Gallinago gallinago

Bhigwan Bird Sanctuary - Ujni Backwaters, Kumbhargaon

To the south of Bhigwan, bereft of any hills, lie the wide Ujni backwater wetlands. A shallow waste water reserve formed by the discharge of water from the Pune region dams like Panshet, Pawna, Khadakwasla, Varasgaon, Temghar, etc. This semi waste water has created an excellent wetland based ecosystem supporting a large variety of water birds, both endemic and migratory, and also helped with the local agriculture. Nearly 300 species of endemic and migratory birds have been recorded here. The rainfall in the Pune region decides the water level in Ujni dam. Lesser the water, the shallower it is and therefore more birds make it their home in the winter. 

Surrounding this lush ecosystem are the rich grasslands and fertile farms home to an impressive list of birds, mammals and reptiles. The area around these backwaters are also unique with rich farmlands and dry deciduous scrub forest with interspersed grasslands. Home to an impressive list of birds, mammals and reptiles they protect many mammals like Chinkara, Indian Mongoose, the Near Threatened Striped Hyena, Endangered Indian Grey Wolf & Indian/ Bengal Fox and are also popular for grassland birds and many birds of prey, including some magnificent eagles & harriers. My trip this time was focused only a few species like the Striped Hyena, Indian Grey Wolf and Jungle Cat. On our way back into the grasslands from the backwaters after spending some time with the Near Threatened Great Thick-knee and the Kentish Plover I came across this Common Snipe foraging in the shallow waters just off the bund.

But these water birds aren’t the only ones there, there are some magnificent eagles and harriers too like the Endangered Steppe Eagle, the Vulnerable Greater Spotted Eagle, the rare and Vulnerable Eastern Imperial Eagle & the Pallid Harrier, Montagu’s Harrier & Eurasian Marsh Harrier.

Apart from these there are other spectacular species like the Short-eared Owl, Spotted Owlets & the Indian Courser inhabiting the grasslands.

During my time here I was hosted by & had the expert help of Sandip Nagare and his team of knowledgeable guides from the Agnipankha Bird Watcher group, especially Ganesh Bhoi, who went out of their way to ensure I had fantastic opportunities to explore, discover, observe & photograph my target species on this trip like the Near Threatened Striped Hyena. As always, I stayed at Sandip’s homestay and once again had the added pleasure of indulging in delectable home cooked food. 

Read about my birds from Kumbhargaon & the Bhigwan Bird Sanctuary here and watch the videos on my Youtube channel - WildArtWorks.

This time I saw some very alarming signs. The summers of the last two years have been harsh and the rains have been scanty leading to extensive evaporation and receding of the waterfront. My friend and local guide, Ganesh, said that the backwaters have receded almost two kilometers from where they used to be. I have here a few photographs of what used to be and what it is now. This exposed land is now used for cattle grazing and some degree of farming. 

Ujni Backwaters, Bhigwan Bird Sanctuary

The Ujni or Ujjani Dam, also known as Bhima Dam or Bhima Irrigation Project, on the Bhima River, a tributary of the Krishna River, is an earth-fill cum Masonry gravity dam located near the Ujjani village of Madha Taluk in the Solapur district of the state of Maharashtra in India. The Bhima River, which originates in Bhimashankar of the Western Ghats, and forms the Bhima Valley with its tributary rivers and streams, has twenty-two dams built on it of which the Ujjani Dam is the terminal dam on the river and is the largest in the valley that intercepts a catchment area of 14,858 km² (which includes a free catchment of 9,766 km²). The construction of the dam project including the canal system on both banks was started in 1969 at an initial estimated cost of ₹400 million and when completed in June 1980 the cost incurred was of the order of ₹3295.85 million.

The reservoir created by the 185 feet high earth cum concrete gravity dam on the Bhima River has a gross storage capacity of 3.320 km³. The annual utilisation is 2.410 km³. The project provides multipurpose benefits of irrigation, hydroelectric power, drinking, and industrial water supply and fisheries development. The irrigation supplies benefit 500 km² of agricultural land, particularly in the Solapur district. Water supplied from the reservoir to irrigate agricultural areas primarily aims to reduce the incidence of famines and scarcity during drought conditions. The reservoir operation also lessens the threat due to floods to cities such as Pandharpur (an important religious pilgrimage centre for the Hindus). As a result of irrigation facilities, some of the important crops grown under irrigated conditions are sugarcane, wheat, millet and cotton.

This huge reservoir, almost seeming like a sea, is home to hundreds of birds - flamingos with their slender necks, egrets, painted storks, ruddy shelducks and many more. A man-made wetland, these backwaters are a winter sojourn of many migratory birds like the Brown-headed Gulls & Bar-headed Geese making it a mesmerising spectacle. This reservoir is one of the largest backwaters in India created by the Ujni dam. This life giving and sustaining reservoir fulfils multiple purposes - irrigation for agriculture, particularly in the Solapur district, being the primary one - but it also has rural, urban and industrial activities that are equally consuming.

Presently India has 26 sites designated as wetlands of International Importance according to Ramsar Convention. As far as Maharashtra goes, of its multiple natural and man-made reservoirs, none are designated as a Ramsar site. But according to Ramsar’s important identification criteria of population of migratory birds, the Ujni backwaters are amongst the six important wetlands of Maharashtra hosting around 250 species of migratory and resident birds ranging from the pied kingfisher, northern shoveler, bar-headed geese, great egret, painted stork, Indian cormorant, Eurasian coot, common moorhen, black-headed ibis, Asian open-bill, the list is pretty long.

With such a blessed habitat harbouring many species of flora and fauna, this wetland has tremendous benefits to the villages around it. Sufficient water for agriculture, livelihoods to many through fishing and tourism, flood control and shoreline stability are some of the aspects this wetland caters to. Though created strategically for economic development, today, the value of these wetlands function far beyond the scope of any instrument of economic growth.

But the modern day demands on this resource are tremendous. Cash crops requiring huge irrigation, unmonitored use of pesticides, untreated and excessive sewage and industrial waste disposals, uncontrolled urban growth and the changing mindsets of people for newer lifestyles are slowly and steadily affecting this huge wetland.  Decline in the fish density in the major tributaries of River Krishna, increase in exotic weed species in water are some of the indicators of quality degradation of the wetland recorded by researchers. This isn’t the only threat to this spectacular habitat and its wildlife but it also has long term adverse effects on the present and future human population who are consumers of this wetland in the various ways they utilise it.

The conservation of such a large reservoir isn’t a simple task. It requires judicious water usage for local, agricultural and industrial purposes, advocating advanced irrigation technologies to avoid and minimise wastage and banning diversions of water for non-priority purposes can be some of the large-scale measures possible with equal participation of the Government and people alike. Conservation awareness among the local communities for wetlands and its flora-fauna can help in a long run.

On a smaller scale the villagers are doing their bit by consciously avoiding plastic litter, controlled fishing and adopting rowing instead of engines for tourist boats wherever possible. These are some of their simple but effective ways to stop draining these life giving wetlands.

Common Snipe

The Common Snipe is a medium-sized wader with a long, straight and pointed black bill. It has a brown body with black bars, a striped head and back and a white belly. The common snipe's legs are shorter than most wading birds' legs. A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/camouflaging plumage. The Gallinago snipes have a nearly worldwide distribution, the Lymnocryptes snipe is restricted to Asia and Europe and the Coenocorypha snipes are found only in the outlying islands of New Zealand. The four species of painted snipe are not closely related to the typical snipes, and are placed in their own family, the Rostratulidae. 

Snipes search for invertebrates in the mud with a "sewing-machine" action of their long bills. The sensitivity of the bill is caused by filaments belonging to the fifth pair of nerves, which run almost to the tip and open immediately under the soft cuticle in a series of cells; a similar adaptation is found in sandpipers; this adaptation gives this portion of the surface of the premaxillaries (one of a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the upper jaw of many animals, usually, but not always, bearing teeth) a honeycomb-like appearance: with these filaments the bird can sense its food in the mud without seeing it.

Snipes can be found in various types of wet marshy settings including bogs, swamps, wet meadows, and along rivers, coast lines, and ponds. Snipes avoid settling in areas with dense vegetation, but rather seek marshy areas with patchy cover to hide from predators. The Common Snipe favour breeding habitats like marshes, bogs, tundra and wet meadows throughout the Palearctic. In the north, the distribution limit extends from Iceland over the north of the British Isles and northern Fennoscandia, where it occurs at around 70°N, as well as through European Russia and Siberia. Here it is mostly on the northern edge of the Taiga zone at 71°N, but reaches 74°N on the east coast of the Taymyr Peninsula. In the east it extends to Anadyr, Kamchatka, Bering Island and the Kuril Islands, The southern boundary of the distribution area in Europe runs through northern Portugal, central France, northern Italy, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, with populations in the west being only very scattered. In Asia, the distribution extends south to northern Turkestan, locally to Afghanistan and the Middle East, through the Altai and further to Manchuria and Ussuri. It is migratory, with European birds wintering in southern and western Europe and Africa (south to the Equator), and Asian migrants moving to tropical southern Asia. The common snipe breeds from Alaska to Newfoundland south to the mid-United States. It winters north from northern South America to British Columbia, the northern Gulf states and Virginia. It is also found in Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. 

The long, pointed bill of the common snipe helps it probe in the mud for snails, small crustaceans, insects, larvae and earthworms. It also eats some plant matter. Snipes feed mainly on insect larva. Other invertebrate prey include snails, crustacea, and worms. The snipe's bill allows the very tip to remain closed while the snipe slurps up invertebrates.

Camouflage may enable snipes to remain undetected by hunters in marshland. The bird is also highly alert and startled easily, rarely staying long in the open. If the snipe flies, hunters have difficulty wing-shooting due to the bird's erratic flight pattern.

The difficulties involved around hunting snipes gave rise to the military term sniper, which originally meant an expert hunter highly skilled in marksmanship and camouflaging, but later evolved to mean a sharpshooter or a shooter who makes distant shots from concealment.

The common snipe was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Scolopax gallinago. The species is now placed with 17 other snipe in the genus Gallinago that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The name gallinago is Neo-Latin for a woodcock or snipe from Latin gallina, "hen" and the suffix -ago, "resembling".

Two subspecies are recognised:

• Gallinago gallinago faeroeensis (Brehm, CL, 1831) – breeds in Iceland, Faroe Islands, Orkney and Shetland Islands; non-breeding in British Isles

• Gallinago gallinago gallinago (Linnaeus, 1758) – nominate subspecies; breeds in central, north Europe and Asia; non-breeding in west Europe, Africa, Indonesia and Japan

The North American Wilson's snipe was previously considered the same species, and is listed as such in older field guides.

Adult Common Snipe are 25–27 cm long with a 44–47 cm wingspan and weigh about 80–140 grams (up to 180 g pre-migration). They have short greenish-grey legs and a very long (5.5–7 cm) straight dark bill. The body is mottled brown with straw-yellow stripes on top and pale underneath. They have a dark stripe through the eye, with light stripes above and below it. The wings are pointed.

The common snipe is the most widespread of several similar snipes. It most closely resembles the Wilson's snipe (G. delicata) of North America, which was until recently considered to be a subspecies – G. g. delicata – of the common snipe. They differ in the number of tail feathers, with seven pairs in G. gallinago and eight pairs in G. delicata; the North American species also has a slightly thinner white trailing edge to the wings (the white is mostly on the tips of the secondaries). Both species breed in the Aleutian Islands. It is also very similar to the pin-tailed snipe (G. stenura) and Swinhoe's snipe (G. megala) of eastern Asia; identification of these species there is complex.

The subspecies faeroeensis is normally more richly toned on the breast, its upperparts and the head than the nominate gallinago.

The Common Snipe is a well camouflaged bird, it is usually shy and conceals itself close to ground vegetation and flushes only when approached closely. When flushed, they utter a sharp note that sounds like scape, scape and fly off in a series of aerial zig-zags to confuse predators. They forage in soft mud, probing or picking up food by sight. They mainly eat insects and earthworms, also some plant material.

The male performs "winnowing" display during courtship, flying high in circles and then taking shallow dives to produce a "drumming" sound by vibrating its tail feathers. This sound has been compared by others to the bleating of a sheep or goat; hence in many languages the snipe is known by names signifying "flying goat", "heaven's ram", as in Scotland by "heather-bleater" and in Finnish the name taivaanvuohi, "sky goat". The male arrives at the breeding grounds first and stakes out a territory. To attract a mate he flies and dives in the air and makes a loud drumming noise as air passes through his tail feathers. The female lays four eggs in a grass-lined depression in a grass tussock. The chicks hatch after 18-20 days and fledge when they are 19-20 days old

Philip Manson-Bahr is credited with unravelling the mystery of how the snipe creates that unusual breathy sound which is unlike other birdsong. He worked out that the sound was created by placing out two tail feathers at 90 degrees to the direction of flight. When diving these feathers create this unusual sound. He demonstrated this in front of the British Ornithologists Union by inserting two snipe feathers into a cork which he then whirled around his head on a string.

Wing shape does not differ between sedentary and migratory common snipe, suggesting that social selection influences wing shape given this species aerial displays during courtship.

Overall, the species is not threatened. Populations on the southern fringes of the breeding range in Europe are however declining with extirpation in some areas (notably in parts of England and Germany), mainly due to field drainage and agricultural intensification.

The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies to the species. It is still hunted as a game bird in much of its range.

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