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NEW BIRDS IN TOWN


 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

30/VI/2025

 

A visit to the rooftop garden is compulsory in the evening. Reason is to feed the fish and top up water of the tubs which house out waterlilies. Though the summer heat has subsided due to the monsoon knocking at our doors, still they need topping up.

 

Carrying my camera is also a habit. One never knows a new visitor can surprise you. The best way is to face east and scan the horizon and watch the ‘jamboree’ of birds flying around.

 

After 6 pm the bird activity is like after the closing of a corporate office. Everyone is rushing home. The only difference is that they are flying themselves instead of taking a bus or a train or even driving their own cars or two wheelers like humans.

 

The parrots are always in a glad mode. They keep screeching and screaming as they fly by. Probably discussing with each other how their day went by. They dip, dive, and then get back to the altitude they were maintaining and continue at high speed. To catch them in a frame is not easy. They come from any direction but their calls are a give away.

 

Then come the Green Pigeons. They are fast and swift. Their course is set and they rush in the direction set by their mental compass. It is the fastest dash. Probably to avoid the evening rush hour. These pigeons are generally single or max in a pair. That must be for security reasons.

 

The Bulbuls and Sparrows are never in a mood to go home, till it is close to getting dark. They chirp and tweet, fly in a haphazard mode. They hop on to branches, change trees, come for their last drink to one of the tubs, sit there and chat till they finally decide that it is time to call it a day. Maybe, they are not worried about the distance to be covered like other birds. I sometimes feel like telling them to go home.

 

Robins go home quite early. Before the sun starts to turn crimson, they are home. Do they have a nest or a branch to return to? Is a matter of finding out. Do they have a favourite tree? I am not sure. But they come back very early in the morning, as the sparrows start creating a ruckus before leaving their night shelters in trees to look for grains and insects for breakfast.

 

The Wire Tailed Swallows keep dodging each other very playfully. Probably, it is the last “pakran pakrai” game for the evening. They zig zag, turn sharply, shoot towards the sky, not very high, then dive down and finally disappear right infront of your eyes. How and where do they spend the night, when it is not nesting season, will get revealed one day?

 

The most leisurely flight home is of the ‘water birds’. The Pond Heron, Cormorants and sometimes one has spotted a few Ducks on their way home. They ‘quack’ to communicate with each other. Generally, they head west. Which tree, which area is not known? There being a lot of water bodies around, I am sure they would be resting on the trees on the sides of the ponds and lakes.

 

The surprise this evening was a flock of eight or ten ‘Ibis’. The camera was ready, but as  they approach the house, they look like dots. Reason being they are just a little higher than our roofs. By the time they are close and you realise that they are new birds in town, they are already overhead. And by the time you click, they are already flying towards the setting sun. The window is too small.

 

I caught a few in my lens. Their majestic flight was too good to miss. Today, it was a total surprise as the timing when I am watering the plants is generally the same. Maybe, I missed them earlier.  

 

Will I be able to meet the new birds in town tomorrow? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

©® NOEL ELLIS






Comments

  1. Sharad Shukla30 June 2025 at 22:09

    Beautifully captured. I am sure now that they know your abode, they will be there tomorrow

    ReplyDelete

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