#BIRDSINPHILATELY LIII The third stamp in the series Endangered Birds issued on 05 Oct 2006 featured the Manipur Bush Quail (Perdicula manipurensis) of Family Phasianidae. Sadly, the illustration did not do justice to this shy bird. The Manipur Bush Quail is a species of quail found in India, inhabiting damp grassland, particularly stands of tall grass, in West Bengal, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, and Meghalaya. It was first collected and described by Allan Octavian Hume on an ornithological expedition to Manipur in 1881. P. manipurensis is listed as Endangered on the IUCNs Red List, as its habitat is small, fragmented, and rapidly shrinking. There was no confirmed sighting of the bird from 1932 until June 2006, when Anwaruddin Choudhury reported spotting the quail in Assam. BBC News quoted the conservation director of the Wildlife Trust of India, Rahul Kaul, as saying, This creature has almost literally returned from the dead. The bird has an interesting history. The following description of the species by Frank Finn (1911) suggests that the species was common in the past.. One of Mr. Humes most striking discoveries in Manipur, this pretty quail is very distinct in appearance from all our species. Its plumage is slate-colour, mottled with black above, and buff below the breast, this colour broken up into large spots by black markings which form a cross on every feather. The cock has a dark bay face, which at once distinguishes him from the hen. The bill is dark horny, and the legs orange. In length this species is about seven inches, with a wing a little over three, and a tail of two inches. Mr. Hume discovered this species himself when in Manipur, and obtained nine specimens (all he saw except two which were lost) after immense labour and two days beating in an expanse of elephant grass covering broken ground about two miles square. The birds were in two coveys, and those shot were found to have fed upon both seeds and insects A single bird was shot ten days later in the same district, and there is a specimen in the British Museum said to be from Sikkim. But except for these few specimens, nothing more was known of the Manipur Bush-quail till 1899, nearly twenty years after Mr. Humes discovery of the bird, when Captain H. S. Wood, of the Indian Medical Service, presented one to the Indian museum, and Lieutenant H. H. Turner two others. Captain Wood, who had found the species quite common in Manipur, afterwards wrote an interesting note on it in the Asiatic Societys Journal for 1899. He had shot about eighty of these quail, and did not consider them at all uncommon. The native name means trap quail as the Nagas snare numbers of them in nooses after jungle fires. The birds breed in Manipur, and the egg is large in proportion to the size of the bird, and greenish in colour with black and brown patches; unfortunately Captain Woods specimens of them got broken in transit. He found the birds hard to see except after the jungle fires from February to April as they kept to dense cover, and even after a fire their dark colour made them hard to see on the burnt grass they were always found close to water. The coveys kept very close when running, and Captain Wood has bagged as many as four at a shot. The classical description is that the bird has dark olive grey upper parts, grey throat and breast, and golden buff underparts with black cross-shaped markings. It also has a white eye-patch. The male has chestnut forehead and throat. Thease are brownish-grey in females. Two subspecies are described. Perdicula (manipurensis) inglisi found north of the Brahmaputra river is a paler grey and less boldly marked than the nominate Perdicula manipurensis which is a much darker bird. (Which means that the image on the stamp is a poor depiction of this endangered, handsome, dark bush quail.) It is found south of Brahmaputra from West Bengal through Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. The voice is a clear, whistled whit-it-it-t-t, with notes becoming higher and running together. A probable resident, it inhabits damp grassland, particularly stands of tall grass, and sometimes bogs and swamps, and is recorded in vegetation up to 3 m (but potentially up to 5 m) tall (A. Choudhury in litt. 2006), from the foothills up to c.1,000 m. Historical records indicate that it was generally encountered in small groups of 4-12, and was shy, reluctant to fly and extremely difficult to observe, although coveys were occasionally seen feeding in the open on recently burnt ground. The little available data indicate that it breeds between January and May.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 00:45:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015