Serin is the quintessential passerine, forever restive, much like the human these days… musing on a fire-fronted serin, Markha🏔️, Ladakh 🇮🇳
Serin on a sultry afternoon…
Tag: avifauna
Laughingthrush and etymological eccentricities…
Musing on a Streaked laughingthrush, apple and cherry orchards of Thanedar, Himachal Pradesh 🏔️, India 🏔️
Ruddy shelduck and whimsical waddles…
They are an intriguing lot, these waterbirds that traverse continents with nonchalance… musing on Ruddy Shelduck 🦆, Rajasthan, India 🇮🇳
Redstarts and a family frenzy
Musing on the breeding season frenzies of black redstarts, flycatchers that migrate to high-altitude Himalaya 🏔️, Markha Valley, Ladakh 🇮🇳
Redshank and its ruminative rummage…
Waders have a life of contrast, traversing continents only to ferret in shallow ponds… musing on a common redshank, Sambhar, Rajasthan 🇮🇳
Magpies and modesty
Magpies, like most corvidae, bask in an intellectual prowess not readily endowed upon fauna in general… moving around with a professional grump, undeterred by mirrors, audacious enough to ruminate on reflections rather… putting two and two together if need be, humouring the human for easy morsels… yet all that lives must have some folly, and …
Flycatchers and their fidget…
Flycatchers often seem bound by invisible tethers… zeroing in on a branch and launching rapid sallies from there again and again to pluck food out of the air, all in a theatrical lasting a few minutes at the most… always fidgety, their restive disposition making the onlooker feel the same after a while… they are …
Grey bushchat and a tricky bokeh…
Grey bushchat – like most ‘chats’, ‘tis gregarious and grumpy, not intimidated by human presence, but not too happy about it either… it doesn’t really set the world, or the woods, on fire with its dull grey and white plumage… ‘tis the songs rather, and the nifty movements that set one up into following its trail… …
Blackbird blues…
Blackbird singing in the dead of the night… – every time I sight one of these demure thrushes, more silhouettes than full profiles most of the time, that earthy earworm of a tune by the Beatles automatically starts playing in the head, albeit the bird most definitely doesn’t sing in the dead of the night… …
A heron and drowsy mangroves…
Most nocturnal birds are reticent during the day, winding themselves like a clock to unleash quiet furies once dusk settles in… pretty obvious in a way, for everyone needs to rest, be it in cocooned in the dark or shrouded in bright light… but there is a silent undertone to their existence, these hunters of …