Out on a limp, as it were...

Injuries and physical deformities are commonplace in nature. Not all of these result in the death of the injured. Here are two somewhat unusual and amazing stories of injured birds.

 

This Black-winged Stilt, posing like it is stretching its legs, had an injured foot. Two toes appeared completely broken off, and at least one more was broken. The Stilt foraged like this in the flooded fallow fields for hours hopping around on one leg. It appeared to be avoiding getting the injured foot wet. After a couple of hours, the bird hopped over to a dry spot and relaxed its injured leg, before hopping back in the field to forage again. When a dog appeared, the bird took off completely normally and landed in another flooded area. Talk about taking things into ones stride!

 Among a flock of Little Stints, a tiny wading bird that migrates across most of Asia to winter in India, there was one with only one leg (in the left bottom corner). The bird hopped around foraging in the wet soils almost as fast as stints with both legs. This long-distance migrant seemed to be faring well with just one leg. Are two legs in fact better than one?

(Photo information: Black-winged Stilt taken in Aligarh district, May 09, 2010; Little Stint taken in Haryana, Feb 27, 2010.)

Cropland canids 1: The Jackal

Two canids are commonly seen in Uttar Pradesh's croplands - the Jackal and the Fox - and the third, the Wolf, is rather rare. Here, the Jackal is captured in a common crop - wheat (top and middle photo), and in the not-so-common amaranth. Jackals in Uttar Pradesh are run down by dogs all the time - one ran into the side of my jeep when it was being chased by village dogs, picked itself up, and disappeared into the wheat. Roadkills due to traffic are common on roads - I will spare you gory pictures of one here, and show you one later of the Indian Fox.

The Jackal appears to be doing quite alright in the cropped areas of UP - how this can be given the growing number of dogs, the lack of natural habitat, and apparent low amount of food is a mystery worth exploring.

(Photo details: Top - Jackal beside ripening wheat in Aligarh district, Mar 26, 2009; middle - Jackal hiding from dogs in growing wheat in Etah district, Jan 12, 2009; bottom - Jackal in red gram fields in Barabanki district, Nov 21, 2008.)