Chapter XXXVII: Birds in the Cotton Tree

Lack of green grass and the paucity of wild flowers are the chief of the causes which render the scenery of the plains of India so unlike that of the British Isles. India, not being blessed with frequent showers, the _sine qua non_ of flower-decked, verdant meadows, has to be content with a xerophilous flora. But there is in this country some compensation for the lack of flowers of the field in the shape of flowering shrubs and trees. Among the most conspicuous of these is the cotton tree (_Bombax malabaricum_). This tree is not an evergreen. It loses its leaves in winter, and before the new foliage appears the flowers burst forth—these may be bright red or golden yellow. As they are larger than a man’s fist, and appear while the branches are yet bare, a cotton tree in flower is a very conspicuous and beautiful object. But it is of the feathered folk that visit this tree that I would write, not of the splendour of its blossom. Even before the March sun has risen and commenced to dispel the pleasant coolness of the night the cotton tree is the scene of riot and revelry. Throughout the morning hours, as the burning sun mounts higher and higher in the hard blue sky, the revelry continues. It may, perhaps, cease for a time during the first two hours after noon, when the wind blows like a blast from a titanic furnace. But it soon recommences, and not until the sun has set in a dusty haze, and the harsh clamours of the spotted owlets (_Athene brama_) are heard, does the noisy assembly of brawlers leave the tree in peace.

The cause of all the revelry is this. The nectar which the great red flowers secrete is to certain birds what absinthe is to some Frenchmen. First and foremost, amongst the votaries of the silk-cotton tree are the rose-coloured starlings (_Pastor roseus_). During the winter months these birds are not a conspicuous feature of the India avifauna, for they do not then go about in great flocks. But from the time the cotton tree is in blossom until the grain crops are cut, the rosy starlings vie with the crows in obtruding themselves upon the notice of human beings in Northern India. You cannot ride far in the month of March without hearing these birds. Their clamour is truly starling-like; they produce that curious harsh sibilant sound which is so easy to recognise, but so difficult to describe, that noise which Edmund Selous calls a murmuration, and which the countryfolk at home term a “charm,” meaning, as Richard Jefferies expresses it, “a noise made up of innumerable lesser sounds, each interfering with the other.”

Look in the direction whence the sound issues and a blaze of scarlet will meet the eye; it is amid this that the rosy starlings are calling, for where the silk-cotton tree is in bloom there are these birds certain to be.

Approach the tree and look carefully into it; you will see it thronged with birds, mainly rosy starlings. Conspicuously arrayed though these birds are, it is not easy, unless they move, to distinguish them among the red petals and dark calyces. _Pastors_ that are not dipping their heads into the red shuttlecock-like flowers are all either scolding one another or making a joyful noise. They move about so excitedly and jostle one another so rudely as to give you the impression that they are somewhat the worse for liquor. This may not be so. It may be the natural behaviour of the rosy starlings, for they are always noisy and pugnacious. But they seem to be exceptionally so when in the silk-cotton tree. So eagerly do they plunge their beaks into the cup-like flowers, that these latter are frequently knocked off the stalk in the process. This is especially the case with those flowers that have begun to fade. The floral envelopes and the stamens of such are easily detached from the ovary.

The rose-coloured starlings are by no means the only members of the clan which drink deeply of the nectar provided by this hospitable tree. Among the mob of brawlers are to be seen the common, the bank, and the Brahminy mynas, but there is this difference between these latter and their rose-coloured brethren; the former are only occasional visitors to the tree. They are moderate drinkers; they visit the public-house perhaps but once in the day, stay there a short time, and then go about their business. The rosy starlings carouse throughout the hours of daylight.

Another _habitué_ of the silk-cotton tree is the Indian tree-pie (_Dendrocitta rufa_), the nearest approach we have to the magpie in the plains of India. His long tail and general shape at once stamp him as a magpie, but his colouring is, of course, very different; in place of a simple garment of black and white he exhibits black, chestnut-brown, silver, white, and yellow in his coat of many hues. You are not likely to see a crowd of tree-pies among the red blossoms, for the simple reason that the species is not gregarious; but in all localities where tree-pies exist you may be tolerably certain of seeing at least one of these birds at every flowering cotton tree. Tree-pies, be it noted, although widely spread in India, are apparently very capriciously distributed. For some reason which I have not been able to fathom they occur in the neighbourhood of neither Madras nor Bombay.

Needless to say, the crows join in the drinking bout. The corvi rarely wander far from the path of the transgressor. Fortunately for the starlings, the crows are not passionately fond of the secretion of the Bombax flowers. Did these last exercise so great an attraction for the crows as they do for starlings, the smaller birds would be crowded out by their larger rivals, and the Bombax tree would be black with squawking corvi. The crow drinks the nectar of the cotton tree as a man drinks liqueurs; the result is that rarely more than two or three crows are to be seen among the scores of starlings and mynas. The flowing bowl seems to have greater attractions for the corby (_Corvus macrorhynchus_) than for the house crow (_C. splendens_); but there is a reason which prevents the too frequent visiting of the silk-cotton tree by the corbies, namely, that it comes into flower in March, which happens to be the nesting season of those birds.

The above seven species are, so far as my observation goes, the only birds that make a habit of drinking at the blossom of the cotton tree. It would thus appear that the nectar has a very pronounced taste, and that, in consequence, birds either like it intensely or positively dislike it.

“Eha,” I am aware, states that many other birds frequent the cotton tree, for the sake of its good cheer, “the king crow, and even the temperate bulbul and demure coppersmith, and many another, and, here and there, a palm squirrel, taking his drink with the rest like a foreigner.” But did not “Eha” mistake the purpose for which these creatures visit the silk-cotton tree? A bird may be present without taking part in the revelry. The other day I was watching all the fun at one of these trees when suddenly a little coppersmith (_Xantholæma hæmatocephala_) came and perched on one of the bare spiny branches. He sat there motionless, as out of place as a Quaker would among a mob of bookmakers. Suddenly a rosy starling hustled him off his perch. But the coppersmith did not fly away; he merely hopped on to another branch, and then suddenly performed the vanishing trick. Had I not been watching him very closely I could almost have persuaded myself that he had melted into thin air. As it was, I saw him dive into a round opening—scarcely the size of a rupee—about two inches from the broken end of a dead branch, not as thick as a woman’s wrist, at the very summit of the tree. The circular opening in question had been neatly cut by the coppersmith and its mate, and led to a hollow in which three white eggs were doubtless lying. These and not the nectar-bearing flowers were the attraction for the coppersmith.