Bill Fence

Bird behaviour is fascinating to observe. It is no less fascinating to read about. Particularly since several behaviours have been given catchy names - some really spot-on.

Bill Fencing is one such phrase used for a behaviour that many storks exhibit. As the name suggests, they fence with their bills!

Fencing can start pretty small - appearing to be a friendly, even affectionate, touching and clicking of bills. Like the two Painted Storks below.

 

Quickly, it can escalate to an obvious joust that is not so friendly!

The point of bill fencing appears to be to grab hold of the beak of the opposition.

And then, if food or a prized foraging patch is involved, it can escalate to a full-on fight! Use of wings, beaks and even legs seem fair game. A stork below appears to be karate-chopping the other lunging stork!

Until the beak of the opponent is finally in hand. Or rather, in bill!

Then, the "vanquished" opponent either walks away, or, if feeling particularly adventurous, tries to disengage, and another bout of bill fencing ensues until the beak is in hand (or bill) again.

One bird, clearly tired of the forced bill-shutting (and perhaps finally alarmed at the dangerous jabs of the long bill so close to the face!), eventually flies away. And the winner, after some work, keeps the spoils!!

 

Better this I say than jabs to the body, bleeding wings, and gouged eyes. Maybe these happen too...

(All photos taken in 2015 from various locations in western Uttar Pradesh.)

Wheat fields, flooding, snakes and storks

The setting of winter in the northern Indian landscape signals a major change in the crops. After harvesting the rice, farmers plant mustard and wheat. Unlike the rice, that requires to be flooded, wheat needs the soil to be just wet. Farmers achieve this by flooding the fields intermittently. This sets off an unanticipated set of events. Mice and snakes in burrows recently dried out are forced out again and again.

Large waterbirds in Uttar Pradesh seem to have figured this circumstance out - to their benefit. In this set of photographs, I share our observations of a Woolly-necked Stork successfully dispatching a keelback. 

We missed seeing how the stork actually caught the snake, but the photo below shows the bird with the struggling snake, shaking it violently. As we watched, the snake became visibly weaker and nearly stopped attempting to escape altogether. 

 A Woolly-necked Stork with its catch of the morning - a keelback - in a wheat field.

The stork picked up the weakly struggling snake, carried it over to a drier spot near the dike and began beating the head with its beak. The photo below shows the snake - that is hopefully dead by now - with its bloodied head.

  

The bloodied and hopefully dead keelback awaiting the swallow.

Storks swallow snakes headfirst, and whole. This is easier said than done when the snake is a mite bigger than the usual small prey items that storks swallow. The photos below, that took well over a couple of minutes, show the difficult process.

Head-first is how storks like to swallow snakes.

The biggish keelback presented a bit of a problem to the Woolly-necked Stork, but it managed.

In the keelback went, and the serious swallowing began!

After a few minutes, many many swallows later, the snake completely disappeared visible only as a bulge in the stork's neck (above).

Though a snake being swallowed by a stork is pretty commonplace, given that snakes are commonly taken prey by these birds, what we watched represented much more. Human habits (planting wheat and intermittently flooding them), animals attracted by crops (rats in burrows, that in turn attracted snakes), and other wild species (here, a Woolly-necked Stork) all came together to make for a memorable viewing. 

(Photos information: Taken in Etawah district, Uttar Pradesh; taken on 5 Jan 2013.)