Neha Sinha: What the decline of these birds means for India's biodiversity
The steady dwindling of brilliant birds like the Indian Roller signals an 'extinction of experience', warning us that in losing nature, we are losing the very language and imagination required to understand the world.
It was a good day.
The heat fell on our skin like acid. But a bird perched on top of a wire, moving his head from side to side, alert and unbothered. In a fluid movement, he snapped his wings open. Then he dived, a brilliant pinwheel of blues, of dashing primary and secondary feathers. He had seen something he wanted and he strove for it; through my binoculars I saw that the bird grasped his prey. The air shimmered gently with the heat, but the blue bird—the Indian roller or the Neelkanth—remained undaunted.
On another day, in an arid patch in Telangana, I watched a roller sit on a tree, its large beak parted in a gasp to accommodate the vagaries of the Indian summer. It was a striking sight through my binoculars: an indefatigable bird on a short break, its facial whiskers glinting in the searing sunshine. The forest was in an exhale. A single dhole slumbered in the distance, and the sun was a prism through sal leaves. Everything was resting. Yet, the roller didn’t take a break for long. Soon, it shook off the ennui of the afternoon heat, and went back to dive-bombing.
In the countryside—between swathes of fields, skeletons of buildings and miles of wires—Indian rollers, with their lapis and turquoise wings, of blues of montane ponds meeting calm seas, have been a fixture. As I have passed fields that go by in a blur, the roller’s appearance has been like a heartbeat. It forms a steadiness, a favourite thing to look out for. Over the years, for other birdwatchers and me, the sign of a small familiar bird has meant that things are alright in that corner of the world; that for a few heartbeats, the locus of the world can be a wild creature. And yet, the centre cannot always hold.
In its latest assessment of how species are doing (also called the Red List), the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the Indian roller as “Near Threatened". This means that this once ubiquitous bird is now facing steady threats. The Indian roller is found in the Indian subcontinent and parts of the Arabian Peninsula, but a chunk of the population resides in India. It is therefore incumbent upon us to identify and address threats.
Indian rollers are found in open areas—usually dry places, croplands, agricultural fields, sometimes in areas adjoining forests. They eat a variety of insects and small reptiles.
Another bird seen with the roller is the magnificent Black-winged kite. This is a white bird with grey wings and ruby red eyes. The red eyes are shaded with black portions—creating an intense and unforgettable gaze. Unlike the roller that dives, “rolls" and does sorties in the sky, the Black-winged kite hovers in one place, chopper-like, locking itself on its prey and then diving.
Like the Indian roller, the Indian courser, a bird of open areas and grasslands has been “uplisted" to the “Near Threatened" category by the IUCN—both are named after our country, and both show signs of distress. Further, the Black-winged kite has registered national declines as per the State of India’s Birds report.
What could be the reasons for decline? Firstly, we need to investigate the loss of overall habitat. Secondly, we need to understand the impact of crop chemicals and pesticides on the birds. Thirdly, the overall availability and abundance of insects for insectivorous and hunting birds of open areas needs to be looked at. Further, rollers are hunted for some festivals. This trade is likely contributing to their decline and requires interventions. All these factors require sustained addressal.
On the side of a dusty highway recently I looked out of the window for familiar “heartbeats"—cattle egrets sitting on large trees, Indian rollers slung over wires, Black-winged kites hovering above us all. I was in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and then Haryana. There were very few rollers to be seen. When I finally saw a Black-winged kite, I paused the car. Not far from a toll plaza, the bird flapped furiously in the air, intense bursts of energy which would hopefully lead to a meal. Time stopped. It was just the dry field, the bird in the sky, and a silent observer. Just then, a car horn blared, and the bird moved further away, lost to sight.
In a recent paper, academic Miles Richardson found that nature words in books have declined by 60 percent since 1800. This time period also corresponds with an overall decline in nature. This is described as an “extinction of experience". The lesser we identify and relate with nature, the more dire and isolated the situation will get for us, as well as for the natural world.
If you don’t already know a wild bird or animal, it is easy to miss it—in the way the Black-winged kite moved out of sight that day on the highway. For those who have never seen the Indian roller, or known the local names Palapitta or Neelkanth, may think it is normal to have wires and skies empty of the blue jay or a kite with black wings; they may find India to be just fine without its endemic courser.
I think we may be poorer without these names, and the sweet effort it takes to find words to describe the unique acrobatic flights of the roller and the Black-winged kite—a movement like a winged seed for the first, a hovercraft for the other; a poem for the first, a military metaphor for the second.
In his latest non-fiction book, Wild Fictions, author Amitav Ghosh argues we need to change our relationship with the earth. “High modernity taught us that the earth was inert and existed to be exploited by human beings for their own purposes… We are slowly beginning to understand that in order to hear the earth, we must first learn to love it," he writes. At a time of global warming, disasters (natural or otherwise) and biodiversity loss, our relationship with nature requires not just a rethink but a paradigm shift. It requires attention, not just as an object, but also a subject.
It seems to me we have a dual challenge in front of us. The first is to tackle reasons for decline of open ecosystems and their denizens, through conservation actions, management and a policy focus. The second is to re-animate our wild species in stories, education and lore. The extinction of experience suggests it is not just our life but our very language that could slowly be dehydrating, that we face a loss of both actual presence and imagination. Our actions often cause devastation, and so we must reverse it; a bird is a thermometer to show us that things are wrong and they must be made right.
May we remember, may we act, may we prevent the skies and land from losing their old friends. And ultimately, may we look for heartbeats beyond our own selves.
Neha Sinha is a conservation biologist and author of Wild and Wilful: Tales of 15 Iconic Indian Species. Views expressed are personal.
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