If you swallow your frustration and keep at it, you will find birds. And if you push yourself, you find them quicker, and they pose for you and you start enjoying the pastime of birdwatching, writes Deepak Dalal
The first bird I ever looked closely at — the way a birdwatcher does — was a sunbird. All of us have seen pigeons and crows and kites. We also have seen sparrows and mynas and parakeets. But a sunbirdIJ Who knows of a sunbirdIJ Forget about having seen one, most of us have never even heard of a sunbird.
It was a birdwatcher friend of mine who pointed out my first sunbird to me. This was in a garden in Pune, where I live. There was a hibiscus bush in the garden and a tiny bird, the size of my palm, was fliting amongst the large red blooms that speckled the bush. “That’s a sunbird,” said my friend. He handed me a pair of binoculars. “You’ll need these. The bird doesn’t look like much. But look at it through binocs. Then you’ll see.”
I looked, and I stared, and my mouth popped open. The tiny sunbird was truly beautiful. It pulsed with a riot of colours — purple, yellow, maroon, green, and brown. And there was a sparkle and metallic glint to its feathers. Its beak was long and hooked and the bird was hovering. HoveringIJ That was odd because as far as I knew only humming birds could hover. It was a learning experience for me that other birds — like our Indian sunbirds — could hover too. That day I stared at the sunbird. I watched it flit from flower to flower, flashing its gaudy colours. I marvelled as it skillfully hovered and sank its long, curved beak into hibiscus flowers, greedily feeding on the nectar inside. From that day I was hooked on to birdwatching.
A few days later, I bought myself a pair of binoculars (essential if you want to watch birds), I bought all the bird books available and I started prowling the gardens and riverbanks of Pune, looking for birds.
Birdwatching can be a bit tiresome to start with. First you have to learn to use binoculars. Then you have to get the hang of how to spot birds. Birds are exasperating creatures. It takes a while to find them in a tree. Then, by the time you raise your binocs and focus where the bird is sitting, the bird is gone and you find yourself staring at leaves and empty branches. But if you swallow your frustration and keep at it, you will find birds, and if you push yourself, you find them quicker and quicker and they pose for you and you start enjoying the pastime of birdwatching.
Birdwatching isn’t only for nerds or the studious sorts. It is for anyone with a heart and an eye for beauty. The best thing about birdwatching is that it draws you closer to nature. When you sit quietly, staring at a tree, waiting for a bird to appear, your senses tune in on Mother Nature. You feel her presence, you sample her heady odours, and you start to understand her rhythms. You will notice when a tree, like a silk cotton tree, breaks into flowers. You will marvel at the birds — hundreds of them — that are drawn to a tree when it flowers. You will notice the increase of birds in your city when winter sets in and you will experience a pang of regret when the birds depart as the heat of summer bakes the land.
Birdwatching begins at home. Although it is great to travel to exotic bird destinations, it’s not necessary to do so. All you have to do is tune your senses to nature, which means that you must look with eyes that actually see and listen with ears that perceive sounds around us. And when you actually look, you will find that the trees and gardens of your city are home to many birds. Several birds that play a role in my stories — the sunbirds, bulbuls, bee-eaters, drongos, koels, and owls — are all found in cities. You only have to look and you will find these beautiful birds.
If you want to travel to birding locations, then one of the best places for birdwatching is Keleodeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan. It is a large park, filled with trees and grasses andjheels (ponds that water birds visit). In winter, hundreds of thousands of migrating birds descend on the park and because no one attacks or bothers them, the birds turn bold and allow you to come close.
In the cold season you can find hundreds of species in the park. My favourite birds are the greylag and bar-headed geese. The bar-headed geese impress me because they are the strongest fliers in the bird kingdom and have been spotted flying over the Himalayas at 25,000 feet above sea level. You also find cranes, storks, all kinds of ducks, kingfishers, orioles, spoonbills, harriers, eagles, owls and many, many other birds. And the best part is that the guides who work in the park are extremely helpful and knowledgeable. They love birds and take great pride in showing and identifying all the birds in the park for you.
The writer is the author of Talon the Falcon (Rs199) and Flamingo in my Garden (Rs250), published by Penguin Random House