Indian Shag poops on a rock

  • 5 years ago
A Cormorant sitting on a rock, shuffling around and getting nervous as a boat approaches it on the Ken River in Madhya Pradesh, India. It looks the other way and squirts out its poo on the rock, in preparation for flight! Another one, meanwhile, dries its wings in the dim warmth of the evening sun...

The Indian Cormorant or Indian Shag (Phalacrocorax fuscicollis) is a member of the cormorant family. It is found mainly along the inland waters of the Indian Subcontinent but extending west to Sind and east to Thailand and Cambodia. It is a gregarious species that can be easily distinguished from the similar sized Little Cormorant by its blue eye, small head with a sloping forehead and a long narrow bill ending in a hooked tip.

This medium sized bronze brown cormorant is scalloped in black on the upper plumage, lacks a crest and has a small and slightly peaked head with a long narrow bill that ends in a hooked tip. The eye is blue and bare yellow facial skin during the non-breeding season. Breeding birds have a short white ear tuft. In some plumages it has a white throat but the white is restricted below the gape unlike in the much larger Great Cormorant. Sexes are similar, but non-breeding adults and juveniles are browner.

This cormorant fishes gregariously in inland rivers or large wetlands of peninsular India and northern part of Sri Lanka. It also occurs in estuaries and mangroves but not on the open coast. They breed very locally in mixed species breeding colonies. They extend northeast to Assam and eastward into Thailand, Burma and Cambodia.

Source - Wikipedia

The Ken river runs through the Panna Tiger Reserve - possibly one of the least polluted and cleanest rivers in the country. Kanha National Park is a national park in the districts of Mandla and Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh, India. Kanha National Park was created on 1 June 1955 by a special law and since then, it has dedicated itself in preserving a variety of animal species. Many endangered species have indeed been saved here. Today Kanha is among the few most scenic and beautiful wildlife reserves in Asia. This 'Tiger Country' is the ideal home for both predator and prey. Today it stretches over an area of 940 km per square surrounding buffer zone of 1,067 km per square and the neighboring 110 km per square Phen Sanctuary it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve making it the largest National Park in Central India.

The park has a significant population of Royal Bengal Tiger, leopards, the sloth bear, Barasingha, barking deer, black deer, black buck, chousingha, nilgai, mouse deer, sloth bear, jackal fox, porcupine, hyena, jungle cat, python, pea fowl, hare, monkey, mongoose, tiger, leopard and Indian wild dog.

The birds species in the park include storks, teals, pintails, pond herons, egrets, peacock, pea fowl, jungle fowl, spur fowl, partridges, quails, ring doves, spotted parakeets, green pigeons, rock pigeons, cuckoos, papihas, rollers, bee-eater, hoopoes, drongos, warblers, kingfishers, woodpeckers, finches, orioles, owls, and fly catchers. Kanha National Park is also home to over 200 species of flowering plants. However, if one animal species were to represent Kanha, it would probably be the barasingha, or the swamp deer.

The climate of this region is tropical. Summers are hot and humid with a maximum and minimum temperature of 40.6°C and 23.9°C. Winters are pleasant with an average maximum and minimum temperature of 23.9°C and 11.1°C, respectively. The annual average rainfall is 152 cm. The park is closed from July to mid-October during monsoon.

Source: Wikipedia & http://www.kanhanationalpark.com/

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