Musing on a Chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar), Markha valley, Ladakh, India
Chukar and its pining…
Tag: birds
Buzzards and their humble buzz…
It is poignant yet gratifying, watching buzzards subsist… the singleness of purpose, the precision of velocity, a panache to the glutton, epitomes of acuity… musing on a long-legged buzzard, Sambhar Lake, Rajasthan, India
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 …
Plumbeous and its riverine plump
Plumbeous redstarts endear one with their restiveness, nudging and ingesting hapless insects trying to fathom fast flowing waters… a songbird punctuating rivers and streams, it darts around from boulder to boulder tracing parabolas in the air, adding to the din of the river with short, shrill calls and animating the surroundings with a flurry of …
Dipper and its daredevilry…
The dipper tends to send a few shudders down the onlooker’s well-cloaked disposition before one begins to marvel at its foraging, combing the surface of frigid waters emboldened by gravity before diving into their shallow depths for a morsel… seemingly foolhardy but in reality, one of those evolutionary ingenuities… I knew that the brown dipper …
Treecreeper and its tantalizing prance
The treecreeper is a rather comforting bird to look at… ensconced in its arboreal domain, enquiring for food among nooks and crannies, subsisting industriously… twixt humility and hubris, it prefers the former, choosing a benign camouflage over loud contrast… skittering up trees with hastiness akin to a rodent, leading some hapless insects to the end …