Birding from my bedroom

I was looking at the fluttering ribbon outside my bedroom window and thinking about Stray Feathers, a journal started by Allan Octavian Hume, the greatest ornithologist of the 19th century. But it wasn’t a ribbon at all – it was the tail of a white male Asian Paradise-flycatcher! I had never seen one from such close quarters and the bird looked absolutely stunning. The rufous male also visits often and has an equally long tail.

When we first came to Auroville, we didn’t expect to do much birding. What could you find in a new plantation forest other than some babblers and mynas? There was also a bit of birding snobbery, we had just spent some years in the forests around Jim Corbett National Park and seen such exotic species as the Blue-winged Minla and the Chestnut-headed Tesia. What could Auroville offer that we hadn’t seen before? Turns out we were wrong by a long shot.

The view from the window starts just before the crack of dawn, when three Spotted Owlets come to drink water from the bird bath. With their large eyes, they can see us much more clearly than we can see them. They don’t seem to mind being watched. Later in the day, the bird bath is the favourite of the White-rumped Munia, the Rufous Treepie, and the Oriental Magpie Robin.

Below in the undergrowth, the Orange-headed Thrush is fearless and comes within inches of our window. And once in a while, the White-breasted Waterhen will come visiting.

On the other side of the house, near the lily pond, the White-throated Kingfisher is a daily visitor, getting its lunch from the pond. This is also where you are likely to see the Blue-faced Malkoha, one of the most beautiful of the larger birds in our neck of the woods.

And then there’s the Purple-rumped Sunbird, the White-browed Bulbul and the Coppersmith Barbet. With winter approaching, the Indian Pitta should be back soon. The number of species we keep finding in our little garden in Auroville is difficult to explain. We like to think that the birds like us and come to visit.

But not all bird encounters at home are pleasant. The Common Hawk Cuckoo sometimes keeps me up at night with its shrill and manic call. I was sitting with Rauf (whose grand-uncle Salim Ali took over Stray Feathers and professionalised it) on his terrace a couple of years ago and somehow the conversation moved to annoying birds. I asked him what I could do about the crazy cuckoo. “I throw chappals at them,” was his response. When I said that the bird was really high up in the tree, he gave his trademark lopsided grin and said, “I’ve lost a lot of chappals.”