Song of the Bengal Bush Lark

Sometime last week (April 15 to 21, 2012) while going through the various sections of the Xeno-Canto website I discovered a link called "Wanted". I realised that there is a whole long list of birds that have not been recorded - at least not shared on Xeno-Canto. To my utter surprise I found our friendly neighbourhood Bengal Bush Lark in that list. The bird indeed had never been recorded. Or even if someone has done it, he has never shared it publicly on any forum.

A Bengal Bushlark in Rajarhat. Captured in early 2011. One of the first shots with my 400 F5.6

In the Macaulay Library database there is a recording of a Bengal Bush Lark recorded in Sri Lanka way back in 1976 !!!! But it is actually wrong to call it a Bengal Bush Lark. Those birds are now called Jerdon's Bush Lark. So at least on paper, there is no Bengal Bush Lark call available anywhere in the world !!!
As a Bengali I felt quite embarrassed by this. Bengal Bush Lark is a pretty common bird. However, while pondering over the issue I realised that possibly these are the reasons why it is so poorly recorded.

1. Bird sound recording is a very western hobby as of now. It is yet to catch up in India and there are very few Indian bird call recordists. In Calcutta I know of just one other person who actively records calls. But he is a birding guide and does the recording for his own use in the wild to play back on birds. He does not share his recodings in the public domain. I have never heard them either. I don't think such a professional will ever record Bengal Bush Lark. 
2. The area where the Bengal Bush Lark is found is not a very fashionable birding destination for international recordists. Foreign nature sound recordists will not come to this region to record Bengal Bush Lark !!! In fact I found another common Bengali bird - Asian Open Bill is also not there on Xeno-Canto.
3. Bengal Bush Lark is not known for being very vocal. It is generally quiet. It sings most audibly during the summer breeding season. Therefore it is not a very easily recorded species.

Therefore, as is obvious, it becomes my onerous duty and responsibility to record this quiet bird. I was wondering where to go for the recording. Boshipota or Rajarhat or Joka? This is when Kanad Baidya called me to ask whether I had recorded the GPS position of his area in Habra during my previous visit. I said no but I would gladly do it this Saturday ( April 21, 2012). I was very keen to record the vocalisation of the Brown Hawk Owl and went to his house as promised.

After looking up and down for the Brown Hawk Owl for quite some time in vain, I told Kanad about the lack of representation of the BBL on the global bird sound websites. He said they are aplenty behind his house. We promptly went there and this is what I got.



It was  a green paddy field. The bird was perched on a high tension electric wire and singing. He must have had a nest somewhere nearby in a field where they were growing some vegetables. We saw the nest of a Paddyfield Pipit nearby with a broken egg. We realised that it must have been the handiwork of the BBL. We saw him going to his nest nearby and come back to the high perch.

I hope to record some more calls in the near future of the sound that it makes in flight. That particular vocalisation is very different from this perched song that it was singing.