Sunday, March 30, 2008

The Water Bird and its Brood


One fine morning after a shower of rain the rain water was flowing down the storm water drain. I saw a dark bird of a chicken size swimming against its flow. Now two tiny softies glided down the slope of the bund and hopped on to the water one after the other, and swam after the bird! They were the chicks of that bird! I wondered about the abilities of these softies to swim soon after hatching out. The bird is a ‘White-breasted Waterhen’. Both the male and female of this species of bird accompany each other in catching flies under the cover of bushes, along the sides of waterways. Their calls can be heard both in the mornings and evenings as rumbling sounds. The calls are like this: 'kooodoorrrrdoo.kuraaughkkuraaughk' - this is repeated rhythmically. When they are unaware, one can watch them walk along wagging the tails from side to side and turning their heads this and that side often. On giving a slight sound or movement, they run and fly away into the bushes just like pea-fowls do. They withstand urbanization and are specially adapted when provided with bush cover and waterways to thrive on. It is a wonder bird to look out in our neighborhood.

2 comments:

Green thumb said...

What a beautiful piece of information! It is quite remarkable as i saw the bird for the first time in my garden and its habits were exactly like you described.

Cosmos said...

OK. Thanks. Continue visiting here and posting there!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...