Indian Cormorant

a member of the cormorant family of seabirds. It breeds in tropical Asia from Oman, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka into Southeast Asia. It is resident but undertakes some seasonal movements. This is a common and widespread bird species, which breeds in freshwater wetlands. 36 eggs are laid in a nest in a tree.

This is a smallish, slender, cormorant with a triangular head profile. It is 63 cm in length. Indian Cormorant is mainly black in the breeding season, with white neck plumes and a whitish throat. The wing coverts are silvery and it has a longish tail. This species can be separated from the similar looking Little Cormorant (Phalacrocorax niger) by its slender bill, more peaked appearance to its head and lack of the glossy black plumage of the smaller bird. It is also more gregarious and is often found in larger bodies of water and rivers. Sexes are similar, but non-breeding adults and juveniles are browner and lack the neck plumes. The Indian Cormorant can dive to considerable depths, but usually feeds in shallow water. It frequently brings prey to the surface. A wide variety of fish are taken.

Christmas Frigatebird
The Christmas Frigatebird or Christmas Island Frigatebird (Fregata andrewsi) is a frigatebird endemic to the Christmas Islands in the Indian Ocean. Like other frigatebirds, this species does not walk or swim, but is a very aerial bird which obtains its food by picking up live prey items from beaches or the water surface, and the aerial piracy of other birds. It is estimated that the population of this species will decline by 80 percent in the next 30 years due to predation of the young by the introduced yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes), which has devastated the wildlife of the island, and has also killed 1020 million Christmas Island red crabs. The adult male of this species is easily identified, since it is all black except for a white belly patch. Other plumages resemble those of the smaller Lesser Frigatebird, but have whiter bellies and longer white underwing spurs. The binomial of this bird commemorates the British palaeontologist Charles William Andrews.

Grey Heron
The Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea), is a wading bird of the heron family Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia and also parts of Africa. It is resident in the milder south and west, but many birds retreat in winter from the ice in colder regions. It has become common in summer even inside the Arctic circle along the Norwegian coast.

Description

It is a large bird, standing 90100 cm tall, with a 175195 cm wingspan and a weight of 12 kg. Its plumage is largely grey above, and off-white below. Adults have a white head with a broad black supercilium and slender crest, while immatures have a dull grey head. It has a powerful, pinkish-yellow bill, which is brighter in breeding adults. It has a slow flight, with its long neck retracted (Sshaped). This is characteristic of herons and bitterns, and distinguishes them from storks, cranes and spoonbills, which extend their necks. The call is a loud croaking "fraaank". The Australian White-faced Heron is often incorrectly called Grey Heron. In Ireland the grey heron is often colloquially called " crane ".

Painted Stork
The Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala) is a large wading bird in the stork family. It is found in the wetlands of the plains of tropical Asia south of the Himalayas in South Asia and extending into Southeast Asia. Their distinctive pink tertial feathers give them their name. They forage in flocks in shallow waters along rivers or lakes. They immerse their half open beaks in water and sweep them from side to side and snap up their prey of small fish that are sensed by touch. As they wade along they also stir the water with their feet to flush hiding fish. They nest colonially in trees, often along with other waterbirds. They only sounds they produce are a weak moan or sounds produced by bill clattering. They are not migratory and only make short distance movements in some parts of their range in response to food and for breeding. Like other storks, they are often seen soaring on thermals.

This large stork has a heavy yellow bill with a down-curved tip that gives it a resemblance to an ibis. The head of the adult is bare and orange or reddish in colour. The long tertials are tipped in bright pink and at rest they extend over the back and rump. There is a distinctive black breast band with white scaly markings. The band continues into the underwing coverts and the white tips of the black coverts give it the appearance of white stripes running across the underwing lining. The rest of the body is whitish in adults and the primaries and secondaries are black with a greenish gloss. The legs are yellowish to red but often appear white due their habit of urohidrosis or defecating on their legs especially when at nest. The short tail is black with a green gloss.[2] For a stork, it is medium-sized, standing about 93102 cm (3740 in) tall, 150160 cm (5963 in) in wingspan and weighing 2-3.5 kg (4.4-7.7 lbs). Males and females appear alike but the males of a pair are usually larger than the female.[3]

Black-headed Ibis
The Black-headed Ibis or Oriental White Ibis (Threskiornis melanocephalus) is a species of wading bird of the ibis family Threskiornithidae which breeds in South Asia and Southeast Asia from Pakistan to India, Sri Lanka east up to Japan. It builds a stick nest in a tree and lays 24 eggs. It occurs in marshy wetlands inland and on the coast, where it feeds on various fish, frogs and other water creatures, as well as on insects. It walks about actively on marshy land probing with its bill into soft mud and often feeds in shallow water with its head momentarily submerged. Like storks and Spoonbills, it lacks a true voice-producing mechanism and is silent except for peculiar ventriloquial grunts uttered when nesting. Adults are typically 75 cm long and white-plumaged, with some greyer areas on the wings. The bald head, the neck and legs are black. The thick down curved bill is dusky yellow.In breeding,plumage some slaty grey on scapulars and in wings and ornamental plumes at base of the neck. Sexes are similar, but juveniles have whiter necks and a black bill.

Fulvous Whistling Duck

The Fulvous Whistling Duck, Dendrocygna bicolor, is a whistling duck which breeds across the world's tropical regions in much of Central and South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the Gulf Coast of the United States. The Fulvous Whistling Duck is a common but wary species. It is largely resident, apart from local movements, but vagrancy has occurred to southern Europe. It nests on a stick platform in reeds, laying 8 12 eggs, but hollow trees or old bird nests are occasionally used for nesting.

Its habitat is freshwater lakes, paddy fields or reservoirs with plentiful vegetation, where this duck feeds mainly at night on seeds and other parts of plants.. The Fulvous Whistling Duck is 4853 cm (1921 in) long. It has a long grey bill, long head and longish legs, buff head and underparts, the latter reddish-tinged on the flanks, a dark crown, and dark grey back and wings. The tail and wing patches are chestnut, and there is a white crescent on the upper tail which is visible in flight. All plumages are similar, except that juveniles have less contrasted flank and tail colouration. This species is gregarious, and at favoured sites substantial flocks can form. As the name implies, these are noisy birds with a clear whistling kee-wee-ooo call. The Fulvous Whistling Duck is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.

Jerdon's Baza
Jerdon's Baza (Aviceda jerdoni) is a moderate sized brown hawk with a thin white-tipped black crest usually held erect.[1] It is found in South-east Asia. It inhabits foothills in the terai and is rarer in evergreen forests and tea estates.

Description It is about 46 cm long. It is confusable with Crested Goshawk or the Crested Hawk-eagle in flight, but can be distinguished by the longer upright crest, very broad and rounded paddle-shaped wings[1] and mostly plain and pale underparts. It has a white chin and a bold black mesial stripe.[2] Distribution It is resident in the terai of North India and foothills of the Eastern Himalayas from Eastern Nepal and Bengal duars to the Assam valley, western ghats in Southern India, southern Sri Lanka, Bangladesh[3], Burma, Thailand[2], Sumatra[4], Singapore[5] and Philippines[6] Habits The bird is typically seen in pairs making aerial sallies; crest held erect. Occasionally, the birds may be seen in small family parties of 3 to 5 seen in flight near edge of forests.[2] The birds indulge in 'soaring and undulating' display flights near the nest.[1] Breeding season varies locally but the bird is known to breed

Little Grebe
The Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis), also known as Dabchick, is 23 to 29 cm in length. It is the smallest European member of the grebe family of water birds and is commonly found in open bodies of water across most of its range.

Description The Little Grebe is a small water bird with a pointed bill. The adult is unmistakable in summer, predominantly dark above with its rich, rufous colour neck, cheeks and flanks, and bright yellow gape. The rufous is replaced by a dirty brownish grey in non-breeding and juvenile birds. Juvenile birds have a yellow bill with a small black tip, and black and white streaks on the cheeks and sides of the neck as seen below. This yellow bill darkens as the juveniles age, eventually turning black once in adulthood In winter, its size, buff plumage, with a darker back and cap, and powder puff rear end enable easy identification of this species. The Little Grebe's breeding call, given singly or in duet, is a trilled repeated weet-weet-weet or wee-wee-wee which sounds like a horse whinnying.

Wilson's Storm-petrel
Wilson's Storm-petrel (Oceanites oceanicus), also known as Wilson's Petrel, is a small seabird of the storm-petrel family . It is one of the most abundant bird species in the world. The name commemorates the Scottish-American ornithologist Alexander Wilson. It is the mascot of Oglethorpe University.

Wilson's Storm-petrel is a small bird, 16-18.5 cm (6.3-7.3 in) in length with a 38 42 cm (15-16.5 in) wingspan. It is slightly larger than the European Storm-petrel. It is essentially dark brown in all plumages, except for white rump. It differs from the that species by its pale bar on the upper wing, plain underwings and longer legs. This species breeds on the Antarctic coastlines and nearby islands such as the South Shetland Islands. It nests in colonies close to the sea in rock crevices or small burrows in soft earth and lays a single white egg. This storm-petrel is strictly nocturnal at the breeding sites to avoid predation by gulls and skuas, and will even avoid coming to land on clear moonlit nights. Like most petrels, its walking ability is limited to a short shuffle to the burrow. It spends the rest of the year at sea, and moves into the northern oceans in the southern hemisphere's winter. It is much more common in the north Atlantic than the Pacific. It is strictly pelagic outside the breeding season, and this, together with its remote breeding sites, makes Wilson's Petrel a difficult bird to see from land. Only in severe storms might this species be pushed into headlands. Wilson's Storm-petrel is common off eastern North America in the northern summer and the seasonal abundance of this bird in suitable European waters has been revealed through pelagic boat trips, most notably in the area of the Isles of Scilly, Great Britain.

Red-billed Tropicbird
The Red-billed Tropicbird, Phaethon aethereus, also known as the Boatswain Bird is a tropicbird, one of three closely related seabirds of tropical oceans. Distribution and habitat the Red-billed Tropicbird occurs in the tropical Atlantic, eastern Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Indian Ocean race, P. a. indicus, was at one time considered a full species, the Lesser Red-billed Tropicbird from Pakistan and western India. It breeds on tropical islands laying a single egg directly onto the ground or a cliff ledge. It disperses widely when not breeding, and sometimes wanders far, including an amazing record from Great Britain. One has recently been found in eastern Nova Scotia, Canada and another sighting was confirmed on Lord Howe Island near Australia in November 2010. They feed on fish and squid, but are poor swimmers. Description

Subspecies P. a. indicus; illustration by Joseph Smit, 1898 The adult is a slender, mainly white bird, 48 cm long, excluding the central tail feathers which double the total length, and a one metre wingspan. The long wings have black markings on the flight feathers. There is black through the eye. The bill is red. Sexes are similar, although males average longer tails. Juveniles lack the tail streamers, are greyer-backed, and have a yellow bill. P. a. indicus has a reduced black eye stripe, and a more orange-tinted bill.