The Whisper of Wings: Bristled Glassbird

THE BRISTLED GRASSBIRD, (Chaetornis striatus), is a scarce bird though described in all Guide Books as a Common Breeding Resident. I would call it ‘Scarce’ and also ‘Fascinating’.

Scarce because—This term fits it best. There are only individual records spread over a very large territory in India, Nepal and Pakistan, which makes it endemic to the Indian Subcontinent. The Guide Books are correct in this limited sense of distribution. However, there being only 30+ records of sighting and none for nesting/breeding in recent years, the bird gets qualified as ‘Scarce’ with sightings difficult except when the male is drawing attention by calling loudly in its unmistakable style.

Fascinating because—It has a charm of its own. Its call, something like ‘chwee-chew’, which when whistled seems to say a ‘thank you’ every time you look at it or click an image. It has a lovely flight pattern, calls when in flight and the male is invariably also calling when perched. The female does not call generally and when it does the call is much mellowed and something like ‘chee-chee’.

The male, like most male Homosapien, displays and calls all the time and leaves all the hard work to the female though is always hanging around calling as if to say, ‘Good work, carry on, darling’. The female makes the nest, incubates and feeds the young. It always poses for me to take as many images as I want.

It, therefore, turns in to a memorable experience when one has a rendezvous with a species such as the Bristled grassbird. The odyssey started about four years ago, when I first laid my eyes on it at the Sultanpur National Park in Haryana. Being one of the greatest of skulkers, this coveted bird is not so easy to find like most other birds, which can be spotted and seen once their location is generally known and a bird-watcher shows patience.

The Bristled grassbird had been reported in 2006 from Okhla Bird Park of Delhi, my most frequented haunt (it is practically a backyard for me) but it was not seen by me. I am yet to spot this beautiful bird at the OBP.

It was, therefore, a very exhilarating experience to locate and find the Bristled grassbirds in 2007 at another one of my favourite Birding Areas, the Dadri Wetlands (located at Bil Akbarpur, Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, about 40 km southeast of Delhi). This beautiful birding area was discovered more by accident than by design. It was (I say ‘was’ as this area is now in the final stages of being destroyed by what else but the State Government, which has permitted a change of land use from Agriculture to Residential and Commercial) a great area where I have recorded over 220 species of birds by now.

The uncultivated land turned into grasslands and there were many such fields.

My odyssey with the Bristled grassbird this year commenced on the 4th of August when the first Bristled grassbird was seen and the climax was on the 1st of October when the young was seen and photographed. That I was in for a unique experience of watching and recording the breeding of Bristled grassbird at Dadri Wetlands became clear with the sighting of a female bird carrying nesting material to a particular location every five minutes or so, on the 23rd of August.

This continued over the three hours I spent there.

This belief was reinforced when another female was sighted carrying nesting material on the 27th in to another location. Did this mean the possibility of two nests—I am not so sure in view of the subsequent events as they unfolded. Any temptation to look into the nest was eschewed keeping in mind how rare the sighting of breeding of this species is.

Interestingly, only the females were seen carrying the nesting material, incubating and feeding the hatchlings while the male was hanging around and singing to the female as if to say, ‘Fine work, darling, I am counting on you to carry my race forward’.

That the chick(s) hatched on the 15th could be concluded on the 16th, 17th and 18th of September when the female was photographed in flight with prey/food in the beak and landing and disappearing into the grass where the nests were expected to be.

This observation led us to taking a surreptitious look late on the 18th of September. Movement inside the nest confirmed at least two chicks.

Now, I was waiting for the chicks to fledge and record these on celluloid to share with the world at large this very significant event of Bristled grassbird breeding at Dadri Wetlands.
The materialisation of this dream did not prove to be so easy. The incessant and heavy rains from the 19th to 23rd of September probably caused as much problems to Bristled grassbird as it did to Delhi Government and any one else connected with construction for Commonwealth Games, 2010.

That it is an intelligent bird is clear from the fact that the bird never landed directly at the nest, except on the 18th, when the location of one nest was identified. The location where the birds were carrying the nesting material to was tall grass and the bird disappeared into its depths with the nesting material. It would land anywhere 5-6 metres away and would approach the nest from under the tall and thick grass.

On the 14th of September, only the male was seen singing perched on branches in the general vicinity of the nest(s). The females were not sighted at all, which led to a safe assumption that the birds had laid eggs and these were being incubated at that time.

Disappointment was writ large on my face when I visited the site on the 24th, 26th and 27th of September hoping to look at the hatchlings but drew a complete blank. There was no movement to and around the nest. On the 27th, gathering enough courage, an approach was made to reach the nest wading through grass in knee-deep water and I found it empty.

All hopes of seeing the young vanished, washed off by the rain. Only thought that came to mind was that snakes may have gotten to the chicks.

The joys came back on the 1st of October.

I noticed a male perched as usual on its favourite reed. Soon a female was seen in flight. I just kept my eyes on it to see where it landed. It disappeared into the thick grass.

Lo and behold, when she came out to find more food, there was a beautiful young bird following its mother.

What a beauty—looking like an adult, almost the size of an adult except for the tail part which was yet to grow and distinguished by its under parts washed a strong yellow and a yellow beak. This bird was possibly from the second nest.

Thus came to an end my odyssey with the Bristled grassbird after having spent hours and hours on 20 visits spread over two months. Each minute spent was, in the end, indeed worth the experience.

Fact Sheet—

Status: Vulnerable. Population: 2,500-10,000 as estimated by Bird Life International.

Distribution: Endemic to Indian Subcontinent—India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh (almost extinct now in Bangladesh). Not found in Sri Lanka.

Nest & Nesting: The nest has been described as a ball of dry grass. It is generally located at the ground level or near ground level in tall grass. For a long time now, there had been no sightings of the nest.

The male is not monogamous. The male was seen with both the females on separate occasions. The female(s) flew down into the grasses and was soon joined by the male for about 10 minutes during which male and female were unseen. It would be a fair assumption that mating takes place on the ground and also after the nest building activity has started.

The nest is not easily disclosed as the bird lands quite a distance away and then moves under the grass to the nesting site.

Threats: The primary threat to the existence of Bristled grassbird, like most other birds, is the loss of habitat to satisfy the greed of the human race.

In India, I personally, would blame the State which has miserably failed in its duty to perform its responsibilities as enshrined in the Constitution of India.

Dadri Wetlands is a leading example where the low lying, natural wetlands have been acquired for the greedy corporates and the building mafia, resulting in the loss of habitat.

The area where the Bristled grassbird was seen in 2007 is all gone to builders and even the field where the Birds are being seen this year is earmarked for building. This is despite there being a policy for wetland conservation.

Being a Protected Area, the Okhla Bird Park should ideally have been a breeding area. Again, the area is lost to bird due to mismanagement or non-management of the reed beds which are so thick that all the food—ground insects and microbial fungi and such that should have been available to birds is not available and approachable. Again, it is the State that is responsible.

Identification: Bristled grassbird, Chaetornis striatus, belongs to Bird Family-Megalurinae (Grassbirds) and Bird Group Passeriformes. It is aptly named Bristled due to ‘five strong rictal bristles set on a flap of skin that can be hinged back to cover the eye presumably to protect it when moving through dense and sharp-leaved grasses that it frequents’ (Ali & Ripley, T. P. Inskipp and Baker).

It is also identified by its double toned call ‘chwee-chew’ which sounds like ‘thank you’ when whistled. Generally, it is a fulvous brown bird with bold streaking on the back.

It has a pale supercilium. The chin, throat and upper abdomen is white generally.

Its tail is grey-brown, barred, tipped and sub-tipped with white and black.

The male is larger (about 10%) than the female. The beak is short and broad with black tip—much darker in the male whereas the female has a light coloured beak. The young have the looks of an adult but the under parts are strongly yellow-washed and the beaks are also yellow.

—Text & photography by Anand Arya

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