Non-aquatic birds that love reedy wetlands

The other day, I was exploring a man-made wetland having majority of its periphery covered with dense growth of tall emergent aquatic plants including cattails (Typha) and reeds. It was indeed a “wall” of emergent hydrophytes erected by none other than Mother Nature herself! The “wall” was giving me a tough time as I wanted to peep through some gap in the “wall” and observe waterbirds foraging in open waters on the other side.  However, it was an effective natural barrier for those foraging waterbirds as it could dilute the impact of man-induced disturbances in the landscape surrounding the wetland. 

When I was leisurely walking along edge of the peripheral reedy growth, I unexpectedly came across a small flock of little birds having size somewhat smaller than that of House Sparrows. They had emerged from one point of the cattail growth, flew hurriedly and briefly over the cattail canopy only to plunge and disappear into the cattail vegetation again. I could hear their feeble yet adorable calls when they flew for a brief period. To my joy, after some moments, a few individuals emerged from the vegetation cover and landed onto the nearby dry land with grass-patches and started taking titbits (probably insects and seeds). At that time, I got an opportunity to observe them properly with my pair of 10x40 binoculars. Few of them-the breeding males-were indeed small “red diamonds” as they had rich, shining and velvety red body (sprinkled with contrasting sesame-like white spots), red beak and iris. Few others (non-breeding males) had brown appearance with red on beak, around hind-neck, rump and upper tail-coverts (which were prominently spotted with white) and few others were of much drab body colour (females)! Red or brown, all of them were indeed pretty, active and cheerful birds.  

These little passerine birds were Red Avadavats that are also well-known as Red Munias. Justifying the rich red colour of the breeding males, they also have an adorable name- Strawberry Finch. It might be very interesting to note that the common English name “Avadavat” and scientific name Amandava amandava have etymological roots in no other word than “Ahmedabad”-the name of the first World Heritage City of India- “Amdavad” (Ahmedabad). As per one theory, though this species occurs all over India, Ahmedabad was the city from where individuals of this these pretty species were sent for the first time to Europe as cage-birds.

Red Avadavats are not obligate inhabitants of reedy/cattail-covered areas of the wetlands, but they certainly have affinity to watery areas. Though they can also live amidst the crops and tall grasses, vicinity to wetlands is usually preferred by them. They certainly love reedy and cattail growth at/adjacent to wetlands to breed (mainly during monsoons). Their nests are often hidden in the growth of cattails, aquatic grasses and sedges.

So, what are you waiting for? Visit some reedy wetland to try your luck of seeing these feathered red jewels!

The author is the founding editor of e-Periodical Jalaplavit, senior scientist and Ph.D scholar from West Virginia University 
ketantatu1@gmail.com