Predominant Flock
LISTEN TO 🔊 RATHNAPURI, HUNSUR
4th of June 2026
There is a small farm, less than 10 acres, in Rathnapuri, Hunsur, rehabilitated into fecundity from an ecologically useless plantation of Coconut palm Cocos nucifera. It hosts select Old and New World tropical flora, and in 15 years, has grown a modest canopy of young crowns, towering Bambusa vulgaris that is a refuge for all manners of nymph, and an understory of host shrubs, delicate vines, lianas and grasses. This piece of land, unlike the surrounding country where agriculture is aggressive and realised by pesticide, has become a refuge of sorts for at least four wild cats, including travelling leopards; easily twenty to thirty genera of arachnids; at least 130 birds, though its resident say more than 170 when the winter migrants visit lake adjacent Devi Kere; and more. But the drought of El Niño has made its presence especially visible here. All through June, the rain-fed Devi Kere's littoral zone was fully exposed and remained denuded having had no opportunity to slowly recharge. And so, during this time, frogs and toads were few, limited to the most common Fejervarya and Duttaphrynus species. There were no vine snakes and more than once there was worry expressed over the absence of tadpoles, a fatal augury for monsoon.
Never absent was the ruckus of birds, which we hear in this short recording. The pips, squeaks, mews and chatter belong to the Red-whiskered bulbul Pycnonotus jocosus, a large flock, and the single coy note, slightly drawn belongs to the Oriental magpie-robin Copsychus saularis. In the background you will hear the shrill squeak of one or two Rose-ring parakeet Psittacula krameri. The White-bellied munia Lonchura leucogastra are always close-by but their calls and songs are usually lost against the ceaseless conversation of the bulbul flock; the short stature of the young trees and shrubs also means that this gregarious bird is especially loud here. Also lost are the high-pitched short metallic calls of the solitary Cinereous tit Parus cinereus. In this farm, the bulbul flock is always trailed by an attendant tit.