To see Bar-headed Geese is not a birding trip; one always makes a pilgrimage.
At a little past 7 AM, the December fog is so dense over the highway from Gadag that our driver slows the taxi to a crawl, and we barely notice that we have arrived at Magadi Kere, a Ramsar site that draws the migratory Bar-headed Geese in winter. In that milky-white haze, all we can hear is the wheezy flapping of unseen wings like scattered applause.
We step onto the path, treading gingerly to avoid the copious signature output of several human bowels, and make our way to the edge of the lake. Here we wait, with next to zero visibility and the constant panic of making a misstep that we might regret.
House Sparrows, Brahminy Starlings, a Brown Shrike, and an Indian Robin are the first to greet us before they too melt into the mist. Clamorous and Blyth’s Reed-warblers tsk-tsk from the tangled undergrowth festooned with mysterious rubbish. A young Indian Spot-billed Duck, barely graduated from a duckling, paddles away furiously from the shore. Black-winged Stilts, uniformed sepoys patrolling the water’s edge, yelp in alarm at our approach. Of the birds we have travelled hundreds of kilometres to see, there is little sign. We wonder if it is too early to be disappointed, when a passer-by tells us to wait.
Incoming… The squadrons descend
Even before the fog clears, the Bar-headed Geese begin to fly in. The whoosh of their wings as they zip by overhead, and the breathy honking ending in a grunt, are the only sounds we hear for the next thirty minutes as squadron after squadron descends upon the lake. The birds fly in loose V-formations from the agricultural fields in the vicinity, where they have spent the night feeding. Soaring over the terrain of earth dark as coffee grounds, planted with cotton that is bursting into whorled flowers, they make noisy, splashy landings as their yellow webbed feet strike the water.
We count hundreds at first, then give up counting after approximating about two thousand birds. The skies send in many more flocks. An hour later, the glassy blue surface of Magadi Kere appears to roil and foam with a cottony white froth. The geese settle peacefully on the surface, idling along like a languid and unhurried flotilla. While some birds keep watch, others tuck their beaks into their eiderdown shoulders and doze off, bobbing like rubber duckies in an enormous bathtub.
Meanwhile, the people of Magadi go about their Saturday. Women, standing knee-deep in the water with the ends of their colourful sarees hitched up, launder clothes. Men wash and scrub their cattle. Children, ambling along to school, toss stones into the water until they are shooed away. The highway beside the lake, rutted and potholed, sees a weak stream of traffic—the occasional bus, the odd truck or car, and a succession of squeaky-jointed motorcycles.
The Bar-headed Geese of Magadi Kere
Assisted by a guide we had engaged earlier, we enter the sanctuary gate, which is opened to us after 9 AM, and take the path that leads to a watchtower. It is a short walk of about 500 metres, but it takes us nearly two hours to cover the distance as we marvel at the multitude of geese upon the lake, while stopping to admire other avian distractions.
We are overdressed, having taken extra precautions against the cold as is typical of city folk in their fifties. We soon find that, apart from the fog, there is nothing wintry about winter in Gadag. Out on the water, the Bar-headed Geese must be chuckling. For them, even our most frigid winter is at least 10 degrees warmer than peak summer in their montane breeding grounds.
As a midmorning quietude settles upon the village, we become aware of the sound that drifts to us in the crisp, dry air from the Bar-headed Geese on the water. A low, continuous thrumming—like thousands of monks chanting in a lofty mountain monastery—it is a sound that evokes the Himalaya.
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A Himalayan honking
Bar-headed Geese (Anser indicus) breed in the high-altitude freshwater lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and Mongolia. One among these lakes—Manasarovar or Mapang Yongcuo at 4,600 metres/15,100 feet above mean sea level—is a place of pilgrimage considered sacred by followers of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Bon religions. A ritual for the devout of all the invested faiths involves a circumambulation of the lake’s 110-kilometre perimeter (counterclockwise for Bon people), known as kora. An equally sacred pilgrimage of 52 km encircles the base of the snow-capped peak that presides over the vista of the lake, the holy Mount Kailasa /Kailash (not to be confused with the micronation allegedly founded in the 21st century by a self-styled spiritual guru and certifiable charlatan).
Stephen Alter, in Becoming A Mountain, writes of how an Indian mystic, Swami Pranavananda, produced the most compelling accounts of Manasarovar, having circumambulated the holy lake 25 times, including many journeys made in the icy winter. In 1939, Pranavananda (born Kanakadandi Venkata Somayajulu and later disciple to Jnanananda, a nuclear physicist who took the path of asceticism) published Pilgrim’s Companion to the Holy Kailas and Manasarovar, an authoritative travel guide to the pilgrimage site in Tibet that earned him the fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society. It first appeared in print in Hindi and was later translated into English with a foreword by Jawaharlal Nehru.
Abutting the pear-shaped freshwater Manasarovar to its west is the crescent-shaped Rakshastal, a saltwater lake. Bare of vegetation, it is known to the Tibetan people as Lagngar Cho or Lhanag Tso—the Ghost Lake, or the Dark Lake of Poison—for its non-potable water. Together, like yin and yang, the lakes maintain an ecological harmony. In deep winter, when both lakes freeze over, herdsmen bring their yaks, cattle, horses, and goats to graze on the grassy islands.
Pranavananda writes laconically of the birds he observed around the two lakes, loosely naming “swans, wild geese, ducks, cranes, and other aquatic birds” among the avifauna. In the story of Nala and Damayanti in the Mahabharata, Lake Manasa or Manasarovar was considered the abode of the Hamsa, the bird that was the divine mount of Goddess Saraswati.
Since there are no confirmed records, even historical ones, of swans of any species breeding in central Himalayan lakes (there are records of vagrant Mute Swans from northwestern India), it can be safely assumed that Pranavananda’s “swans” are indeed Bar-headed Geese. This fact is further reinforced by the 19th century Dutch epigraphist and Sankritist Jean Philippe Vogel in his book The Goose In Indian Literature And Art, in which he argues that Western translators, thinking the word goose to be rather vulgar and inadequate in majesty, interpreted Hamsa as swan. With their impressive size and snow-white bodies marked with two dark bars on the head and black edges to the primaries, Bar-headed Geese pack enough grace and beauty to persuade upgradation to swan category, at least to the casual onlooker.
At home with the Bar-headed Goose
Known as Nyangba to the Tibetan people, the Bar-headed Goose is considered sacred although they eat its eggs, each three to four times the size of a chicken egg. He adds that “the egg-collectors of Kardung Goba” go to Lachato (the “swan-island” in the middle of Rakshastal) in the last week of April, when the birds begin to lay eggs. According to Pranavananda, the birds live on “grass and water weeds” and “not fish and oysters” (recent research has shown that while wintering birds are primarily vegetarian, breeders may take insects and crustaceans for the additional nutrition).
Breeding from late April to early June, the pairs make nests of vegetation lined with down feathers among marshes. Bar-headed Geese are mostly monogamous, although males have been recorded to keep harems, and pairs have been observed returning to the same nest site every year. In India, breeding birds have been recorded in Ladakh, in the vicinity of Tso Moriri.
Nearly the entire population winters in large lowland water bodies in the Indian subcontinent, with large numbers congregating in Kaziranga in Assam, Keoladeo Ghana in Rajasthan, Pong Dam backwaters in Himachal Pradesh, and many other locations. In recent years, the population of Bar-headed Geese wintering in the northern subcontinent has seen a slight decline while in the southern subcontinent, their numbers have increased. Birders flock to watch the spectacular gatherings at Chilika and Mangalajodi in Odisha, and Koonthankulam in Tamil Nadu. In Karnataka, Hadinaru Kere near Mysuru sees a sizeable number, as do Magadi Kere and Shettikere in Gadag. The Bar-headed Geese arrive at these wintering grounds after an arduous high-altitude journey that sees them fly over the mighty Himalayan peaks.
Flying high, flying strong
Studies have shown that Bar-headed Geese typically take only about seven to eight hours to cross the high Himalaya during their migration, ascending from sea level to altitudes of about 6,540 metres (nearly 21,500 feet) during their northward migration at the end of spring. What’s astonishing is that they fly non-stop, without a rest, maintaining high climbing rates throughout the journey. Even more remarkable is the fact that these climbs, made at the rate of about 0.8 to 2.2 kilometres an hour, are unaided by tailwinds, as the geese fly during the night when winds are calmer.
The story has been sung into legend that Lawrence Swan (interesting name), the naturalist who accompanied Sir Edmund Hillary on an expedition to Mount Everest in search of the yeti, heard the honking of Bar-headed Geese near the summit, but modern researchers have not been able to substantiate that claim. Lucy Hawkes, a lecturer in physiological ecology at the University of Exeter, UK, wrote in AdventureMedic that “…out of almost 150,000 GPS locations from 91 birds, we never recorded a goose flying higher than 7,290 metres, and 98% of the locations we received were from lower than 5,500 metres.”
Nonetheless, it must take an extraordinary physiology for Bar-headed Geese to surmount these Himalayan obstacles. Studies have shown that their haemoglobin has an enhanced oxygen-binding affinity, allowing efficient oxygen transport even in oxygen-deficient environments. They have larger lungs than most birds of their size, a dense capillary network, and a higher proportion of mitochondria in their muscle cells, which supports aerobic metabolism. Additionally, they can breathe rapidly and deeply in thin air, lowering their body temperature considerably, thereby increasing the uptake of available oxygen. Their flight strategy of avoiding turbulent winds and flying in the calmer, denser morning air reduces energy costs and makes better use of available oxygen. All of these adaptations contribute to their prowess at making this demanding journey.
‘Breath is the king of mind’
Slow, deep breathing, we are constantly told by yoga gurus, is the secret to good health and longevity. This principle is the basis for the practice of pranayama, as extolled in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and demonstrated ably by BKS Iyengar, who declared in Light On Yoga that “breath is the king of mind.”
Pranavananda, sceptic among sanyasis, thought most mystics he encountered in the Himalaya to be unremarkable, and busted every myth propounded about sages who had lived for centuries in their corporeal form. Yet, he too asserts that keeping oneself alive, sane, and healthy in that unforgiving environment of thin air and icy temperatures demands strong lungs.
Evolution picked the Bar-headed Goose for its proficiency in pranayama, enabling it to adapt to the demands of a formidable crossing. Equally, high up in the Himalaya, monks and mystics of all persuasions tame the demons of the mind by mastering the breath.
Ironically, here we were, in a small village not far from the ruins of Lakkundi where Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain artifacts share space in an inadequate museum leaving more questions than answers about the fabled history of this land. The sculptures of schist, despite being defaced and weathered, cannot hide the Buddha’s mien of beatific tranquillity. Step close, and one can almost hear breathing.
Fields of forgiveness
As the sun climbs high at midday, we make our way to a Lingayat khanavali for a simple meal of jowar rotis and locally grown vegetables. In conversation with the restaurant owner, a farmer, we learn that the Bar-headed Geese spend the night in the fields, grazing, and destroy more than three-quarters of the rabi crop of chickpeas and groundnuts. They uproot the protein-rich seedlings from the ground after they have germinated, leaving little chance for the farmers to recover their investment.
“We can handle a few peacocks raiding the fields for about an hour in the early morning, but flocks of hundreds of birds feeding all night just devastate the crop,” he says ruefully.
The compensation offered by the forest department is insubstantial and barely covers the cost of the seeds. Yet, the farmer tells us, the local people never hunt or poison the birds.
“We heard that they come from so far away,” he says large-heartedly. “And, anyway, this is only one season.”
In the longer kharif sowing season that falls during the monsoon, the farmers recover most of their investment, helped by the fact that the geese are back home in their Himalayan breeding grounds at that time.
The Shettikere encounter
Lunch done, we make our way to Shettikere, a large lake fringed on one slide by reserved forest and a small settlement of Banjara people on the other. The avian biodiversity is different here, with Asian Woolly-necked Storks, Painted Storks, Marsh Sandpipers, Little Ringed Plovers, and Eurasian Spoonbills among the water birds. Through the corrugated heat waves rising from the ground, I can see a film of white over the water on the distant shore. Peering through binoculars, we figure that there must be something like two thousand Bar-headed Geese.
This supersized flock is resting on the shore, making the same monk-like thrumming that trickles through to our ears. We walk the circuit around the lake and get very close to the birds from behind them, and we notice that the dark soil of the shoreline is densely littered with enough shed feathers to stuff thousands of pillows.
Interspersed with the geese are scores of delicate-looking Small Pratincoles, looking like diminutive bridesmaids as they make languid sorties on sickle-like wings. We creep up on the flock without making a sound, and enjoy our proximity to this magnificent and awe-inspiring bird that we’ve read so much about. And then suddenly, alarmed by the whine of my camera zoom, the Bar-headed Geese rise in a gigantic cloud, their honking loud and insistent like a particularly enthusiastic chant.
Remains of the day
We return to Magadi for a last glimpse of the Bar-headed Geese before they depart at sundown. The long rays of approaching sunset gild the lake. The birds suddenly lift off without warning. It is too early for them to fly back to the fields, but we quickly see what disturbed them—a family of Smooth-coated Otters, about six strong. The posse, all glinting snouts and sinuous backs, makes its way across the surface like a synchronised swimming team. We learn that the otters had moved into the lake a few years ago since commercial fishing was allowed. While they pose little threat to the Bar-headed Geese, their presence irks the fisherfolk.
The geese move to a quieter part of the lake to rest. Some shelter in the reeds, while most are clustered in the water. We seek a vantage to witness the spectacle of their departure. From the top of the watchtower, we take in the expanse of Magadi Kere. A Eurasian Collared-Dove alternates between display flight and breeding song, while a Blue-faced Malkoha lurks in the canopy, unaware of eyes on it. A pair of Red-naped Ibis, which we observed mating in the morning, have vacated their perch on the island for a trio of Asian Openbill storks.
The moment arrives without ceremony. As the light fades, the Bar-headed Geese lift off like trains of lamas heeding a higher calling. The air trembles with their honks, that sacred chanting rhythm that has enthralled us all day. Wings beating hard, they fly metres above our heads. For a full forty minutes or more, the sky is etched with skein after skein of geese, as if a giant ball of yarn is unspooling. As those eiderdown breasts pass me at eye level, I observe their steady heaving. Our winter pilgrimage to Magadi Kere is finally blessed.
I draw a deep breath, and exhale slowly. It’s just another winter day in the lives of these yogis of the sky, these maestros of pranayama.
Foremost, my thanks to my childhood friend Siddhartha Shantagiri for his initiative to make this trip to his ancestral homeland, along with the ineffable charm of his company and terrible jokes. Many thanks to Guru Prasad, Somanna, Basavaraj, and others who made our journey fruitful with information and assistance.
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