Yellow-bellied prinia: Prinia flaviventris

Yellow-bellied prinia
Prinia flaviventris

Yellow-bellied prinia: Prinia flaviventris

Gender: Both look alike.

IUCN Status: Least Concern

Sighted at: Basai wetlands, Distt. Gurgaon, Haryana, India.

Date: 27.6.2015

As the sun broke free of the horizon, the melodious song of a Yellow-bellied prinia arrested my strides away from the tall grass clumps in and around Basai-Dhankot’s dying wetland habitat. I whirled around and there it was – atop a reed, swaying like a balanced pendulum in the gentle breeze of daybreak; singing out to its mate perhaps, or simply joyous for the blessing of a new day. I can’t say which, but my fledgling series on summer birds in and around Delhi (within 150kms) couldn’t have a more refreshing revival after the relatively disappointing trip through Rohtak district on the previous weekend.

Basai-Dhankot’s wetlands was once home to a rich variety of bird species; however, it is now fast becoming home to concrete skyscrapers mushrooming out of land-filled gluttony of a loaded species of Animalia that’s also furiously paring down the remaining Aravalli nails.  Aves can go to hell for they are just bouquet of dead salutations.

The adults look alike – this one’s an adult; lives in tall grasses near wetlands; about 10-12 centimetres in size and usually fall in that range; have slate-grey forecrown and ear coverts (however, whitish in this member); thin white supercilium - which may be absent sometimes as in this case; dark olive-green upperparts; white throat and chest; yellowish belly and vent; has a reddish brown iris and possesses a long graduated tail.

Prinia diet comprises of insects and their larvae, ants, caterpillars, flies and, crickets, and the like.

Resident breeders of Indian subcontinent, their nesting season is around the monsoons – June to August.

Taxonomy:

Kingdom	-	Animalia
Phylum	-	Chordata
Class	-	Aves
Order	-	Passeriformes
Family	-	Cisticolidae
Genus	-	Prinia
Species	-	flaviventris

 

 

These wetlands will soon be Sector 101, 102 or whatever they will be on an envelope, but if you want to address these birds again, if you want to listen to the songs of these common minstrels, you’ll have to travel farther.

 

Photographed at Basai-Dhankot wetlands, Distt. Gurgaon, Haryana, India, on 27^th June, 2015, using a Nikon D7200 camera and Tamron 150-600 mm lens.

 

-          Prashant V Tenjarla