Three species, all built for a life on floating vegetation rather than open water or bare shore. The two jacanas carry the family's signature trait to an extreme — enormously long toes and claws that spread a bird's weight across lily pads and floating leaves, letting it walk on the surface of a pond as if it were solid ground. Greater Painted-Snipe belongs to a separate family entirely, but shares the same wetland-margin habitat and an equally distinctive trait: sex roles are reversed, with the more brightly marked female leaving incubation and chick-rearing to the male.
3Species in India
3Photographed
Lily pads, floating leavesWhere jacanas walk
Reversed sex rolesPainted-snipe
Long toesThe family trait
The species
Greater Painted-Snipe
Rostratula benghalensis2 frames
Status
Resident, with local movement
Range
Widespread across India in suitable habitat, generally under-recorded
Habitat
Marshy edges, paddy fields and wet grassland with dense cover
IUCN
Least Concern
A boldly patterned wader with a pale spectacle-shaped ring around the eye and a back scalloped in gold and black, more richly marked than most sandpipers or snipes it might be confused with. Sex roles are reversed: the female is the more brightly coloured sex and takes the more active role in courtship, leaving incubation and chick care to the male, an unusual arrangement among Indian birds. It is a skulking, crepuscular bird, more often flushed briefly from cover than watched in the open.
FM0059
Feb 2018Manjeera Wildlife Sanctuary, Sangareddy, TelanganaWalking through wet grass, spectacled eye pattern and scalloped back.
Pheasant-tailed Jacana
Hydrophasianus chirurgus4 frames
Status
Resident, with local movement; numbers often higher in the breeding season
Range
Widespread across India wherever suitable wetlands exist
Habitat
Ponds, tanks and lakes with floating vegetation, especially lily pads
IUCN
Least Concern
The only Indian jacana with a true breeding-plumage transformation — a golden nape, white face and foreneck, and a long dark tail that trails well behind the body, quite unlike the plainer non-breeding bird. The huge feet and toes are the family's defining adaptation, spreading the bird's weight so it can walk across lily pads and floating leaves that wouldn't support most other waterbirds. Males alone incubate and raise the chicks, which can be seen following a parent across the leaves within hours of hatching.
FM0061
Aug 2016Ameenpur Lake, Sangareddy, TelanganaLanding on lily pads, wings raised, breeding plumage.
Bronze-winged Jacana
Metopidius indicus2 frames
Status
Resident, with local movement
Range
Widespread across India wherever suitable wetlands exist, generally scarcer than Pheasant-tailed
Habitat
Ponds, tanks and marshes with floating and emergent vegetation
IUCN
Least Concern
Stockier and darker than Pheasant-tailed Jacana, with a bronze-glossed blackish body, a bold white stripe over the eye, and a pale greenish-yellow bill extending onto a frontal shield. It shows none of the long tail or golden breeding transformation of its relative, and walks the same floating vegetation on the same oversized toes. Like Pheasant-tailed, the male alone incubates and tends the young.
FM0065
Feb 2016Ibrahim Cheruvu, Ranga Reddy, TelanganaA pair in flight low over water, chestnut backs catching the light.
