Among the Birds of the Eastern Sudan

THE AUK: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY. Vo•.. xxxI. ArRIL, 1914. NO. 2 AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE EASTERN SUDAN. BY JOHN C. PHILLIPS. Plate XIII. • LOOKINGback on our short collectingtrip into the easternpart of the Sudan,the Blue-Nile basin,it is remarkablehow strongly the first few days of the trip stand out in memory. The novelty of groat spaces,of the groaning,toiling camels,of the burning noonsand deliciousnights, soondissolves into an everyday exis- tence, and one week becomesalmost exactly like the next; so exactly,in fact, that after a monthor moreone ceasesto remark on the weatherand almostforgets he is living out of doors. A feelingrather stealsover one that this is not the open air, but a groatglass house, steam heated and weatherproof. Beholdus then launchedsuddenly from the dusty train into the brilliant moonlightat Sennar. It was ChristmasEve, and all day long the train had been crawling away from Khartoum, over dustydurrah fields, at an averagerate of just twelvemiles an hour. Amidstgreat confusion we detrainedour ninecamels, giving three of them an opportunityto escape,which, camelllke, they soontook advantage of. In a large thorn enclosurewe stowedaway our luggage,made our beds and turned in. Supper was a brief affair that night. The full moonglared down upon us, a stripedhyena gave his very Female Caprimulgus eleanore• Phillips, three quarters natural size, 149 x x x ¸ 150 PniI.I.irs, Birds of the Sudan. [AAprU•l musicalcall, and from the sky abovecame the clamorof hundreds and it seemedthousands of EuropeanCranes. Off in the distance was the confusedsound of the village,donkeys, dogs and drumsall jumbledtogether and softenedinto a weird sort of chant. During the night we fought off the many hungry dogs,but not until they had stolenall our availablelunch for the comingday. It was cold by 4:00 A. •I., and we were out early, trying to warm up. At dawnwe took our gunsand strolledoff into the great fields of durrah grain, then mostlyharvested. For milesaround Sennar there is hardly a tree left, the Blue-Nile flows drearily through a deep channelwith high mud banks, with great sand bars and beachesat their bases. The current is swift and the water clear, comingas it doesfrom the mountaihregion of Abyssinia,but by January this river is usually too low for steamboatnavigation. Birds were about these fields in great numbers,but not of many kinds. First must comethe craneswhich winter all the way from Khartoum to Rosscites. They are mostly the Grey Crane of easternEurope, Megalornisgrus grus, but there are someof the smaller Demoiselle Cranes and a few African Crowned Cranes. No bookshad given us any idea of the enormousnumbers of cranes on the Blue-Nile. It was by far the most notable bird sight of the region,and pleasingbecause unexpected. Thesecranes spend the night on the river sandsin flocksof hundredsand alwaysfar away from any cover, so that they are perfectly safe. They feed inland mostly where there is cultivation and never seem to pass along the same flight lines. Their warinessis remarkable and it was pleasantto see such a safe retreat for thesesplendid fowl. I wonderedwhy bird fancierswere made to pay ninety to onehundred and twenty-fivedollars for a living pair, but no doubt on their breedingrange they are scatteredand hard to trap. By the end of February nearly all of these craneshad moved away from Sennar. Other birds we saw that first morning were doves in endless numbers, their calls resoundingin every direction. Here we obtained Turtur isabellinus,which we did not get again. Other turtle doveswere very abundant,and the little long-tailedCape Dove was seeneverywhere, walking about the path in front of us, always very tame. This attractive bird is now imported alive into Americain largenumbers. Shrikesof two kindswere common and a large blue hawk, Melierax metabates,was very conspicuous. This, the commonestlarge hawk of the country, is very sluggish and quite tame. Once, riding along a trail we passedone sitting in a low thorn tree, when to our astonishmenthe came crashing to the ground and lay there completely paralyzed. When we picked him up he offeredno resistanceand seemedperfectly limp, although he still graspeda freshly killed sparrow in his talons. On dissectionwe couldfind nothingdiseased about this bird except possiblya small hemorrhageback of the ear. This was the first time we had ever seena bird struckdown from apparentlynatural causes,but he mighthave sustained a blowpreviously. The most noticeablesmall birds around Sennat were Stone-chats, the commonIsabelline •Xqaeatear, a migrant, and the White Wag- tail, also a wanderer. We have delayed too long around Sennat and must get south- wards, and can only pauseto mention a few of the striking birds. The traveller up the Blue-Nile noticesa fairly suddenentrance to the moreAfrican, or moretropical birds, though the bare scenery of leaflessthom forestis far from tropical in appearance. About E1-Mesherat,or a little before,one gets into patchesof densebush near the river, with elephantgrass, baobab trees, a few pahns and here and there wild fig trees whoseglorious foliage of dark green leavesgives the sunsmitten traveller a denseshade all throughthe dry season. Hidden in these trees are the wary greenFruit Pi- geons. Bird life, numericallyat least, is remarkable in the bush about here. Dense swarms of plain colored Weaver Finches, mostlyof two speciesand now of coursein winter plumage,whirl about with a perfectroar of whigs,lookh•g like swarmsof bees. No one can imagine the size or density of these flocks,which at first are really startlh•gas they hurtle overone's head. We thought that one well directedshot would often kill a hundred. Imagine the feelingsof an Arab whenone of theseflocks takes possession of' his durrah patch, for it spellsruin in a short time. The children are all put to work with stringsand movablescarecrows to frighten birds away, and they are kept busy all day long. The hanging nests of weaver finchesare a conspicuousfeature of the Sudan landscape,and sometimesa small thorn tree will hold twenty or thirty of them. 152 PreLLItS,Birds of the Sudan. [AprilAuk In the neighborhoodof Karkoj and E1 Mesherat (latitude about 13 N.) we beganto seeGreen Monkeys in the taller trees,and here :andthere the beautiful little Oribi, an antelopewhich will survive long after the great animalsof the easternSudan have beencrowded .out. About in this latitude also, Hornbills of two speciesbecome ,common,though the small red-billedone, Lophoeerusherapriehi is much the more plentiful. Prominent in the memory of those burning hot noons is the rising call of this bird, "Weet, weet," repeatedtill it reachesa crescendo,when the performerstraightens up, openshis wings and bobs up and down. This is almost the only sound heard through the heat of the day, when bird life is hushedand the nativesare fast asleepin their conicalstraw huts. The large Brown Hornbill is a very differentbird. He is wild, usually seensingly, and inhabits high treeswhere he emits a loud anvil-like note,.at first single,then double,and accompaniedby a flappingof the wings. There is anothersort, the great Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, which is rare and we did not seeit. A shyand very beautifulbird of the Blue-Nileis the Red-breasted Bush-shrike,whose crimson underparts gleam through the thickets like a living flame. These birds have responsivenotes, the male and female always combiningin producingone call. I cannot do better than quote from Dr. G. M. Allen's notes on this subject. "Usually one bird gives a loud rich-tonedwhistle, "a-wheeo" the first syllablevery faint; the otherbird instantlyreplies with a harsh 'ehurr,' given either at the same instant, or followingso closely that it is hard to distinguishthe exact moment. SometimesI have heard two differentbirds respondto a singlebird whistling. More rarely the 'wheeo' is given in responseto a call from the other, a harsh 'ehurr ehurr.' The two birds of a pair usually keep dose together." Dr. Allen thought that the inale gave the first note, the whistle. As one getssouth, parrots become much more plentiful. They are of two sorts. A long-tailed kind, the commoner,ranges pretty far north whereverthere are largetrees, and breedshigh up in holes,even in January and February. They crack the nuts of the Laloab tree, a fruit muchused by the antelopesand also very goodto quenchone's thirst. This parrot and its nearly related but larger Indian cousinare both seenbreeding at large in the Vol. 1914XX. XI I] PHILLIPS,Birds of theSudan. 153 zoologicalgardens in Cairo. The short tailed Meyer'sParrot with orangespots on the bend of the wings,is a small and very lively bird, exceedinglyhard to collect,and only commonin the southern part of our region. It is hopelessto try to giveany ideaof the largenumber of species which we encounteredin the two months,January and February, and a poor time of the year it was at best. In the way of game birds the Helmeted Guinea-fowlstands first, though in gamehess he certainly standsat the foot of the list. This bird is seenall over the eastern Sudan, often in incredible numbers, and I can truth- fully state that I encounteredone flock containing a thousandhead, a great bluishmass of movingfowl whichran aheadof me, occasion- ally rising by the hundredand alightingagain. Flocks of a hundred or morewere too commonto be remarkedupon. This species seemsto live by sheerforce of numbers,its stupidity is notorious, and it is preyedupon by all the small and very numerouscarni- votes, by the abundanthawks and by long lines of string nooses set by the Arabs. An Englishresident told me he had never seen its nest •nd A. L. Butler makes the same statement in ' The Ibis.' He thinksit must nestonly in the rainy season,when travel is very difficultand the wholecountry is a seaof mud.

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