Suresh Kumar had no plans of studying Amur falcons until a widely publicised campaign in 2012 put a stop to the hunting of these pigeon-sized raptors in the Northeast. The sudden public interest in the species changed the course of Kumar’s career.
After rearing their young in Mongolia and the Russian Far East in summer, the falcons take to the skies in September. Their destination: southern Africa. Although birders knew the birds made a stopover in Northeast India, they didn’t know much else — what route they took, how long they flew, or when they returned.
Kumar collaborated with Hungarian raptor researchers who studied a close relative, the red-footed falcon. Catching red-footed falcons to outfit them with satellite transmitters wasn’t a problem because they breed in nest boxes in Hungary. But Amur falcons on the hillslope of Doyang in Nagaland have no fixed address. They spend the day all over the countryside, hawking insects. At dusk, they darken the skies as they swooped down in thousands to roost in the trees. That would be the right time to get them.
The researchers rigged their fine mist nets on tall bamboo poles, but all they caught were bats. Local men, watching their efforts, laughed uproariously at each failure. To add insult to injury, a bat bit a researcher, a high point in the villagers’ merriment.
Large-eyes beauties
On the last day, a desperate Kumar swallowed his qualms of seeking help from former poachers. They were only too eager to help, shinnying up a tree and setting the net high above the canopy. That evening, November 6, 2013, the rig caught 30 falcons.
Although Kumar had seen these large-eyed beauties, holding one in his hand moved him. “To think it was one of those lucky ones that survived the massacres of the previous years gave me the shivers,” he said.
The next morning, they fitted tiny transmitters on the backs of one male and two females, and named the birds after the State, district, and village — Naga, Wokha, and Pangti. The Hungarian researchers cautioned Kumar against holding high expectations. These were small birds with short lifespans, and the transmitters would last one season at the most.
Kumar’s anxiety wore off after Naga and Wokha were released, and he invited the villagers to witness the release of Pangti. Before the headman freed the falcon, the pastor, who had played an important role in preaching conservation at his weekly sermons, prayed with his congregation, wishing the bird a safe journey and hoping for her return the following year. “I get goosebumps recalling that day even now,” said Kumar.
Before heading home, Kumar taught the excited villagers to use their mobile phones to log on to the website, satellitetracking.eu, to follow the progress of each bird. A couple of days later, when he checked, he found Naga soaring along the Odisha coast, where Kumar had studied sea turtles years ago and hadn’t spotted an Amur falcon.
He stared in astonishment as the blinking red dot on the map crossed the Indian peninsula. The bird flew non-stop for 5 days and 10 hours, covering 5,600 km before alighting in Somalia. If anyone had told him the previous week that the beautiful 180-gram falcon he had held in his hand was an endurance athlete, he wouldn’t have believed it. The two females, Kumar found, made frequent breaks until they reached Botswana. Then, he faced his first disappointment: Wokha disappeared.
Food or freedom
In March 2014, Naga took wing from Botswana for Myanmar and then Mongolia, flying 9,000 km over two months. Pangti roughly followed the same flight path. Their remarkable cross-continental journeys made several hearts beat faster in a remote part of Nagaland.
Although communities had stopped hunting the falcons, there were murmurs of dissent. Without falcon breasts and thighs to supplement their diets, and unable to plough the lands where the raptors roosted, the villagers heavily subsidised conservation. Some have demanded compensation for the missed opportunities to fill their bellies. Although the issue hasn’t been resolved, the former poachers have stuck to their promise of not hunting the falcons.
Soon, tourists arrived to see the spectacle of thousands of birds funnelling through Nagaland. Some villagers opened their homes to visitors to supplement their income, but the community as a whole hasn’t seen much direct benefits.
Although Kumar tagged five more Amur falcons in the following years, he had developed a soft spot for Naga and Pangti. Despite the researchers’ low expectations, the two birds’ transmitters lasted three years.
On November 27, 2016, when Naga was off the coast of Somalia, he disappeared from the map. Pangti vanished in Mozambique the same year. No one knows if the birds too died along with their transmitters.
A few, however, remain indifferent to the communities’ rapturous welcome of the falcons’ annual arrival. To Kumar’s disappointment and the community’s embarrassment, one of two falcons he tagged in Manipur last month fell victim to a rifle shot. But Kumar is hopeful. He believes that by this time next year, the villagers will guarantee secure blue skies for the dark-eyed birds.
The writer is not a conservationista but many creatures share her home for reasons she is yet to discover.
