Look at animal movement with more generosity

A WALK IN THE WOODS

- Neha Sinha

On a daily lunch walk in Delhi in January, I see a little bird, winking like a light. It has a grey head, but most of its body is a bright lemon-yellow. It sits on top of an iron fence on a wall, and then it flies towards the left, or the right, chasing an insect only it can see. Triumphant and swallowing its catch, it comes back to its perch, having flown in a circle, the fence a point on the circle's circumference. It repeats this grasping flight several times, resembling a dance step rather than a lethal hunt. This movement is called sallying. The Grey-headed canary flycatcher is a juggler, executing three things at once—dashing and diving, hunting its prey, avoiding collision with things. And sallying isn't the only reason why this graceful tornado astonishes me; it's also because the bird is migratory, having come to the city from the Himalayas in winter.

As I watch the flycatcher, I also hear squeaks from the trees, high and insect-like. The narrow leaves of a jamun tree move, and I am able to see a round, greenish-brown body hurtling through the leaves, jumping from branch to branch with a feeling of urgency. Small birds have a speed that seems to say they don't have much time; they must barrel through a world bristling with threats. The bird is a Hume's warbler, migrating from Central Asia ranges even beyond the Himalayas.