Order: Suliformes

Family: Anhingidae

 

Size:  up to 81 - 91 cm

Weight: up to 1160 to 1500 g

 

Key Features: a large, dark waterbird with a very long, slender neck, a long tail and a thin, straight bill. Highly adapted to swimming and diving, swims low in the water with only its long, snake-like neck and head exposed, giving this species its alternative name of ‘snakebird’. Adults have a dark blackish-brown head and hind neck, while the sides and front of the neck are chestnut with a white stripe. The throat is mottled black and white. The rest of the body and tail are largely black with a green-brown tinge, while the wing feathers are for the most part black with a central white stripe. There is some variation in the colouration of Oriental darters from different areas and in different seasons. The male and female Oriental darter are similar in appearance, but breeding males may have a reddish-brown instead of black-brown to chestnut head and neck, while the white stripes on the wing feathers are more pronounced than in the female. The juvenile Oriental darter has a grey head and neck with no white streak, and the rest of the body is browner than in the adult.

 

Voice:  They are very silent except at the nest where they produce grunts and croaks and a disyllabic chigi-chigi-chigi. Chicks are noisy when begging for food.  Adults roost communally in trees close to or over water.

 

Breeding: The breeding season is June to August (during the rainy season) in northern India, April–May in south-western India and in winter in south-eastern India (during the northeast monsoon). The usual clutch consists of three to six spindle shaped bluish-green eggs with a white chalky covering that gets soiled over time. Both parents incubate the eggs, beginning after the first egg is laid which leads to asynchronous hatching of the young. 

 

Diet: feeds mainly on fish.

 

Habitat: It inhabits shallow inland wetlands including lakes, rivers, swamps and reservoirs. 

 

Habits: They usually forage singly, with the entire body submerged; swimming slowly forwards using their webbed feet while the head and neck is moved jerkily above the water. It darts its neck to impale fish and then brings them out of water, tossing them into the air before swallowing the fish head first. They may sometimes be found along with cormorants which share the habit of spreading out their wings to dry when perched on a waterside rock or tree. They sometimes soar on thermals during the warm part of the day but will alternate flapping and gliding in normal flight.

 

Conservation Status: Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Kennedy, R.S., Gonzales, P.C., Dickinson, E.C., Miranda Jr, H.C. and Fisher, T.H. (2000) A Guide to the Birds of the Philippines. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 

Shrestha, T.K. (2001) Birds of Nepal: Field Ecology, Natural History and Conservation. Bimala Shrestha, Kathmandu, Nepal.

 

Nelson, J.B. (2005) Pelicans, Cormorants, and their Relatives. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 

Grewal, B., Harvey, B. and Pfister, O. (2002) A Photographic Guide to the Birds of India and the Indian Subcontinent, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and The Maldives. Princeton University Press, New Jersey.

 

del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. and Sargatal, J. (1992) Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Ostrich to Ducks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

 

BirdLife International (2014) Species factsheet: Anhinga melanogaster. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on July 02nd, 2014.

 

Photo Courtesy

Kaippally, Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons