Wildbuzz | Passage of the Paradise

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Let us tricity denizens, suffering the harrowing ‘40s heat wave with flowers wilting in our gardens like sullen brown-black banana skins, seek respite in setting our minds free. Let us embark on an epic journey with an ethereal spirit of the air. The esoteric voyage of the Indian Paradise flycatcher has taken the bird up Zojila Pass, Kargil river valleys to land in Ladakh’s Indus valley and flit like a fairy among the most refreshing of waning-cold blossoms, those of the apricot.

Picture thus the odyssey, as the male flycatcher with a black crest and flowing white robes sailing up the rivers whose hues below swish from blue to green to turquoise. Forests flanking the banks change from thick confiners that create a darkness at noon on the slopes to the sparseness of wild rose bushes that nose-ring and necklace the naked vales and waterways of Ladakh’s deserts.

The flycatcher annually makes a ‘Durbar move’ up the hills in summer after wintering in peninsular India. The regent, as it is of the avian ‘Durbar’, the flycatcher’s presence so high up in Ladakh and Kargil for the last three years has been an unusual one. While routinely encountered in the vale of Kashmir, the photographic framing of the flycatcher among Indus apricot blossoms was a spectacle of beauteous intricacy. The exquisite photograph conjured the embroidery motifs on Kashmiri shawls, carpets and ‘kurtis’ that derive from Persian and Central Asian influences.

The jury is out on whether the flycatcher’s arduous odyssey to such heady heights is a result of climate change or because there are many more bird enthusiasts scouring the Ladakh richness for avian treasures and unearthing what may have been there earlier but missed. In this regard, the NGO, Wildlife Conservation & Birds Club of Ladakh, has rendered sterling service. Apart from bird surveys, its members follow up leads on new bird sightings by physically tracking down obscure Instagram posts and blurred Whatsapp shares while exposing poachers and pursuing the means to bring them to book.

A Golden eagle hunts down a jackal in Shahrekord, Iran. (PHOTO: SAEID HEIDARI-SOURESHJANI)
A Golden eagle hunts down a jackal in Shahrekord, Iran. (PHOTO: SAEID HEIDARI-SOURESHJANI)

Gold standard

The sub-continent’s largest resident species of eagle, the Golden eagle, is a raptor of raw ruthlessness. Its long, powerful, cruelly-hooked talons lend the winged hunter the description as the ‘bird with fists of steel’. Known to favour rugged, desolate high Himalayas, the eagle has caught the fancy of the human mind since times immemorial, depicted in literature, poetry, highly esteemed in falconry and as a royal symbol. Closer home, it was once the brand name that sold a very popular lager beer, currently upstaged by the Lilliputian kingfisher!

Stooping on prey like a falcon and using its terribly-effective hind claw to virtually split open large prey, the eagle is known in India to hunt (besides game birds) marmots, foxes, martens and newly-born lambs of Ibex, Urial, Goral and Musk deer. The eagle was recorded hunting an adult Himalayan Tahr by repeatedly attacking it on a cliff leading the unnerved tahr to fall to death.

The eagle has been trained to kill wolves and foxes in Central Asia, reminiscent of a trained female Northern goshawk or ‘Shahbaaz’ bringing down Chinkara in Sindh. The eagle is even known to eat turtles by taking them up in the air and dropping them on rocky outcrops to break the shell. The eggs of Canadian geese have fallen to this raptor. Truly, a golden death swooping from the blue skies to smear the soil in hues of cringing crimson.

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