Home birds: A look at the best of the avian world

Jungle Babblers: The incorrigible seven sisters or ‘saat bhai’. Disheveled, glowering, harsh-voiced, these untidy brown-paper birds always remind me of cops, as they enter your garden and ruthlessly upturn fallen leaves and twigs in search of spiders, beetles and other insects you may have not declared in your tax returns. Unlike cops, however, they love cuddling up to one another all in a row, preening at one another and looking annoyed and ecstatic at the same time — a practice I think all cops should emulate during their morning parade (Maybe, they’ll be less inclined to bash heads for the rest of the day). They are family minded, with the sisterhood looking after all the babies. If they bang on your window shrieking, ‘kay-kay-kay!’ it’s all bluff and bluster and they’ll fly off hastily when you tell them you know the PM.

Jungle Babbler (Credit: Ranjit Lal)

The Coppersmith Barbet: This dumpy little fellow, with a face like a clown and dressed in olive green has a lot to answer for: he was the first bird I properly saw through a pair of powerful brand new binoculars, perched on a twig, standing on tiptoe, turning his head from one side to the other and hiccupping, ‘tok-tok-tok!’ I just had to find out what shenanigans the other 1,300 odd species in the country were up to – and am still doing so!

Magpie-Robin: The gentleman is all dressed up in a shiny tuxedo first thing in the morning, so he can wake you up (at 5 am) with a virtuoso performance. Of course he’s only singing for the ladies and to warn other bounders to stay away from his patch! Sometimes, he might sing two or three different compositions from the same area, pretending to be three two or three different maestros, so that any interloper gets the message and keeps away.

Parakeets: Noisy, raucous clowns of the bird world, with disgracefully first-world eating habits (waste more than you consume), they live for long and are sociable and highly intelligent. They are always a delight to watch as they zoom around like screaming green-chilli missiles or even when they are raiding your guava tree in pin-drop silence. A courting pair can teach you a thing or two about wooing: with an upraised claw, the Romeo sidles up to his Juliet as if offering her a bouquet of roses which, alas, he has forgotten to bring along (or eaten up) and she sweetly forgives him. Before you can say ‘oye tota!’, the amorous couple are rapturously French kissing! Many believe that parrots know exactly what they are saying when they ‘talk’ to us (‘you buffoon!’), others think they have no clue.

Shikra Kill (Credit: Ranjit Lal)

Owls: From the sweet dumpy little spotted owlet, who loves nothing more than cuddling up and necking, and the deep-throated eagle owls with their lava-eyes and terrible talons, to the silent-flight but banshee-shrieking barn owl, these make a majestic family of after-dark predators. They have been hideously persecuted for dark mumbo-jumbo rituals in spite of being major killers of rodents, which despoil up to 20 per cent of our food-grain stocks — certainly, so much wiser than we are.

Falcons: Streamlined hunters, par-excellence, watching a peregrine falcon hunt is a treat you will never forget. Topping out at 380 kmph (according to one account) as they dive, they may stoop to conquer but give their victims – other birds – little chance. Not averse to city life, they have taken penthouse apartments in New York City and Mumbai, from which they keep a keen eye on those nefarious blue-rock doves. In level flight, the doves might give them a run for their money, but then there’s really no way to avoid these aerobatic top guns of the avian kingdom.

Kingfishers: Flashy, glamorous fishermen, usually clad in electric blues and rich russets, they have a gleam of wickedness in their eyes and are armed with deadly dagger bills. They are high-speed flyers and will whiz past you like a crackling short circuit! They excavate their homes by flying headfirst into sand or mud-banks!

A shikra having a drink after making a kill (Credit: Ranjit Lal)

Blue Whistling Thrush: I recorded this spangled dark-blue bird in the hills over several early mornings – while lying in bed: it certainly outperforms the magpie-robin in the sweetness and length of its songs, and, frankly, the nightingale would not even come close. But he’s an aggressive fellow and will drive away all other birds from his patch.

Mandarin Duck: The only foreigner among the 10: This kaleidoscopic, highly decorative duck of Chinese and Japanese origin shows that in spite of a totalitarian regime, demarcating every facet of you life, you can still wear outrageous glad rags and get away with it! And no, they are not turned into Peking duck because of this!