangs, teeth and tongue!

What makes him king? He is the longest venomous snake in the world with enough venom to kill 20 soldiers or an elephant, with a single bite.

Unlike other cobras, the King Cobra hunts by day. It detects prey by sight and scent, flicking its tongue in and out. As the tongue slips back into its mouth, it passes over the Jacobson organ which analyzes smell.

On spotting its prey, it makes a lightening-fast lunge and bites it, injecting venom through its two hollow half-inch long fangs. The fast-acting toxin affects the victim’s nervous system, paralyzing respiratory muscles, resulting in death.
It then swallows its prey, dislocating its jaw to help swallow large ones.

When startled or threatened, it takes its classic upright position with about one third of its upper body off the ground, hood flared open.
But the King prefers to flee rather than attack, except when cornered or when one accidentally steps on it or its nest.

During the breeding season, it may seem to the uninitiated that two cobras with necks entwined are mating, when in fact they are just two males wrestling over a female. The winner then rubs his chin along his queen’s body calming her and preparing her for mating. The rest of it is too serpentine a tale to go into!

The queen builds a nest by pushing leaves, grass, sticks and soil together to form a pile into which she makes a hollow and lays her eggs, covering them again and then lying over them.

The king guards the eggs along with his queen during the incubation period of two to three months.
The King Cobra sheds its skin four to six times a year during a two-week shedding cycle.
Laughter will be the thing furthest from your mind should you ever encounter this king-in-invisible-clothes.

Copyright © 2006 Noël Gama

Peacock: National Bird of India

Here’s one beauty that wins ‘tails up’ against any beauty queen in categories like costume, dancing, posing and strutting among others - in spite of being male!

With a fan-shaped crest on its head for a crown and a long train of ornamental feathers on its iridescent blue and green body, the Indian peacock is one of the world’s most spectacular birds.

The train of the peacock, is not a true tail but frond-like plumes called ‘coverts’ that cover the short tail feathers underneath. An adult peacock has about 150 coverts, each measuring about five feet. The train feathers have a series of eyespots that are best seen when the train is erect and fanned out.

Peafowl are sociable and live in a group called ‘ostentation’ or ‘muster’ comprising one male and about five females.

The peacock screeches, struts about, spreads out and vibrates his magnificent tail, angling it over his head like a fan to attract the peahen (who has a crest but does not have a train). The more eyespots on the peacock’s train, the more attractive he is to potential mates!

After mating, the feckless peacock’s role is over, and he plays no part in nest-building or raising the young.

In the wild, the peafowl spend much of their time on the ground looking for food. They tend to forage in the same place every day, scratching over earth and leaf litter to uncover worms and seeds.

Peafowl warn each other of danger by emitting loud, shrieking cries and honks. They have pointed spurs on the backs of their legs for kicking in defense.

When flushed, they take flight with little noise, rising almost vertically to the tree tops although they do not fly far.

They roost in tall trees at night, to keep safe from predators like dogs, foxes, leopards and tigers.

Nothing symbolizes India as accurately and completely as the peacock: the multifaceted cultures in its iridescent blue-green plumage, unity in diversity in the harmony of its clashing colours, the Bharat Natyam in its dancing poses, the classic namaste poise of its head… Go on, look around you at the Diwali lamps, at the fireworks… and add to the list!

No wonder, this non-migratory Indian beauty is found in zoos, parks and gardens all over the world - the de facto goodwill ambassador of India.

Copyright © 2006 Noël Gama

Tiger: National Animal of India

The Sundarbans jungle in South Bengal, is dark, deep and marshy with dense undergrowth of mangrove and thick overhang of trees. The sunlight penetrating the foliage from above, casts patterns of dappled light and shade - perfect camouflage for the Striped One.

As you venture further down the trail and into the gloom, you tend to get an eerie feeling of being watched. No road sign in the world is as effective as a pug mark on a trail. It will make your very heart stop! This is no Hollywood Walk of Fame - you are now in tiger country, home of the Royal Bengal Tiger!

The Bengal tiger has the classic orange coat with black stripes, a color variant being the white tiger which is hardly found in the wild.

Tigers usually hunt at night and rest during the day, often cooling off in rivers and pools.

Tigers hunt alone, stalking their prey or killing by ambush. They use their excellent eyesight and hearing for tracking prey in the dark. They stealthily slink up on the prey unseen till they are at a distance of about 65 feet and then charge with lightening speed using their powerful hind legs for the final leap.

The prey is knocked down with a single blow of the huge paws, lethal claws exposed. The heavily muscled shoulders and front limbs are designed for pulling down prey and the massive jaws with long canine teeth for stabbing the back of the neck and killing it. After the kill, the carcass is dragged into thick cover for feeding. The remains if any, are concealed with leaves for later consumption.

The Bengal tigers are poached for their valuable pelts as well as bones, teeth and penises for use in Chinese medicine. The tiger, at an estimated population of 1,200-1,500, is a gravely endangered species.

When I visited Dudhwa National Park in Uttar Pradesh way back in December 1992, I was not lucky enough to spot a tiger but I did meet Billy Arjan Singh (nicknamed ‘Billy’ - meaning ‘cat’ in Hindi - by his aunt because of his love for the big cats). This octogenarian is the second Indian to receive the prestigious J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Award. A former member of the Steering Committee of Project Tiger, Billy spent his entire life working for the conservation of tigers.

Project Tiger founded in 1973 by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was an effort at saving the declining population of tigers in the country. The project was launched in the Corbett National Park, the first such sanctuary in the country, which celebrated its 70th anniversary during the National Wildlife Week, October 1st-7th, 2006.

Apparently, all is not well with Project Tiger, going by the spate of recent reports on its performance. The title of an article in the Times of India of 23rd September, 2006 aptly captures the scene at the end of my paper trail - ‘Project Tiger is paper tiger!’

Copyright © 2006 Noël Gama

Stingray - Master of Disguise

The Great Barrier Reef in the western Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Queensland, Australia is the largest coral reef in the world. It is also home to the stingray, a ‘camera-shy’ denizen which has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons.

With a striking resemblance to the Stealth Fighter, this dark beauty glides like an hovercraft over the seabed by gently flapping its wing-like modified fins.

It spends most of its time at the bottom of the ocean because unlike most other fish, it does not have a swim bladder and therefore cannot float. As a result, it sinks to the seabed when it stops moving its fins.

The stingray uses the contrasting coloration of its skin to its advantage both, as predator and as prey!

When it lies prone on the seabed, its dark, mottled back merges with the murky background. At other times, it covers itself with a thin layer of sand by undulating its sides, making itself almost invisible.

When the stingray swims up to the surface, its light-colored belly provides perfect camouflage against the bright light that streams into the water from above.

Once a stingray has zeroed in on its prey, it uses its flattened body not only to trap it against the seabed but also to guide the prey to its mouth by undulating the edges of its body.

It uses the mottles on its back to advertise its venomous defenses, thus warning off predators like sharks and humans.

Like they say, ‘the sting is in the tail!’ The cartilaginous spine of the stingray runs along the body to form a tail with a sting at the base, with two venom-filled grooves underneath. When the ray lashes out at a victim, the delicate tail skin ruptures on impact, releasing the poison.

Most rays are gentle, only raising their tails in warning but some long-tailed rays attack if startled. Sadly, this is what happened out there on the Great Barrier Reef on the 4th of September 2006, when a ‘camera-toting’ denizen of Australia inadvertently swam over an inconspicuous ray.

With lightening-speed, the ray struck, its poisonous spine piercing the heart of Animal Planet’s first citizen and one of planet Earth’s greatest lovers of wildlife - Steve Irwin.

Copyright © 2006 Noël Gama