30 Indian BIRDS VOL. 15 NO. 1 (PUBL. 10 MAY 2019) Table 1. Records of the Asian Stubtail from the Indian Subcontinent S. No Observer Month Year Location Country Reference 1 Tom Tarrant January 1993 Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve Nepal Lewis (1994) 2 Nick Dymond January 1997 Lowacherra National Park Bangladesh Thompson & Johnson (2003) 3 Paul Thompson December 1999 Lowacherra National Park Bangladesh Thompson & Johnson (2003) 4 Sayam Choudhury January 2011 Moulvi Bazar Bangladesh Chowdhury (2014)* 5 Sandip Das November 2013 Rabindra Sarovar, Kolkata, West Bengal India Das (2014)* 6 Tania Khan December 2013 Satchori National Park Bangladesh Khan (2013) * 7 Munir Ahmed Khan August 2014 Satchori National Park Bangladesh Khan (2014) * 8 Pritam Baruah March 2015 Jatinga, Assam India Baruah P (2015) 9 Syed Shahnoor Imam December 2015 Lowacherra National Park Bangladesh Imam (2015)* 10 Jainy Kuriakose December 2015 Jeypore Reserve Forest, Assam India Kuriakose (2016)* 11 Shameem Rizwan February 2018 Satchori National Park Bangladesh Rizwan (2018) * 12 Rejoice Gassah November 2018 Near Dosdewa village, Karimganj District, India This work* Assam * Photographs supporting the observations were verified by the authors. Chowdhury, S. U., 2014. First photographic record of Asian Stubtail Urosphena flabellife, with reeds in some patches. It was a single lane metal squameiceps from the Indian Subcontinent. Indian BIRDS 9 (1): 25. road. Das, S., 2014. Asian Stubtail Urosphena squameiceps in Rabindrasarobar, Kolkata: A CS had earlier located a large nest of a Black-necked Stork first record for India. Indian BIRDS 9 (1): 26–27. Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus, upon a tall tree standing in the Imam, S. S., 2015. Website URL: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=87507963 5923326&set=p.875079635923326&type=1&theater. [Accessed on 22 December water; the nest was 4.6 m above the water. From the road, the 2018.] nest was at eye-level and, using YB's as a hide, we could observe Khan, M. A., 2014. Website URL: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1020 it without disturbing the birds. The sun had not yet risen, and the 4351382441374&set=p.10204351382441374&type=1&theater. [Accessed on 22 female stork was sitting in the nest; only her head was visible December 2018.] to us. She stood up after a few minutes and started preening. Khan, T., 2013. Website URL: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1020276277 Even at 0800 h the light was low, due to mist. All of a sudden 0453118&set=p.10202762770453118&type=1&theater. [Accessed on 22 December 2018.] CS urgently whispered 'look at the bird'. She was swallowing Kuriakose, J., 2016. Snapshot sightings: Asian Stubtail at Jeypore forest, Assam. Indian a snake. As we watched, she swallowed two more snakes (all BIRDS 11 (2): 56A. were, probably, checkered keelbacks), all within four minutes. We Lewis, A., 1994. Asian Stubtail Urosphena squameiceps: a new species for Nepal and could not comprehend how all the three reptiles were in her the Indian subcontinent. Forktail 9: 155. nest! The bird had not left the nest since we began watching it Rizwan, S., 2018. Website URL: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=172466486 that morning. 7555212&set=p.1724664867555212&type=1&theater. [Accessed on 22 December For the next fifteen minutes, or so, she did not do anything 2018.] Thompson, P. M., & Johnson, D. L., 2003. Further notable bird records from else but preen herself. In a seven minute video that YB shot Bangladesh. Forktail 19: 85–102. from 0820 h onwards, we observed that she ate two morsels of – Rejoice Gassah & Vijay Anand Ismavel unidentified items, fiddled with twigs to realign the nest to her Rejoice Gassah, Makunda Christian Hospital, Karimganj District 788727, Assam, India. [RG] satisfaction, and then settled on it. She again stood up at 0840 E-mail: [email protected] h and consumed one more snake at 0844 h. A fifth snake was Vijay Anand Ismavel, Makunda Christian Hospital, Karimganj District 788727, Assam, India. [VA] swallowed at 0852 h [39]. She took her time to swallow this last E-mail: [email protected] individual. It was larger than the ones she had consumed earlier. As she started swallowing it, the snake wrapped itself around the stork’s bill, and she took a few seconds to untangle it. All the five reptiles were picked up from the floor of the nest. Does the Black-necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus For the next 22 min she preened and rested. At 0914 h she asiaticus keep a larder? took-off from the nest and landed a few meters away, on the left At 0730 h on 28 October 2010, Chirag Solanki and I were side of the tree. She was vigilant and constantly watching the birding at Vibhapar wetlands (22.5°N, 70.07°E) which is situated nest. Thrice she drank water by tilting up her head. A couple of soutwards of the saltpans of the Century Salt Works and on the House Crows Corvus splendens flew slowly past the nest, while western side of Khijadia Bird Sanctuary (Gujarat, India). Vibhapar she was still on the ground. Noticing them she abruptly flew back is a monsoon-dependent wetland. A 2.5 m high, ‘salt-ingression- to the nest. prevention’, bund separated this waterbody and the saltpans. The On her nest, at 0917 h, she ate a sixth snake, and at three kilometers long bund mostly had Prosopis juliflora trees 0926 h the stork swallowed a seventh snake. This seemed like a on both sides of its single lane metal road, with a few peelu stupendous breakfast! We stayed there for another 30 min, but Salvadora persica, and a couple of toddy palms Borassus nothing further happened, except she settled on the nest. Correspondence 31 Yashodhan Bhatia Yashodhan 39. Black-necked Stork swallowing the third snake from the nest. Chronological order of the feeding activity of the female Black- References necked Stork on 28 October 2010. Ali, S., & Ripley, S. D., 1978. Handbook of the birds of India and Pakistan together with those of Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Divers to hawks. 2nd 1. 0802 h swallowed first snake (Hardback) ed. Delhi (Sponsored by Bombay Natural History Society.) Oxford 2. 0803 h second snake University Press. Vol. 1 of 10 vols. Pp. i–lviii, 1–382. 3. 0805 h third snake Dharmakumarsinhji, R. S., Undated. Birds of Saurashtra, India: With additional notes 4. 0820 h eating unidentified small objects on the birds of Kutch and Gujerat. 1st ed. Bhavnagar, Saurashtra: Published by 5. 0844 h fourth snake the author. Pp. i–liii, 1–561 (1955). Grimmett, R., Inskipp, C., & Inskipp, T., 1998. Birds of the Indian Subcontinent. 1st ed. 6. 0852 h fifth snake London: Christopher Helm, A & C Black. Pp. 1–888. 7. 0914 h flew down to the ground to drink water, below the Mason, C. W., & Maxwell-Lefroy, H., 1912. The food of birds in India. 1st ed. Calcutta / nest London: Thacker, Spink & Co. / W. Thacker & Co. Pp. 1–371. 8. 0917 h sixth snake Roberts, T. J., 1991. The birds of Pakistan: Regional Studies and non-passeriformes. 1st 9. 0926 h seventh snake ed. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Vol. 1 of 2 vols. Pp. i–xli, 1–598. Sundar, K. S. G., 2003. Notes on the breeding biology of the Black-necked Stork Snakes form a part of the prey base of the Black-necked Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus in Etawah and Mainpuri districts, Uttar Pradesh, India. Stork (Mason 1912; Dharmakumarsinhji 1955; Ali & Ripley Forktail 19: 15–20. Sundar, K. S. G., 2004. Group size and habitat use by Black-necked Storks 1978; Roberts 1991; Grimmett et al. 1998; Sundar 2003, Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus in an agriculture-dominated landscape in Uttar 2004; Sundar et al. 2007). But there is no mention, in these Pradesh, India. Bird Conservation International 14 (4): 323–334. works, of the bird maintaining a ‘larder’, in its nest, for later Sundar, K. S. G., Deomurari, A., Bhatia, Y., & Narayanan, S. P., 2007. Records of Black- consumption. necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus breeding pairs fledging four chicks. Forktail 23 (August): 161–163. – Yashodhan Bhatia (YB)* & Chirag Solanki (CS) *E-mail: [email protected].