Bittu Sahgal & Bikram Grewal

We watched silently as the two owls surveyed their turf. What alerted us to their presence was the slightly echoing, deep call that seemed to suggest an ‘other-worldliness’. It was very early in the morning and the forest was completely shrouded in gloom. We were in the Corbett Tiger Reserve in the winter of 1993, staying at Gairal, one of the most ethereal settings any birder could possibly experience. And before us were two Brown Fish Owls. Away from noisy tourists. Away from over-enthusiastic guides and tiger watchers, we sat silently in our vehicle, sipping tea and listening to barbets, woodpeckers and warblers take charge as the nocturnal ones began to wind down.

One of the owls had a largish lizard in its talons. There was a nest nearby. Was it a mating pair, or a parent with a grown young one? We never did find out, but in one five-day trip we managed to positively identify six different species of owls — the Tawny Fish, Brown Fish, Great Horned, Spotted Owlet, Asian Barred Owlet and the Jungle Owlet.

Corbett is a birders’ paradise. You are likely to see more species of birds in Corbett on a five-day trip than you might in the swamps of Bharatpur. And yet, almost without exception, all the tourists who saw us parked would ask with bated breath: “Saw anything?” And to each we replied with feigned boredom: “Nothing. Just birds.”

We have taken many birding trips into the wilds of India together, and often we found ourselves literally “going all over the place”, trying to spot birds at random. This would leave us happy, but wondering whether more purpose might have been better. Which is why this trip had been devoted to owls.

We knew, of course, that though owls shared many characteristics with eagles and other daytime-hunting birds of prey, they were, in fact, very, very different. To begin with, all are built for silence. Their wings do not make flapping sounds, because at night, sound would give them away. Their forward pointing eyes are extremely sensitive to low-light conditions. Their earflaps are asymmetrically placed to assist in pinpointing the location of sound, whether the patter of rodent feet, or the slither of a snake in the grass. Silent killers. The expression seems tailor-made for owls.

No one has quite explained why owls have a less robust digestive system than eagles, but they must regurgitate pellets to get rid of feathers, hair and bones after swallowing chunks of food, sometimes their entire prey, whole.

Owl fossils have been traced back to the late Cretaceous and despite all efforts, no one has yet been able to link owls with any other family of birds. Thus, though we know that there are around 120 known species of owls across the world, their evolution remains a deep, dark secret, not unlike their lives, some might say.

Perhaps because of their love for darkness, large eyes and ‘ghostlike’ calls, owls are often feared and hated by humans. That in turn means they are also persecuted. In some societies however, particularly in India, they are not harmed, except by shamans and trappers in search of a quick buck.

Jungle Owlet

Sachin Rai
Sanctuary Photolibrary

These are not the only threats faced by owls. Owls die even more silently than they live, when forests are destroyed. What is more, because many species such as Barn Owls have learned to live right in our midst, they are particularly vulnerable to death by pesticides, ingested when they hunt rodents laced with our poisons, or other species that thrive on pesticide-laded grain.

Scientists have proven that when such toxins build up in the bodies of raptors, one effect is the reduction in thickness of eggshells. Thus, when a parent protectively sits over the egg — the egg cracks. Inadequate studies have been done in India to understand and highlight this predicament, and with the production and consumption of toxic chemicals on the rise, we have no reason to believe that anything is going to get much better in a hurry.

For many years, the family of ‘birders’ has remained small, restricted largely to relatively tiny clubs and organisations that remained content to observe, exchange notes and perhaps study a species here and there. But such efforts have proven inadequate, because without the will to defend and protect, the habitats on which India’s birds survive — wetlands, grasslands, scrubland, coasts, mangroves and forests — have rapidly vanished, and with them, the birds. In recent times, fortunately, a whole host of new ‘birders’ have emerged in India. Young, energetic and willing to fight, these new-age wildlife conservationists are as knowledgeable as they are adventurous. Scouring the countryside for birding experiences, they are proving to be the eyes and the ears of the conservation community, who are often alerted to the dangers of new roads eating into remote wildernesses, or violations of court orders that prohibit tree felling or mining.

One such group of people has organised themselves under the plain banner of ‘delhibird’. With top bird experts backing them and a great organiser, Nikhil Devasar, to help them plan trips, they have pieced together some of the most useful information on birding in the subcontinent, which is available on the net at www.delhibird.org