On a wintry morning, the clever kotwal paid a visit, overlooking the large expanse of reed bed. In another corner, the butcher waited for the next in line in the death row. Minutes later, the model showed up, preening for the cameras. Over dilemmas and cutlets, avid birders watched the drama unfold on their binoculars at Yamuna river front as the bird kingdom, with its flock of resident and migratory birds, put up a show. The kotwal is the black drongo, and it perches at a height; the butcher is the long-tailed shrike known for impaling insects on a thorny bush before devouring their heads; and the model is the pied bushchat and likes to pose for the camera. At the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, armed with cameras, a list of species to look out for, and clad in boots and jackets, various teams of birders went across Delhi-NCR for bird counting. After all, it’s that time of the year when winged visitors fly across thousands of kilometres and make the capital their temporary abode, to co-exist with resident birds. “Across Delhi-NCR, 253 species of birds — both migratory and resident — were spotted by birders on Saturday. Around 150 were migratory, 100 were resident. The numbers are pretty much the same as last year and that’s a good thing — it means the habitat is still intact. Some vagrants, such as the spotted crake, were also seen this time. We didn’t see one last year,” said birder K B Singh. Apart from Yamuna river front, which includes the Yamuna Biodiversity Park, Jagatpur, Hiranki and Sungerpur, teams of birders went to Okhla Bird Sanctuary, Sultanpur, Asola Bhatti, Sanjay Van, Delhi Cantt, and as far as Sonipat and Jhajjar too. The team that visited the Yamuna Biodiversity Park, Yamuna Khadar and Wazirabad was led by birders Akash Gulalia and Ramgopal M. “We spotted 138 birds between 6 am and 6 pm — some residents, others from Eurasia and Mongolia, while a few were passage migrants, which have flown from other parts of India,” said Gulalia. Crossing the reedbed near the stream, birders debated over the size of tails, and the colours of the legs — if the shy bird near the water hyacinth was the rare brown crake (migratory) or the common moorhen (resident). When the bird moved a little, the mystery was solved — it was the common moorhen, after all. “There goes a Eurasian sparrowhawk — it’s good sighting because one rarely sees it even though it’s found in this area,” said Gulalia. On the waters is the ruddy shelduck with its sharp tail, which has travelled from Mongolia, and across the sky in a V-formation fly the bar-headed geese. Apart from gulls, pond herons and black kites, there are also those with strange flights — the vigorous flapping of the Oriental Skylark and the constant dipping and bobbing of the wagtails add to the drama.
