The One And Only - Vernal Hanging Parrot

South Andaman

Doing what we do for fun, we’re very happy when the light’s good. Getting a good sighting’s chance enough and to have good light on maybe half of all of them is also pretty lucky in my experience given that our subjects usually come out in the early mornings and evenings giving us a very short window. But sometimes, just sometimes, the light is just so damn good that you can play around with it too and it can look like there’s a spotlight on the subject and you can also black out the background cause of the contrast ( Pics : 1 - 3 ). It’s doable but you just need to either manufacture the effect in a studio as is often done or you need to just get lucky. The specifics are available in many a you tube tutorial that I’ve seen and I’ve also seen this being pulled off with large mammals like tigers and flying birds. What I never expected though, is that my turn at these conditions would come with a little parrot whose name I’d been hearing for years. They are touted often as “The Only Parrot In India” and my first and only experience with The Vernal Hanging Parrot turned out to be the most fun game of light and shadow that I have ever played so far. Needless to say, that I’m very proud of the end results and to have finally executed these in the field and on the fly.

Firstly, it’s a He. The red rump and bill confirm that. Secondly, how cute is this little guy? They are like 13 – 15 cms long. In comparison, the rest of the Parakeets that we see in India are around 35 cms long. So, you may confuse the others if you see them but there’d be no confusing my guy here for anyone else just by size and the neon green on him. Interestingly, these little dudes are called Hanging Parrots because of their habit of sleeping upside down on branches as a defense mechanism. They’ll also bathe and eat upside down. They won’t whistle, won’t speak if you try to train em and will just hang out. At most, they will call in a chatter while they’re upside down.

Now, many say that Vernal Hanging Parrots are the only Parrots found in India. But this is a super interesting bird classification khitchri in India’s case. As in, usually around the world, Parakeets are smaller than Parrots. They are around 20 to 30 cm long while Parrots go from around 9 cm to 100 cm length. Parakeets also have long, tapered tails while Parrots have short tails. In the case of India, while my Vernal Hanging parrot friend is just 13 cms long, making him tiny in comparison to other parrots, he displays all the other physical characteristics of Parrots in general. On the other hand, Indian Parakeets are large for Parakeets at 35 cms length, yet they have the long, tapered tails and other physical characteristics that make them Parakeets. So like I said in “Colour Bomb Ahoy !”, Parakeets are a kind of Parrot, just like a Dashund is a kind of Dog. Simply put, all Parakeets are Parrots but all Parrots are not Parakeets. There’s no need to correct poor newbies on Safari every time they call a Parakeet a Parrot. A dude isn’t wrong if he says that.

My little guy here although small had all the personality and attitude of his larger Indian Parakeet cousins. Look at him. I hadn’t seen such attitude and confidence in a little bird till I met him. Forget being jittery, I swear, I was thinking he was playing to the camera while we were at it. I kid you not, little dude came back and followed the car for a bit after we thought he was gone for good. I’ve had larger Indian Parakeets giving us attention but this little guy doing it was just unexpected for me given his size. Im used to little birds being fast and jittery, not posing while they take their time and let me set up shots while fumbling in my settings, trying to nail a new technique. This guy enabled such an amazing learning experience for me with results that are awesome to me.

The Vernal Hanging Parrot may not be “The Only Parrot in India”. But for me, he will always be the One & Only who taught me what he did.