The Baza is our ultimate superhero!

Where we convince you about the coolness of Aviceda leuphotes…

We are kind of sad that if you google “Black Baza” sitting in India, we pop up ahead of this most magnificent bird. We’re trying to change this!

When we were thinking of creatures (humans including) who surprised us in the most unusual way, the Black Baza immediately popped into our minds. The Baza is our ultimate superhero — small but totally unmissable! This distinctive bird is a small bird of prey that has held the imagination of birders across South and Southeast Asia right from when it was first spotted near Southeastern China. The oldest record we could dig up is from 1948! Although this little bird has sparked quite a lot of controversy about the validity of its different subspecies. One of biggest Black Baza spectacles is the gathering of migratory Bazas in Chumphon, Thailand that occurs from August to November each year (birding trip soon?). In fact, there have been stray sightings around cities like Bangalore (an E-birder spotted one near Valley School in October 2018!) and Chennai too. Birders on E-Bird saw the Baza in India as recently as 10th August in forests surrounding Darjeeling.

Call to action? Yes, get outdoors and look for Black Bazas!

Surprisingly, not too much is known about the behaviour of Black Bazas. We do know that they are found in pretty dense evergreen forests and being a bird of prey, they perch high up in tree canopies and perform sorties to catch flying insects or swoop (technically called sally-gleaning) down into the foliage to catch lizards, frogs and other insects (don’t you-tube sally-glean, trust us on this!). In 2007, Hari Sridhar, a scientist based in India observed Black Bazas performing a most unusual behaviour. Hari was studying ‘mixed hunting flocks’ which is a group of birds from different species (usually insect eaters) who forage, hunt and move together through a forest. This is an interesting phenomenon in itself but it is particularly interesting to find a raptor or bird of prey participate in such an activity…and Hari noticed Black Bazas to participate on two such occasions in the forests of Valparai. At the time, his was the only record of raptors participating in a mixed hunting flock! Why, you ask? Why would birds of different species, including a raptor hang out with each other?

It was a clear and sunny morning — 09:40 am to be exact. Hari Sridhar encountered a mixed species flock of 22 species and over 65 individuals. At 10:10 am, Hari observed an adult Black Baza fly in perch on a tree canopy amidst the hunting flock. Almost immediately, a racket-tailed drone let out a loud alarm call — there was a predator in their midst! The hunting flock remained alert for a few minutes but resumed foraging and didn’t seem to be disturbed by the Black Baza. The Baza flew in and out of the canopy and was eventually successful in catching what looked like a cricket or grasshopper. Hari says, “This is probably the first report of a raptor participating in mixed-species bird flocks. This is all the more interesting because, one of the main hypotheses put forward to explain why birds participate in such flocks is for better protection from predators such as raptors. Usually when a raptor flies into or close to a flock, a lot of alarm calling followed by mobbing of the raptor by flock participants takes place. Birds such as drongos and babblers fly and perch right next to the raptor and continuously alarm call, probably letting the raptor know that it has been spotted. In the case of the Black Baza however, this kind of a response was seen only for a few seconds on one occasion by just one species. Therefore, it seemed like members of the flock didn’t mind the presence of the Black Baza close to them”.

What? Why? How?

So why didn’t the other birds in the mixed hunting flock mind the presence of the Black Baza? Hari Sridhar proposes that the Black Baza doesn’t pose a threat to the other participants of the flock because its main prey are lizards, frogs and insects. Interestingly, by hanging out with the flock, the Black Baza probably caught a tonne of insects that were disturbed by the other participating birds. Hari went on to make many hundreds of observations of birds participating in mixed hunting-foraging flocks from across India and found that these cooperative-type behaviour not only improved feeding efficiency of each of the birds but also helped in protection from predators — more vigilant eyes! So cool!

Source: Sridhar, H. 2007. Participation by Black Baza Aviceda leuphotes in mixed-species bird flocks in rainforests of the Anamalai hills, Western Ghats, India. Indian Birds 3 (1): 26–28.