Overseer Of The Mixed Flock - Rufous Sibia

Pangot, Uttarakhand

Some of us just stick out among the ones we hang out with. Just happens cause of our nature I guess. Well, looks like same's the case with birds that flock together. My guy in question is The Rufous Sibia, who despite looking and being "so normal " among his kind, just isn't. The Sibias are part of a large family of birds found mainly along the lower Himalayas, all the way to South East Asia. We’d already named most of the birds Laughingthrushes by then but, “The Laughingthrush’s Joke” stopped being funny at some point I recon and gave rise to the scientific name Leiothrichidae. This family includes 133 species like Minias, Babblers, Cutias, Barwings and Sibias divided into 16 generia. It’s a huge khitichi or different birds from tropical areas in my opinion that could have been arranged a lot better unless a muck up didn’t happen at the start of the classification process.

The Rufous Sibia, is the most common Sibia found in India if we go with current records in ebird, etc. I saw these ones in Uttarakhand and honestly, my opinion is that they were one of the few whose character sticks out the most among all the birds of the Leiothrichidae family that I saw there. They are known for their social behavior and I often saw them in mixed flocks. Interestingly, when in mixed flocks, these guys look like the calmer cousins or “overseers” of their little cousins. They’re found calmly sitting on the higher branches while the little ones live life in the fast lane on the lower branches of the same trees. Thing with these guys is that they’re known to be the singers among the lot that they hang out with and hearing them can mean that there’s other birds around too cause all these birds hang around hospitable areas.

These guys were a pleasure to photograph mostly cause they are larger and have longer attention spans which is rare among the small birds that are usually found in Uttarakhand. You get eye contact and lots of it from them and they seem pretty interested in our movements and whereabouts. Their gaze will follow you about and that’s good as far as I’m concerned. Now, I’ve read blogs by bird guys who claim that they are so common that they hate mistaking other birds for these guys but the experience was quite the opposite for me. I always found others around where these guys were there. Others have reported colour alterations on them depending on the altitude they’re sighted at but that’s not something I think I can vouch for myself. Could be altitude, could be season, or geography could be all of those reasons or none. Not much to photographing them even if you’re set up for the smaller little ones. You just have to remember to give them more time cause they’re not in the perpetual hurry of their smaller friends. Their movements are non repetitive, deliberate and there’s always chance of action if you’re watching.

All in all these birds gave me the best stares and poses among the lot from Uttarakhand. Their size in that environment is a huge advantage for them and while some Babblers and Thrushes there have the size, they weren’t as inquisitive as the Rufous Sibia who was just a lot of fun.

What can I say, personality matters.