The commonplace remains unnoticed. It takes unusual circumstances, sometimes a breakdown of the regular order, for it to gain attention. Does anyone have memories of “oxygen” dominating quotidian chatter before the Second Wave?
The white-breasted waterhen is an avian example of the commonplace — ten a penny, as megatick seekers among birders would uncharitably put it.
The bird is widespread in its range. It is easily sighted in its habitat, in striking contrast to some of its painfully attention-shy resident rallidae cousins — the slaty-breasted rail, the ruddy-breasted crake and the Baillon’s crake.
And therefore, it is unconsciously ignored, ironically concealed from sight, and missing from birders’ field notes.
In later part of August, this writer would have looked through a white-breasted waterhen pair if not for how they herded their brood to safety.
Parent-birds of most feathers have a strong gathering instinct, which they use through subtle cues to the young. But this particular pair seemed to herd their young with the efficiency of a Belgian sheepdog. There were five chicks, and a majority of them seemed bent on straggling away from the flock. The scene was unfolding in a pool of water right outside the massive bund of a lake on the winding Gandhi Road in Nedungundram, with the Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road just a walking distance away.
One parent led the pack and the other brought up the rear.
However, the main point of interest is how the chicks helped themselves to safety the next day, when this writer watched these precocial chicks plunge into the same pool of water, alarmed by what they assumed to be intrusive steps, and deftly climbing on to the vegetation and disappear to safety.
The swiftness with which they slipped away was impressive. It was as if they had a claw in each of their wings. That is hardly figurative, because apparently the young of the white-breasted waterhen do possess them. But there is no recorded evidence of white-breasted waterhen chicks putting those wing claws to any use.
A few years ago, Pune-based animal rehabilitator Devna Arora put out an interesting note about wing claws that she noticed in a white-breasted waterhen chick that had been brought into her centre for rehabilitation.
“I just made an observation, because I know that it has not been recorded properly. I have not gone into studying the subject in detail — as I am a rehabilitator, and not an ornithologist. I have made an observation note, in case it is of use to anybody in the future,” explains Devna, whose note can be accessed at her website (the link: http://rehabbersden.org/ rehabbers/PresenceOfA WingClawInWhite-breasted WaterhenYoung.html).
Wing claws should theoretically be a valuable prop to chicks of nidifugous species, particularly those that have much clambering to do. Of the raillidae family, the white-breasted waterhen is essentially a bird of the reeds, though it does not restrict itself to it.
Ornithologist V Santharam points out that use of wing claws by chicks as a safety prop has been documented in the hoatzin, a bird found in the Amazon. He remarks that in the context of wing-claw use, more observation of the young of species like the white-breasted waterhen is required.
However, he notes: “Besides the hoatzin, it appears that wing claws in most other species are just a vestigial organ like the appendix in human beings.”
(‘Resident Watch’ discusses birds that are resident Chennai and surrounding districts)
