Stoliczka’s Bushchat - Haryana’s Mystery Bird

I had flushed out a small bird with a lot of white in its tail from a patch of coarse grass. My first thought was that it was a wheatear, but keener inspection revealed that it wasn't. Intrigued, I flipped through my field guide. It couldn't be, I thought to myself, but it was - a male Stoliczka's Bushchat, moulting into breeding plumage, the first record from Haryana in over 80 years! Surprisingly tame and extremely loyal to a small patch of coarse grass and sparse low thorn, it allowed itself to be photographed by Nikhil Devasar, and these are some of the best ever photographs of the species. 

My astonishment grew when I found a second male on February 28, holding similar territory at a site 30 km. to the west. He remained there, alone, until April 2. Further astonishment was in store when Nikhil found an adult female at the Sultanpur site on March 11 and was able to photograph her and the original male (unfortunately never together). But our hopes of a breeding pair were dashed when the male disappeared, probably taken by a predator. An Eurasian Sparrowhawk was particularly active in the area and would have found such a conspicuous bird easy prey.

The female defended her territory vigorously until April 2. She never attracted a second male. While we were not able to obtain proof of breeding, the fact that three individuals held territory for at least a month in apparently suitable habitat, and that two of them could have been a pair, surely points to something. If they weren't intending to breed, what were they doing there? If they left to breed elsewhere, where could that be? Surely not back in the Thar Desert when the weather was at its driest and hottest? And if so, why leave the desert in the first place?

Compared with the wheatear, which is assumed to be its closest relative, Stoliczka's Bushchat is longer and leaner, with a distinctly longer bill, wings, tail and legs. Its resemblance to the wheatear is enhanced by its feeding habits and the male's white tail pattern. Although they also feed on flying insects and pounce on terrestrial insects from their perches, they mainly feed by hopping over barer ground between grass clumps. Because of their loyalty to a small area and their habitual tameness, they are easy to overlook unless on their perches.

Males are distinctive with blackish-brown upper parts, darkest on the wings and cheeks, white wing patches and extensive white in the tail, forming a wheatear-like pattern. The throat is white, contrasting with the dark cheeks and a warm peach-coloured upper chest. The rest of the under parts are pale cream. Most striking, in all plumages, are the long white stripes over the eyes (the supercilia) extending forward from the nape and almost meeting over the bill.

The female is less distinctive, with no black or clean white in her plumage. She is paler, streaked-brown above with a light wing bar and mild buff below. She also has buffish supercilia over her eyes. Her tail has pale, warm buffish feathers in place of the male's white.

Stay away or else…

Another interesting observation we made was the bird's ‘puff and roll' display. Both sexes will suddenly stand upright, puff out their under parts from throat to vent, taking on a ball-like shape, then slowly roll their body from side to side, all the while remaining stationary. This behaviour doesn't last more than a minute. It has been suggested that this is linked to feeding but no one has said how. It doesn't seem connected with breeding as it has been observed in winter in the Thar. The display is not common and we saw it most frequently in the first week or so after arrival when all three individuals were extremely territorial and drove off other small birds, especially other chat species. It seemed to be performed just before or after a chase. Nikhil and I found that all three individuals performed for us when we first arrived at the site. Perhaps it is a power display employed to defend the bird's tiny territory from potential competitors, including birders who might have a penchant for insects!

The study of India's birds over the last 150 years has pieced together a largely complete picture of the country's avifauna, with few mysteries remaining. In 1986, the long-lost Jerdon's Courser was found to be nocturnal and hanging on to survival in a dry, rocky jungle in southern Andhra Pradesh, and in 1997, the Forest Owlet was rediscovered in northern Maharashtra (Sanctuary Vol. XVIII No.2). No one has seen the Himalayan Quail since 1890 and the striking Pink-headed Duck of the northeastern swamps is now almost certainly extinct. There may still be odd species waiting to be discovered, but the ‘splitters' hold sway over the ‘lumpers' and most new species appear only when sub-species are awarded specific rank.

Some poorly known species remain, including four of India's seven Saxicola chat species. Chats are small robin-like birds usually of open country that perch on tall grass or sprays of bushes. Males are usually strikingly-coloured with varying amounts of black and white, some with patches of orange or grey. They are reasonably conspicuous and not easily overlooked, so any apparent scarcity is probably real. 

The four little-known species are the very local White-tailed Stonechat of the riverside reedbeds of north India; the grassland Jerdon's Bushchat of the north-eastern valleys, the Hodgson's Bushchat, a rare winter visitor to the northern river plains and the arid-zone Stoliczka's Bushchat of Rajasthan, which I had now stumbled upon in Haryana. 

Stoliczka's Bushchat was first described in 1872 from Kutchh. A series of records followed until 1942, from as far east as Meerut and north into Punjab, but mainly from Rajasthan and Haryana. The birds were also found in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The species was considered scarce and was assumed to be a winter visitor from further north. There have not been any records from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh or Haryana since 1915 and it has not been seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1881 and 1942 respectively. There have been 14 records from Rajasthan and northern Gujarat during the past 20 years, all in the winter months. We remain completely ignorant of the species' breeding ecology. 

Dr. Asad Rahmani, now Director of the Bombay Natural History Society, conducted four surveys in western Rajasthan between February 1993 and May 1994. He found 86 birds in at least 18 sites and all but one (in July 1993) were seen between January 26 and February 12. We knew that the birds were surviving but there was no evidence that it was anything other than a winter visitor.

Resurrected in Haryana 

So what was the explanation for this sudden appearance in Haryana? There may be some clues in old literature. Of the 27 pre-1934 sites identified by Dr. Rahmani, as many as 13 are in Haryana (in Hissar District, Gurgaon and Sultanpur). Only six sites are in Rajasthan, where all efforts have so far been concentrated. 

The bird's ideal habitat is clumps of coarse grass in areas of dry, short-grass, hard flats. Such habitat is common in parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and in Haryana too, though on a smaller scale. These patches, presumably unsuitable for agriculture, are communal grazing grounds and fodder sources. 

On the face of it, the patches are too small and scattered for a specialised species to inhabit. But our bushchat seems to need a very small territory. In both sites, the birds rarely moved from a 0.5 ha. area. There seems to be nothing to prevent them from occupying these remnant patches of semi-desert in Haryana. And if they breed from March to June, like most of their Indian relatives in Haryana, such areas are unlikely to be looked at by birders, particularly from April onwards when the young would normally be on the wing. 

My thesis is that Stoliczka's Bushchat may well breed in Haryana in small, scattered numbers (it is certainly rare) and it behoves those who want to unravel the final strands of the mystery of their breeding to check out suitable sites in the state and neighbouring parts of Punjab and Rajasthan.

 by Bill Harvey

First published in Sanctuary Asia, Vol. XXI No. 3 June 2001