Often while walking along road sides, one would hear a sudden burst of babbling and chattering which waxes and wanes. Immediately a group of brownish birds come out of the bushes and animatedly flutter their wings and continue being noisy. They are the Jungle Babblers known popularly as Seven Sisters or Saath Bhai.
The Jungle Babbler (Turdoides striata) is a member of the laughing thrush family found in Indian subcontinent. They are called Saath Bhai because of their gregarious foraging groups comprising of six to ten birds. This species is drab ashy brown over all with a yellow bill and whitish iris. As of today five subspecies have been recognized within the country of which the subspecies somervillei is found in Goa and Maharashtra.
Jungle Babblers feed mainly on insects, but on occasion will also eat grains, nectar and berries. They are one of the few bird species that live in social groups. These groups have a complex structure and social hierarchies where every individual has a certain role to play. In every group only the dominant male and female get to mate and raise a brood, while the younger members of the group help out the breeding pair by helping them defending territory, finding food and feeding the chicks.
While foraging, one member of the group always acts as a sentinel who is on a watch for potential predators. Once a predator like a snake is spotted, all the individuals of the group will aggressively mob the predator to deter it. Jungle Babblers are known to have quite a long lifespan. The oldest living Jungle Babbler was 16 years old when it died in captivity.
Being a social living bird, the chicks have a high rate of survival because of the number of individuals taking care of them. There have been cases where cuckoos especially the Common Hawk Cuckoo lay eggs in the nest of the Jungle Babblers. This behavior of the cuckoo is called brood parasitism.
International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the Jungle Babbler as a species of least concern in terms of conservation prioritization due to its stable population size and large range. In Goa also we have a good population of this species, though the exact population is yet to be quantified.
Image Credit: Keifer Costa
