The grey bushchat is a winter visitor in the Inter-State Chandigarh Region (ISCR) which means that one should wait for the cold season to spot the bird in its natural habitat of bushes and secondary growth. They are usually found in pairs and small flocks.
Grey bushchats are sexually dimorphic in nature, that is, their characteristics differ in males and females. The male grey bushchat has a long white supercilium (eyebrow region), black face, white throat, greyish back, and rump and scapulars with whitish underparts. The female is brown above with a white supercilium, dark mask, white throat, buff underparts, darker flanks, rufous rump and sides of tail.
As this is a winter visitor, its sighting starts towards the end of October and continues till the culmination of the winter season. It was a fine sunny morning in March 2020 when I captured this 15-cm winter migratory bird in my camera at Sherla ka Taal, a natural water body in the Morni Hills. It was sitting on a twig in the bushes, facing the sun, and looking for food. Other members of the flock were scattered at that time.
The nests of grey bushchats are often parasitised by common cuckoos. Male and female grey bushchats make their nest with grasses, moss and fine roots, lined with fibrous material, pine needles and rootlets. They usually place their nests on the ground, a hold in a bank, or in a wall amid the roots of ferns.
Grey bushchats feed on spiders, grasshoppers, other insects as well as small molluscs. They breed in March and July. The female lays four to six eggs. The incubation is for a period of two weeks, while the nesting period is 13-16 days. Studies indicate that the post-fledging dependence period, during which the parent(s) feed the offspring, is three to four months.
