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Working in a tea estate near Munnar in the 1960s, I used to wake up most mornings to the spirited, if raucous, crowing of a grey jungle cock in a patch of lantana just beyond my quarters. For several days I tried in vain to get a glimpse of it. Then one December morning as I peered through the curtains I saw it emerge from the underbrush, stepping out with the utmost caution, its head swiveling from side to side looking for any sign of danger.
The rays of the rising sun brilliantly highlighted its flashy crimson comb and wattle as well as its gold-flecked hackle. This, coupled with its long sickle-shaped tail and stately gait, lent it an aura of regality. Soon, having apparently received the all-clear signal, its harem of three hens emerged unobtrusively from the lantana patch and the quartet began to forage around, remaining ever alert.
Suddenly, a labourer appeared en route to work. Alarmed, the jungle cock fled instantly — and most unchivalrously — leaving the confused hens behind to fend for themselves. I was to witness this unflattering trait in the jungle cock’s behaviour time and again over the years. Its self-preservation instincts are apparently fine-tuned to a high degree.
Compared with the flamboyant cock, the grey jungle hen is brown-hued and drab-looking with white streaks on its breast. It looks ill-matched and unimpressive beside the showy cock, but blends far better with its surroundings, often going unnoticed unlike the conspicuous cock which stands out anywhere.
With its short wing-span, the grey jungle fowl is capable of only brief spells of flight which it uses to flee from predators with a staccato burst of alarmed cackling. Apart from its natural predator, the jackal, snares baited with grain and shotguns pose the biggest threat to it.
Strolling through a tea field, I was once singularly lucky to chance upon a jackal stalking a covey of jungle fowl foraging in a valley below me. I watched, enthralled, as the predator flattened itself against the ground and inched forward, eyes riveted on its prey. It was the epitome of cunning and caution. Then just as the jackal readied to pounce on the quarry, the ever-alert cock sensed the imminent danger without actually seeing it and scurried away in panic followed by the hens. The hapless jackal looked so crestfallen I could almost empathise with it.
Surprisingly, despite the many concrete monstrosities mushrooming around my home on the outskirts of Munnar, there is a covey of grey jungle fowl resident in the copse of silver oaks in my semi-forested compound. I hear the rooster crow at dawn and dusk and sometimes, quite unusually, even at noon. Often I surprise the fowl as they forage among the inter-planted coffee bushes. They scurry away on seeing me, only to return later to the safety of this wooded haven since there is hardly any other suitable arboreal shelter nearby. Sometimes, when no one is around, they even muster up enough courage to sneak into my backyard lured by its compost pit. Yet, constant familiarity has not bred trust in them: they continue to be elusive and timorous of me.
In the 1980s and 1990s one used to run into numerous coveys of grey jungle fowl just outside Munnar while driving down to Cochin, Coimbatore or Madurai early in the morning. Now, with the ever-increasing volume of traffic and the resultant higher levels of disturbance and pollution, sightings are few and far between. Yet one still does see jungle fowl often while traversing the scrub jungles of the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary in the foothills of Udumalpet en route to Coimbatore. Pertinently, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has described the fowl’s status as being of “Least Concern.”
Besides being hunted for the pot, the grey jungle rooster’s eye-catching plumage was put to varied uses during the British era in Munnar. Local trout anglers prized its gold-flecked hackle which was turned into colourful fishing flies by professional fly-tiers back in the U.K. And many British planters considered it fashionable to flaunt a jungle rooster’s hackle or tail feathers in their hat-bands or to display a tuft of these as a hunting trophy. One planter shot a magnificent jungle cock and had it mounted by a taxidermist in his garden. It is said to have looked just like the real McCoy with its tail feathers fluttering in the wind — and once even fooled a pugnacious wild jungle cock that went at it hammer and tongs!
Indeed, jungle fowl ‘beats’ were popular during the British era. The birds used to be flushed out of tea fields using trained retrievers and brought down by hunters armed with shotguns.
Interestingly, a British planter found that when the grey jungle fowl’s eggs are hatched by a domestic hen, the chickens can be easily domesticated. On the other hand, however, he also found that jungle fowl snared alive seldom survived in captivity on account of their innate timidity.
My abiding fascination with the grey jungle fowl dates back to my boyhood in Munnar when I once found a gorgeous rooster hopelessly snared by a poacher. I tried to free the struggling bird from the horse-hair noose that had tightened around its neck but it was too late.
Today, for many nature-lovers in Munnar like me, the grey jungle cock’s strident crowing at daybreak is a wake-up call that cannot be ignored. It may not be euphonious but it is music to my ears — and as dependable as an alarm clock.
