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Updated: May 7, 2025
The chakars, like the skylark, love to soar upwards when singing, and at such times when they have risen till their dark bulky bodies appear like floating specks on the blue sky, or until they disappear from sight altogether, the notes become wonderfully etherealized by distance to a soft silvery sound, and it is then very delightful to listen to them.
At certain times, in districts favourable to them, the chakars often assemble in immense flocks, thousands of individuals being sometimes seen congregated together, and in these gatherings the birds frequently all sing in concert.
Whenever a flock appeared the tame bird would go out to join them; and though the chakars are mild-tempered birds and very rarely quarrel, albeit so well provided with formidable weapons, they invariably attacked the visitor with great fury, chasing him back to the house, and not ceasing their persecutions till the poultry-yard was reached.
This was on the southern pampas, at a place called Gualicho, where I had ridden for an hour before sunset over a marshy plain where there was still much standing water in the rushy pools, though it was at the height of the dry season. This whole plain was covered with an endless flock of chakars, not in close order, but scattered about in pairs and small groups.
Travelling alone one summer day, I carne at noon to a lake on the pampas called Kakel a sheet of water narrow enough for one to see across. Chakars in countless numbers were gathered along its shores, but they were all ranged in well-defined flocks, averaging about five hundred birds in each flock.
I was once travelling with a party of gauchos when, about midnight, it being intensely dark, a couple of chakars broke out singing right ahead of us, thus letting us know that we were approaching a watercourse, where we intended refreshing our horses.
We found it nearly dry, and when we rode down to the rill of water meandering over the broad dry bed of the river, a flock of about a thousand chakars set up a perfect roar of alarm notes, all screaming together, with intervals of silence after; then they rose up with a mighty rush of wings.
The heavenward flight of a large bird is always a magnificent spectacle; that of the chakar is peculiarly fascinating on account of the resounding notes it sings while soaring, and in which the bird seems to exult in its sublime power and freedom. I was once very much surprised at the behaviour of a couple of chakars during a thunderstorm.
On another occasion the same writer saw a whole plain covered with an endless flock of chakars, not in close order, but scattered in pairs and small groups. About nine o'clock in the evening, "suddenly the entire multitude of birds covering the marsh for miles around burst forth in a tremendous evening song.... It was a concert well worth riding a hundred miles to hear."
The man had a swarthy, beardless face, and it was conjectured that the chakar associated him in its mind with the savages who had destroyed its early home. Close to the house there was a lagoon, never dry, which was frequently visited by flocks of wild chakars.
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