A Bird Calendar for Northern India

A Bird Calendar for Northern
India

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Title: A Bird Calendar for Northern India
Author: Douglas Dewar
Release Date: April 23, 2006 [EBook #18237]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BIRD
CALENDAR FOR NORTHERN INDIA ***

Produced by Ron Swanson

BY THE SAME AUTHOR ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE THE
INDIAN CROW: HIS BOOK BOMBAY DUCKS BIRDS OF THE
PLAINS INDIAN BIRDS JUNGLE FOLK GLIMPSES OF INDIAN
BIRDS BIRDS OF THE INDIAN HILLS

IN COLLABORATION WITH FRANK FINN THE MAKING OF
SPECIES

A BIRD CALENDAR FOR NORTHERN INDIA
BY DOUGLAS DEWAR

LONDON: W. THACKER & CO., CREED LANE, E.C. CALCUTTA
AND SIMLA: THACKER, SPINK & CO. 1916

WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH,
ENGLAND.

I am indebted to the editor of The Pioneer for permission to republish
the sketches that form this calendar, and to Mr. A. J. Currie for placing
at my disposal his unpublished notes on the birds of the Punjab.
Full descriptions of all the Indian birds of which the doings are
chronicled in this calendar are to be found in the four volumes of the
Fauna of British India devoted to birds; popular descriptions of the
majority are given in my Indian Birds.
D. D.
HARROW, January 1916.

CONTENTS PAGE JANUARY . . . . . . 1 FEBRUARY . . . . . 18
MARCH . . . . . . . 33 APRIL . . . . . . . 61 MAY . . . . . . . . 79
JUNE . . . . . . . 103 JULY . . . . . . . 116 AUGUST . . . . . . 136
SEPTEMBER . . . . . 152 OCTOBER . . . . . . 165 NOVEMBER . . . . .
178 DECEMBER . . . . . 189 GLOSSARY . . . . . 199 INDEX . . . . . . .

201

JANUARY
Up--let us to the fields away, And breathe the fresh and balmy air.
MARY HOWITT.
Take nine-and-twenty sunny, bracing English May days, steal from
March as many still, starry nights, to these add two rainy mornings and
evenings, and the product will resemble a typical Indian January. This
is the coolest month in the year, a month when the climate is
invigorating and the sunshine temperate. But even in January the sun's
rays have sufficient power to cause the thermometer to register 70
degrees in the shade at noon, save on an occasional cloudy day.
Sunset is marked by a sudden fall of temperature. The village smoke
then hangs a few feet above the earth like a blue-grey diaphanous
cloud.
The cold increases throughout the hours of darkness. In the Punjab
hoar-frosts form daily; and in the milder United Provinces the
temperature often falls sufficiently to allow of the formation of thin
sheets of ice. Towards dawn mists collect which are not dispersed until
the sun has shone upon them for several hours. The vultures await the
dissipation of these vapours before they ascend to the upper air, there to
soar on outstretched wings and scan the earth for food.
On New Year's Day the wheat, the barley, the gram, and the other
Spring crops are well above the ground, and, ere January has given
place to February, the emerald shoots of the corn attain a height of fully
sixteen inches. On these the geese levy toll.
Light showers usually fall in January. These are very welcome to the
agriculturalist because they impart vigour to the young crops. In the
seasons when the earth is not blessed with the refreshing winter rain
men and oxen are kept busy irrigating the fields. The cutting and the
pressing of the sugar-cane employ thousands of husbandmen and their

cattle. In almost every village little sugar-cane presses are being
worked by oxen from sunrise to sunset. At night-time the country-side
is illumined by the flames of the megas burned by the rustic
sugar-boilers.
January is the month in which the avian population attains its
maximum. Geese, ducks, teal, pelicans, cormorants, snake-birds and
ospreys abound in the rivers and jhils; the marshes and swamps are the
resort of millions of snipe and other waders; the fields and groves
swarm with flycatchers, chats, starlings, warblers, finches, birds of prey
and the other migrants which in winter visit the plains from the
Himalayas and the country beyond.
The bracing climate