Oriental Magpie-robin: The Tropical Maestro

It is 4 am, and this is the first morning of my holiday. From the terrace of the adjacent block, a magpie-robin (in tux and tails, first thing in the morning) begins to sing. As a birder, I am honour-bound to listen, not clamp a pillow over my head and go back to sleep. And admittedly, the fellow, a maestro, is worth listening to…even for the next hour.

The oriental magpie-robin (Copsychus saularis; 17 cm) is one of our finest flautists and is happy to regale us just before dawn, nearly everywhere in India. The gentleman is turned out in glossy blue-black and snow-white, and his wife is greyish on top. They both sport a long upright tail and slightly drooping wings, black, with a white slash running through them. They are fond of insects, worms, and other creepy crawlies, which they may find in home gardens or any park (they like town and country) where they hop around, dark eyes eloquent, tails up.

Showtime begins shortly before dawn, with the performer having chosen the most prominent post in the area, and an encore may follow late in the afternoon. While the sweet, long whistles may sound a bit repetitive, there will be subtle improvisations in the notes, and you can never tire of listening to the bird. 

My 4 am magpie-robin had more surprises for me. The next morning, he started off again and stopped about ten minutes later. And then another magpie-robin began his recital from an area very near the first. So, he has competition, I thought — was this a jugalbandi? Now (usually gentlemen), birds sing to let other birds know they have survived the night, to attract a mate, and to claim territory. In this case, the territory was three low-rise buildings surrounding a swimming pool and an insect- and frog-stuffed garden in North Goa.

What followed was even more intriguing because, on the third morning, there was a third performer singing in tandem — again, from a slightly different position from the first two — but all within the general complex area.

Puzzled, I scouted the garden and discovered only one pair of magpie-robins hopping around the grass, helping themselves to luscious worms and insects. So, what was going on? The solution was provided by a book on bird song, which mentioned that some canny gents sing different songs from various positions in their territory pretending to be (as here, three) different suitors in order to discourage any outsider from attempting to take over the territory — and the girl. He could fight perhaps one rival but not three! In producing three different sounds, my gentleman friend was protecting a rich property that was perhaps larger than he needed (and included a pool), and what bird lady could turn up her nose at that?

 

Even more interesting (and this perhaps indicates the need for long-term studies) is that a magpie-robin has been performing in this Goa complex at dawn for at least the last 15 years. I wonder if it is the same bird (they can live this long), or was it his son or grandson?

Here in Delhi, at least two gentlemen magpie-robins sing from different areas within my residential complex. Both tend to stick to their earmarked large lawns. When one whistles, the other whistles back, so both know they are in their own territories.

Magpie-robins will include musical notes from the songs of other birds into their repertoire, though each male has a particular song template to which he returns. They also have calls indicating distress, submission, threat, and mobbing (a harsh “krshhh”, which can also be heard late evenings and which I attributed to objections to a bad review!).

While courting or telling off other suitors, the male will puff out his chest, point his beak skywards and strut around, flaring his tail in defiance. And be warned: enter his territory at your peril. On several occasions, I’ve watched (snorting with laughter) as the immaculately turned-out gentleman suddenly breaks off midperformance. Making loud, rude sounds, he dives falcon-style after an interloper screaming imprecations, flaring his tail, and chasing the bounder away. There may even be the magpie-robin equivalent of fisticuffs, and the whole thing always reminds me of an irate orchestra conductor chasing away an imposter with his baton upraised, coattails flying. Once victory is assured, the victor will return to his territory, perform a “victory roll” with his body steeply angled, head held high, and beat his wings slowly and deliberately.

Magpie-robins nest (between March and July) in hollows in boughs, tree trunks, and any suitable niches and cavities they can find, stuffing it with soft furnishings. The lady does most of the nest-building and baby care, and the four to five oval pale-green speckled (with brown) eggs hatch in 8-14 days.

 

I observed one nest on the North Delhi Ridge, in a hole in a dead tree trunk, and was again foxed by these birds. While the female regularly entered her home with a beak full of goodies for her brood, she never appeared to leave it. She was aware of my presence, all right. All I saw of her was entering the nest with groceries, again and again. Then I discovered that she had a secret backdoor to her cavity nest, from which she was exiting, having remembered perhaps that she was under watch. But perhaps had forgotten this by the time she finished her subsequent shopping trip and wanted to reach home asap.

Apart from India, magpie-robins are found in Southeast Asia (Singapore, for example), and though they are of “least concern” according to the IUCN Red List, they are declining in some areas. They are popular cage birds due to their singing talents, and in India, they have been kept for their fighting abilities (illegal, now, of course). We are a peace-loving lot, aren’t we?