Pernicious Misconceptions

The misconceptions of mankind about how wildlife causes damage to our infrastructure is very much ludicrous. People often blame wildlife for damage to crops, attacking humans, destroying infrastructure and much more, but we do not realise that it is us who have invaded their  lives, destroyed their homes, and brutally finished the different races of wildlife just for our personal benefits and needs. We pollute habitats. We illegally hunt and kill animals and as  human population is growing so fast, animals and plants are disappearing 1000 times faster than they have in the past 65 million years. I know that writing about this will not change a thing about it or make me a wildlife conservator, hence through this blog I plan to list these threats so that we can know that how we can still bring change.

Amongst the threatened wildlife, bird life and insect life, agriculture in its current form poses the biggest hazard to these species more than any other factors. Agricultural practices used to be the greatest factor to support huge bird and insect populations, but the Un-organic and pesticide filled practices have only helped to reduce the population of avi-fauna it once supported. Though this can be changed through the practice of organic and sustainable farming which yields the equal amount of crops to the farmers as the usage of  Un-organic means of agricultural practices and pesticides, along with the advantage of protecting the environment.

The expansion of housing companies and huge industries have taken over the agricultural land after which small farmers and labourers are forced to resort to forest and clear them out for residing and farming which causes damage to nature and wildlife and as well as to humans and the climate.
When people intrude forests to expand agricultural land, animals of prey, usually leopards and tigers are threatened and in return they attack humans in fear. These animals are later on labelled as "Man-Eaters" and are simply killed due to this reason. Even simple and shy creatures such as snakes which help eradicate mice in fields are treated as a threat and are brutally killed on site.

A Russel's Viper decapitated by foolish people.

Birds which are included in the Sparrow family are disappearing as they have no where else to go. They cannot withstand the electromagnetic radiations produced by the telephone towers.  Due to this factor sparrows resort to village areas where usually agriculture is practiced and they usually damage many cereal and fruit crops. They also spoil cereal crops, animal feed and stored grain with their droppings. Their nests may block gutters and down pipes. So we cannot simply label them as 'Vermin', as we are the ones responsible for their suffering.

House Sparrow's which fell out of the sky due to heavy radiation.

Birds, namely Egrets and Herons eat worms and other insects from the fields and keep check on their population. Falcons, Kites, Hawks and other birds of prey help remove the mice and rats from the fields which are responsible for damaging the crops and soil. Sunbirds are  known to play an important role in pollination, while Larks, Pipits and Swallows put a check on pesky insects, yet all these birds are dying due to the pesticides used in fields. One such example is of the Red Headed Falcon from India. The population of this species has drastically gone down, as the mice which it catches and eats have consumed the crops filled with pesticides which poisons this falcon including many other birds of prey.

The Red Headed Falcon in Punjab.

For birds, this brave new world of intensification has meant death by a million pinpricks. Non-crop areas where birds once nested are now inhospitable fields of corn or wheat. Mechanised mowing injures birds and mangle their nests.  Farming practices have to radically change to become more sustainable as there are no easy changes.

Collisions with electricity transmission and distribution lines have been identified as the second-largest human-caused source of bird mortality. Between 10-41 million birds per year are killed by collisions with transmission lines; between 160,000 and 800,000 birds are electrocuted by distribution lines; and about 400,000 nests are destroyed annually due to vegetation clearing under power-lines.

Bees are also another order which is declining in population due to industrial agriculture, parasites/pathogens and climate change. The loss of biodiversity, destruction of habitat and lack of forage due to monocultures and bee-killing pesticides are particular threats for honeybees and wild pollinators. If this number keeps on declining it would destroy the delicate balance of the Earth's ecosystem and affect global food supplies.

 Bees killed by invasive wasps and fumigation.

Every animal has a proper function and place in this world and without them the ecosystem will get disrupted, hence instead of thinking only about our own financial gain we should also think about the wildlife around which is one of the greatest factor keeping our earth alive and protected from human greed.

The Anatomy of Aviation

Indian Roller in display at Sakteri,Haryana

Birds are masters of the air. Other animals can           fly, but none can match the sheer speed, agility,   and endurance of birds. Qualities which have been  refined by millions of years of evolution. We all know how birds fly, they have hollow and light bones, they have a streamlined body and they have feathers to push air back and take flight. We must acknowledge that all these facts are the most important ones, yet there is more to the art of  flying in birds.

 Flight is the most distinguished feature of birds  which differs them from other animals. Flight helps them while feeding, breeding, migrating, fleeing. The Indian Roller even uses its amazing flight to impress its partner for breeding by performing aerobatics and stunts in the air. Bird flight is a very vast topic and different birds have different flight patters and techniques. Some birds use their wings for gliding, some for hovering, some for soaring and so on. Nature has perfectly crafted flight patterns to different birds as per their needs.

All basic bird anatomy starts from a prehistoric creature known as the Archaeopteryx, which is considered to be the first bird ever. Its feathers only supported gliding and it had woodpecker like hand and feet which helped it grab onto trees. Today 150 million years after the the transition from dinosaurs to birds, we have over 10,500 species of birds around the world, all with distinct features, different colours, calls, flight patterns and behaviour.

The basic concept of flight lies in lift and drag. Lift is produced by the action of air flow on the wing, which is an Airfoil . The airfoil is shaped such that the air provides a net upward force on the wing, while the movement of air is directed downward.

Aerodynamic drag is the force which acts opposite due to which the bird exerts energy and pressure to the flight.

The shape of the wing of a bird is also very important for flight and there are many types of wing shapes. If the wing's shape is not balanced properly i.e if one of the wing is longer or heavier than the other, birds will not be able to fly at all, just like a plane crashing if the if one of its wing is only an inch longer.

Different birds have different wing shapes for different needs. 
Hummingbirds and sunbirds have short and triangular wings which are ideal for fast wingbeats while Eagles and vultures have Broader wings to catch rising air currents. I saw this phenomenon for the first time in Morni, Haryana from an observation point which was at a great height. At that point we saw a Himalayan Griffon Vulture which flew at a point and then suddenly gained a great height.When the vulture gained a great height, it flew across the whole land in a straight path and scanned for prey. After a while several more vultures stormed the same point and did the same thing. Mr. Daman, who was with us that afternoon and is an aeromodelling instructor in the Air Force told us that the vultures are catching warm air currents called thermals to get a better view. These thermals are present only at some points, and when the warm air which rises up, raptors identify it and it basically acts a lift for them to get to a higher level. It was very satisfying and fun to watch raptors catching thermals at different locations.

Himalayan Griffon after catching a thermal.

Birds also have different flying patterns. You may have seen that Cormorants and ducks during flight use rapid and regular wing beats while when you see a Swallow or Bee Eater, they randomly glide and flapp as they hunt insects in mid air. The different types of flight include: Gliding, Hovering, Flapping, Bounding, Random flight which are all self explanatory. Several times I have seen birds such as Kingfishers, Kestrels, Black Winged Kites and Short Toed Snake Eagles hover in mid air over their prey. They are able to do this by flying upwards just fast enough push against gravity against a wind current.

Take offs and Landings also have to be very precise. Birds such as Ducks, Cormorants, Herons and all other waterfowl have heavier bodies and have to exert more energy and pressure than other birds. Many waterbirds such as ducs and cormorants take a run-up and make the water their runway before taking off, while some birds just launch themselves.

Black Eared Kite at take off.

Landings have to be very accurate. If the bird does not land properly and aims for the wrong place, it will go crashing down into the ground. Birds extend their feet just like a plane unfolds its landing gear and perfectly co-ordinate their wings with slowing down a halting. Hence, almost all of our Aerodynamic Vehicles have been inspired from the flight and flight structures of birds.

Black Kite balancing before landing.

The tail also plays a major role in flight and gives direction to the angle on which the bird flies. In birds such as Bee-Eaters, the tail helps them take extreme turns in mid air when they are trying to catch insects and when this happens they also make a small "krrrk" sound if you observe closely.

A Blue Tailed Bee-Eater in flight.

Well, this was all I could observe about the flight of birds after 3-4 years of birding.There may be many more concepts and facts about bird flight that I need to learn, but now at least we now that why the birds keep preening their feathers.

Colour Codes: Understanding Bird Colours

All of us love colourful birds. The more the colours the more of joy comes to our hearts after looking at those birds. Many of us may not know that how different birds acquire different colours and always wish to see the more brighter and colourful bird rather than just an ordinary mynah. Well, the answer lies in science and as well as survival.

Bird Colours are a result of the pigments flowing through them and the light which reflects off their feathers.

When light passes through a prism, that white light is divided into seven colours: Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. When the light deflects, Violet has the shortest wavelength and red has the longest which makes the colour red look more prominent while violet is less visible. The same way when light passes through the feather of birds at a certain angle, they give out different colours. This means that Parrots, Bee-Eaters and barbets are not actually green, we see the light reflecting from their brown and slightly transparent feathers. The best example to prove this comes through the bird, "Anna's Hummingbird". This bird is mostly green and grey with wonderful feathers on its head which changes colour according to the angle of light. In low light this bird usually looks dull grey or brownish, but with the swing of its head, sometimes it may seem pink, or bright red and sometimes it changes to a rufous and orange colour. Hence, its the angle and not the colour of the feathers which determine what we see. Thankfully, raptors and many animals which prey on birds don't see their colours as bright as our eyes do, which helps these colourful birds to hide from them easily.

Anna' Hummingbird from California,USA

Anna's Hummingbird changing colours due to light angles.

Many birds also acquire their colour through eating certain food substances which release pigments in their body causing a change of colours. The best example for acquiring colour change are flamingoes.

Flamingoes are born dull brown or grey and they acquire their pink colour because a natural pink dye called "Canthaxanthin" which they obtain through eating brown shrimp or blue green algae.

American Falmingoes from Florida,USA acquire their colour from Canthaxanthin.

There are three main pigments which give feathers their colours.

The first pigment is called "Melanin". Melanin produces a dark and black colouration and it is also the pigment which makes the hair of mammals look black. Melanin is a very strong and rigid pigment and is mostly used up in the flight feathers of birds.

Grey Bushchat from HP, India contains mostly melanin in feathers.

The second group of pigments are called "Carotenoids" which produces colours such as Red, Yellow and Orange. Cartenoids are ingested through the food and fruits the bird eats.

The third group of pigments is called "Porphyrins" gives out colours such as Red, Pink ans Green. It is the rarest of all pigments and is possessed only by a few bird families.

A mixture of different pigments produces different colours and hues in a bird.

Sun Conure from Brazil contains a mix of carotenoids and porphyrins.

Keratin also plays a role in bird colouration as it's the feathers, bill and feet are made of this substance. Keratin is the same protein which helps in the formation of nail and horns in mammals. It produces colour through the process of layering and scattering.

Layering colours are produced when translucent keratin reflects short wave-lengths of colours like blues, violets, purples and greens.

Scattering is produced when the keratin of feathers is interspersed with tiny air pockets within the structure of the feathers themselves. These air pockets and the interspersed keratin scatter blue and green light and produce the shimmering colours of birds like kingfishers, rollers and bee-eaters.

Indian Roller from Haryana,India consists of scattering of Keratin.

Hence, the different colours of birds are a perfect combination of pigments and light angles.

Another aspect of colour change in most birds is that, the male bird is more brightly coloured than females.The theory of Charles Darwin concluded that colour differences between sexes in birds (also known as sexual dichromatism) result largely from female preference for bright colours in males. This general rule has received much support since Darwin's time, but other influences have also been noted. For example, females of species that are exposed to predators while incubating tend to have dull colours, although both sexes may be brightly coloured in species that nest in tree hollows because the females are less visible to predators. Colour can also aid individuals in recognizing members of their own species and in species that are not good to eat, colours can provide a warning to potential predators. Males also have bright colours and beautiful extensions of feathers through which they show their pomp and secure their territory.

All of these factors perfectly combine to support the structure of bird colourations which made me realise that colours are not meant only for beauty or for us to look at them, they are also meant for the survival and lifestyle of the birds and animals we see everyday.

Wilson's Bird of paradise from West Pappua New Guinea
The striking male is below the dull and brownish female.

The Call Of Colours

Indian Pitta at Mirzapur

Pittas are one of the most colourful birds in the world. The behaviour, the colour and the ecology is very elusive and attractive. It is a delight to all birders and ornithologists.
Pittas are colourful, long legged passerine birds as big as a myna but plumper and short tailed. They generally hop around the forest floors over fallen logs and dense undergrowth, usually roaming in loose pairs. They feed on insects, grubs, snails, worms, etc. They are quite shy and are best located by their characteristic whistling calls. Most likely seen at dawn or dusk, roosting on trees with their melodious call.
One of my favourite Pittas is the infamous Indian Pitta, which is a bird of nine colours. I have seen it quite a number of times now and observing it and listening to its call is always a delight no matter how many times I see it. The Indian Pitta resides in the south in winters and comes upto north India in summers for breeding. It generally nest and breeds in the Shivalik Foothills and Western Himalayas, and while its conquest to reach there, it can bee seen through various states of India. This year I  saw six of them at farm in Ropar, Punjab. The Indian Pitta starts calling at 6:00am in the morning and at 6:00pm during the evening, thus it is also called the six o clock bird. It mostly prefers scrub jungles or dense deciduous forests. Pittas also have a very keen sense of smell. Indian Pittas were found to have the largest olfactory bulb out of all passerine birds. Pittas are also quite clever birds and have been seen several times, using stones to crack open snail shells and eat them.

Malayan Banded Pitta I saw in Thailand

There are 42 species of Pittas found in Asia,          Australia and Africa and are divided in three  different genus: Hydrornis, Erythropitta and Pitta. Pittas are a very popular bird group amongst birders due to their dazzling plumages and the relative difficulty of seeing these birds hiding in dark, dense forests. The desire of birders to watch this bird is incredibly described in the book: "The Jewel Hunter" in which the writer Chris Goodie attempts to see every species of this bird.

Due to the amazing appearance of this bird, many bird and wildlife photographers go beyond the limit of ethical bird photography. They use huge flashes to get good photos of this bird as it is usually seen in darker forest areas and the flash causes temporary blindness to the bird and stuns it. In order to see it people usually play their recorded call which in return makes the Pitta respond, but can also

confuse it. However, I stand guilty of attempting to call the pitta by using a fake call, I do not use it now and don't recommend it to anyone else as it confuses the bird in thinking that the fake call is its partner.

The Blue Pitta I saw in Thailand.

Pittas are continuously facing a threat to endangerment due to forest and habitat loss. The Gurneys Pitta in Burma and the Blue Headed Pitta from Borneo are threatened by rapid forest loss. Pittas are targeted by poachers for illegal wild bird trade. I myself saw several Banded Pittas caged in a local bazaar in Bangkok, Thailand.They are not targeted because of their song, as many songbirds are, and may simply be captured as bycatch from collecting other species, and because of their attractive plumage.

 The attempts to breed these birds in captivity is not a total success as they are strongly territorial and can cover territories from 3000m square to 10000m square. In captivity they also get highly aggressive, attacking other bird species and even their own while this behaviour is not observed in the wild.
Being the most colourful birds on our planet one can never see enough of pittas and their beauty never ceases to surprise me and it is our duty to conserve our forests, so that the home of these beautiful bird remains preserved and let them bewilder us by their beauty.

Indian Pitta Calling

The Gull Sees Farthest Who Flies Highest

A Black Headed gull At Sukhna Lake.

Gulls are often referred to as "Seagulls", but what most people don't know is that the bird "Seagull" is not a real species of birds. The word Seagull is just an informal way referring to any of the species that belong to the family "Laridae". In layperson's term that is not used by most ornithologists and biologists and has no fixed taxonomic meaning. A very good book known as "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach tells us about the story of a gull who is trying to learn about life and flight, and a lesson about self-perfection. The story is absolutely wonderful, though it repeatedly uses the word "Seagull" to refer to a gull which has created a mindset amongst people about a bird know as the "Seagull" and is a common mistake made by many authors
 The study and identification of gulls is an extremely vast subject. It can be difficult to separate the many different species of gulls to the untrained eye but they always have minute differences in their size, leg colour, plumage and behaviour. Gulls are further divided into 10 different genus, most of which are not properly classified but the genus with the maximum species is the genus: Larus. There are approximately 50 species of gulls in the world, depending on how different species classifications are split or lumped.

The Lesser Black Backed Gull I saw in Kalesar, Haryana

Identifying immature and juvenile gulls usually creates havoc and can confuse even the best of ornithologists. One such incident happened with me, where I saw an immature gull near the Yamuna river at Kalesar National Park, Haryana. A flock of three gulls flew by me and I clicked all of their photos. One of them was positively identified as a juvenile Pallas's Gull because of its head marks and red spot on beak but the other two were extremely intriguing.When I sent the photos to some of my friends who are also bird experts, we had a good long debate about deciding wether it was a Juvenile Steppe Gull or a Juvenile Heuglins Gull. In the end we categorised the bird as a Lesser Black Backed Gull which is a broad term used to refer to both of them as we couldn't determine that out of the both which one it was. Gulls also have different winter plumages according to which they change their feathers until they reach maturity and even after that they change their plumages when breeding season approaches.

A comparison Chart for the Brown Headed and Black Headed Gull

A very common example of confusing Gulls which can be seen at Sukhna Lake, Chandigarh every winter are the Brown Headed and Black Headed Gull. Both look very different when in breeding plumage but when the breeding season is off, differentiating between them can be a tricky matter.When not in breeding they can be identified only by a thin white ring around their eyes and to see it one must have clear closeups of the bird.
Gulls are also social birds. They nest in large colonies near large water bodies and sea shores. If you ever visited one of their colonies, let me tell you that they are extremely overcrowded and so noisy that you can't even hear yourself speaking. A common example of the social behaviour is portrayed by the California Gull which nests at the Great Basins and the Pacific Coast in USA. They are very friendly birds and may also snatch your food while you are having walk on the beach.

Gulls are also very clever. They learn, remember and even pass on behaviours, such as stamping their feet in a group to imitate rainfall and trick earthworms to come to the surface.

A California Gull clicked by my father.

Gulls’ intelligence is clearly demonstrated by a range of different feeding behaviours, such as dropping hard-shelled molluscs onto rocks so that they break open so they can eat them, and following ploughs in fields where they know upturned grubs and other food sources will be plentiful.

Everything about these magnificent gulls can't be covered in a single article, but I hope people acquire the knowledge about these amazing birds living amongst us.

A colony of California Gulls at the Pacific Coat

The Invisible Bird

An Indian Nightjar clicked by Mr. Rick Toor at Sattal,Uttarakhand.

 Nightjars are mysterious birds. They are    
 nocturnal birds which live a secretive            
 lifestyle. Most people only consider owls as  
 the birds which rule the nights and consider  
 them to be the only nocturnal birds but what
 they do not know is that owls share their
 nights with another nocturnal species, the
 Nightjar.

 Nightjars are medium sized bird with long
 wings, short legs and a very short bills. They
 mostly sit flat on the ground or can be seen
 perched on dry and hardwood tree branches
 with their outstanding camouflage which
 blends perfectly with the surroundings
 making them extremely hard to spot during the day. I, myself on one occasion passed by the side of a Jungle Nightjar and not knowing it was in front of me, it suddenly flew off with great speed leaving me startled but enough to see by the colour that it was a Jungle Nightjar. All the nightjars come into the order of "Caprimulgiformes" which have been divided into three subfamilies: the "Caprimulginae", the typical nightjars with 79 known species, the "Chordilinae" or Nighthawks with 10 known species and the Eared Nightjars are placed in a separate family called "Eurostopodidae" (*this family has not yet been widely adopted) with 9 known species.

In many European languages, the Nightjar is known as the ‘goatsucker,’ with the genus name "Caprimulgus" deriving from the Latin for ‘milker of goats’. It was believed that Nightjars fed from goats due to often being found in close proximity to livestock. In reality, this insectivorous species would have been searching for prey associated with domestic animals. Others believed the calls of the Nightjar were the sound of witches hiding in the bushes.
The main diet of these peculiar birds consists of insects in which they prefer moths and other large insects. They can fly very long distances for feeding as it requires a lot of insects to fill its appetite and has been recorded to go until a 6km radius of its nesting site to find food.

Nightjars lay one or two eggs in small clearing soft dense forest on bare ground . Some nightjars surround their nest with some twigs and leaves while some just lay them out in the open and sit upon them so that the light which reflects off eggs doesn't attract predators. The nightjar being a master of disguise will not fly away if its incubating its eggs as it believes that it won't be seen and sometimes you may walk by its side and it will remain their to protect its eggs.
Nightjars become quite active during their breeding season and you may hear their calls near their feeding and nesting areas in their habitat starting from dusk and sometimes continuing till next morning.
Road Kills is one of the major reason of decrease in population of this species because of its habit of resting and roosting near roads. Once, I also saw a Savanna Nightjar sitting in the middle of the dirt track which leads to my farmhouse in Ropar, Punjab. There is an uncertain amount of data about the population of this species due the difficulty of finding and identifying this species of birds.

In the past I have seen quite a few different species of nightjars and nighthawks but the first time I tried to get its photo was when I went to Kalesar National Park, Haryana on 18th April, 2019. After a full day of birding near the Yamuna river we went to rest in the Kalesar forest rest house for the night and about near 7:00pm I heard a peculiar sound I had heard before, besides the house. I recorded the sound and sent it to a fellow birder. We both agreed that it was the call of a Large Tailed Nightjar. I was very happy  knowing that it was Large Tailed Nightjar as I had never seen this particular Nightjar before. I asked the forest guard to get me a torch so that I can see the bird which was extremely close in the the undercover of bamboo and sal trees. As soon as I got the torch I went down to the porch of the house and set up my tripod and camera with the torch. There was a steep cliff which went down to the Yamuna river bank and had a lot of thick branched trees. I scanned the area with my torch and as soon as the light form my torch hit the nightjar, its eye started glowing like a ruby and I recognised it. I took my camera and tried to focus on it but due to low light I got very dark and shaky shots and only star a few seconds it flew away leaving me disappointed. after a few minutes I heard its call again and located on another far away tree in thick underbrush. I could see its eye glowing under the torch light but still I couldn't take the photo due to thick bushes. We stood there just looking at it from a distance of 15-20m and hearing its loud and continuous call for about half an hour. We were really tired and just as we were about to go back, the nightjar astonishingly came and sat just in front of us and I was extremely amazed. I focused my camera on it as fast as I could after which I got many clear shots while it was calling. After I got my proper clear shot it flew away as if it had specially sat upon an open perch for me. I was filled with joy, as it was the first time I had clicked a Nightjar though I had seen it many times before and I hope to see more of these mysterious birds in the future.

The Large Tailed Nightjar I clicked at Kalesar National Park..

The Royal Falcon

The photo just before it launched itself after landing.

Falco peregrinus peregrinator. On 13th April, 2019 a surprise waited for me in Nagar Van, Chandigarh. A falcon flew besides me while I was photographing a Wood Sandpiper. I assumed the falcon to be a Peregrine Falcon which is a yearly winter visiter to Nagar Van. It went and sat on the transformer tower which is its favourite location and assuming it to be a Peregrine Falcon I ignored it, as I had seen it before. After some time we saw it flying once again and assumed that today the falcon was hungry and it wanted to hunt. So, to witness this act we went close to the tower and saw it sitting on the absolute top of it which was about a 70m above the ground. We waited for about five minutes and to our surprise the falcon dived towards the forest canopy in such great speed that I couldn't even take its photo. I was disappointed to see it disappear into the canopy without getting a dive photo but once again to our surprise it flew in from behind our backs towards the tower in high speed and this time I was ready. I focused my camera on the flying falcon and kept pressing the click button.While I was continuously clicking the photos the raptor was about to sit on the tower but immediately as it landed, it took off the next second as it saw Black Drongo sitting on top of the tower but then again, instead of going after the drongo it came back and sat on the tower. All this happened just only within a matter of 20 seconds and this time I managed to capture all this in my camera but, when I reached home and looked at the photographs I was extremely astonished. I looked at the falcon closely. The raptor which I assumed to be a Peregrine Falcon was actually a Shaheen Falcon, which is a South Eastern sub-species of the Peregrine Falcon. To confirm my hypothesis I sent the photo to a senior and experienced birder who told me that it was indeed a Shaheen Falcon and also gave me certain points and facts about it. I had seen the Peregrine Falcon a lot of times before, but his was the first time I saw a Shaheen Falcon. 

The taxon was formally described by Carl Jacob Sunderval in 1837 as a separate species, Falco peregrinator, based on a juvenile specimen caught on a ship between Sri Lanka and the Nicobar Islands. Its taxonomic status as a subspecies of Falco peregrinus has been controversial for several years. The Shaheen Falcon is mainly found in India and is a small and powerful looking flacon with dark upper parts and a gorgeous rufous belly. This appearance has made it a favourite amongst falconers and it is one of the most traded raptor due to which it requires for more conservation. People infiltrate its nest for collecting its eggs and selling them for trade due to its reputation amongst raptors which has now resulted in different nesting behaviour of this bird, building its nest away form human vicinity. A lot of information on this raptor in generally lacking and much more research is required including taxonomic studies and its population status in India and China. This raptor is usually solitary and mates for life. Its breeding season varies in the Himalayan Foothills between March and May and sometimes upto June. The Shaheen Falcon is a deadly hunter and preys upon mostly birds such as partridges, doves, quails, swifts, parakeets and it has even been recorded while hunting ducks. The falcon sits on high perch selecting a perfect prey and scanning the hunting area after which it dives upon the selected prey with a speed normally upto 320km/h inserting its talons inside the other bird and killing it upon impact due to its high speed. This raptor is the fastest flying bird and its dive speed has been recorded to reach 389km/h. The name of this flacon is derived from Persian which literally means "Like a King", "Worthy of a King", "Majestic"or "Kingly" making this bird a favourite amongst royals.

The aerial high speed shot while it came behind our backs.

Population Distribution of the Shaheen Falcon

The Northern Goshawk

Raptors fascinate me. This particular raptor has recently been a topic of debate. I wanted to go to Sattal, Uttarakhand for birding but instead of going to Sattal my father took me to Dagshai, Himachal Pradesh on 23rd March,2019. It was the first time I saw the majestic Northern Goshawk in India. I suddenly heard a lot of Himalyan Bulbuls flying away in an alarmed manner and in came the Goshawk and sat on a half cut down tree in front of me. It landed in a majestic manner with its wings open and its large and bulky talons grabbing onto the perch. It was clear that it had failed to catch its prey and after only a few seconds it flew away and dissapeared to the next perch in search of a new prey. I got five shots of this beautiful raptor and immediately identified it as a Northern Goshawk. According to me it was a Northern Goshawk because it had a clear supercilium, orange-yellow iris colour, black and white coloured barred chest, thin yellow eye ring in front of its eye and its large size. When I reached back home I posted my photo on Facebook, Instagram and some other social media platforms as it was a rare record from this particular area, but some people on Facebook didn't seem to agree that the raptor that I saw was a Northern Goshawk and started a long and hard debate upon this topic. The so called raptor experts on Facebook were not giving valid points and claimed it to be a Eurassian Sparrowhawk. I did not agree with them as the photo that I got didn't show the front part of this raptor which made it tricky to identify, but I saw its front and noticed its size because the field inputs of the person who saw the bird are much more valuable than the bookish knowledge of these people. Still the people on Facebook didn't agree with the fact that it was a Goshawk so, on 29th March, 2019 I set out to find this raptor again and get some shots from the front. Even my father and mother encouraged me to find this bird once again and told me that I should always believe in myself. I went to the same place and took Mr. Rick Toor who is a great birder and a close friend of mine, along with me. We both saw a raptor circling over the same place and got a flying shot from the front. When I went back home I processed the photo and saw that it was also a Northern Goshawk. Later that day I posted the photo on Facebook to show that the raptor was indeed a Northern Goshawk, but still the same people debated against it. This time Mr. Rick Toor shared his opinion and told the people that it was a Northern Goshawk. He told those people in strict manner that they shouldn't criticise a young birder (Karmannye) and target him due to his young age. Thanking Mr.Rick for his support and ignoring all the previous debate I sent the photos to some real raptor experts. The next day I got a reply from the raptor experts that the bird was in fact a Northern Goshawk. Later I came know that most of the people who tried to make me believe that this bird was a Eurasian Sparrowhawk instead of a Northern Goshawk had never seen both of these raptors in the field and were sharing points and photos from Google instead of giving their own observations.

 The pointers which I have observed in the field and obtained from raptor experts are-

1.It has a dense and clear supercilium.

2.It has orange-yellow iris colour.

3.It shows six wing fingers while flying.

4.It has three tail bars under its tail.

5.It has a bulky are large build.

6.I saw the bird from all angles in the filed while the people on Facebook are merely commenting on what they see in the photo and none of them have seen a Northern Goshawk themselves.

The points given by the people debating on Facebook are-

1.It is small in size. Though they never saw this bird in the field and can't compare the size.

2.It legs are thin. The legs appear to be thin due to the photo angle but they didn't see its massive talons.

All this debate taught me that no matter what a person tells you or makes you believe something against your will is not always right and sometimes you should trust your inner instinct. In the end this raptor was confirmed as a Northern Goshawk which put an end to all the futile debate on Facebook.

The photo from 23rd March

The flying shot of 29th March