Wintering birds are here - pause and watch

The sun burns off the last of the fog, and I wonder whether the haze was pearlescent winter mist or charring smog. The retreat is like a cover being pulled off from a magician’s show: bright things begin appearing from the grey winter sameness. We begin to see the yellow beak of the Bar-headed goose which has flown over the Himalaya to India.

- NEHA SINHA

Next to it is another visitor, orange-beaked and pink-legged, the Greylag goose. The geese are incredibly noisy and animated. We watch with smiles and silent nods—the wetland on the edge of Delhi is full of international visitors. Busy wading birds puncture the ground with their long, fine beaks. Some of them let out a delightful, piping call. You have to look closely, and the details emerge slowly, like a prism in a kaleidoscope. There are plovers, stints and shanks, and energetic wagtails flitting between them, wagging their tails like puppies. Time has stopped, and memories come rushing back. There is a kind of abundance here that reminds me of childhood innocence: there are so many birds that I might begin believing that life will always be awash with plenty.

On a dry branch above the bushes is a bird that looks like a flame—it has an orange breast and a black head. It holds an upright, good-boy posture that suggests it might say “Ma’am, I have the answer”, any second. This is the Siberian stonechat, in India from Central Asia. And then, there are the people: a group of birdwatchers looking up at a pylon, where a stern, forbidding looking bird perches. With a beak and a long gape line which is yellow, the Steppe eagle looks like its smirking at a private joke, even as its sharp eyes scrape the landscape for prey.

In his delightful book,