Lockdown birding at apartment terrace

04 May 2021

The apartment terrace is the only place of rejuvenation for us now. I have taken off today to relax from work. Despite the pandemic mounting on the city, the work load never seems to reduce. Few organisations have provided wellness off and few reduced work load. Not everyone is lucky. There is nothing to refresh during leave day. Apart from staring at the work laptop, I play with kids and do some home schooling. Flushing my older post has gained momentum now too! Overall the day somehow passes rapidly but not quiet as village life.

The only refreshing area is our apartment terrace. Today it rained for a while but humidity was still on the high. The birds seemed to have confused too. Earlier the only birds we spotted was rock pigeon, black kite and mynas. Today we had some more to watch. The evening light was poor but at this point of time, even average image is precious for me.

These group of white browed wagtails seen perched on the satellite TV antenna. They were rapidly wagging and melodiously calling someone.

A group of wagtails were seen chattering and figuring out the root-cause for human absence. They seemed like contemplating the muted human activity

The Asian koel was singing after rains. The Koel sound now reverberates throughout the area thanks to subdued vehicle movement. Even the Koel is surprised to hear its lone voice throughout the day. I captured couple of images along with a video of singing. 

The mynas and rock-pigeons are not surprise here. There are plenty of them. There are other plumage pigeons as well which probably is cross-breed.

The ever screeching mynas are not surprise visitor to apartment terrace. They are ubiquitous nowadays and has black mark of one of the most invasive species.

And jungle mynas turned to urban mynas now :-)

The large-billed crow which were known as jungle crow in past, are well adjusted to city lifestyle. Their prolonged croaking also feels soothing nowadays.

The black kite perched on its usual seat of overhead tank pipeline with wait & watch demeanour. I could not grab any picture due to distant perch. Perhaps the most affected due to absence of human movement. These pictures were captured on different day.

This bird patrols the sky in evening time and disperses the inferior birds with its might reminding them about its dominance.

The lady sunbird also visited for a while. This bird is daily visitor which arrives early in morning. The poor light does not allow to catch a good picture of it.

I have seen red-whiskered bulbul too visiting our area daily surprised to see subdued human movement. Looks like birds are happy that they can freely move around without anxiety. One fine day I took pictures of the bird when it visited backyard

Here is female Asian Koel captured during another day of terrace birding

Couple immature Shikras were intensely calling someone. Perhaps their mother or is it that mother has abandoned them to lead self-sustained life?

On few occasions, rose ringed parakeets pause for break at nearby tree calling their partners. Here are couple of pictures

Finally the view of lake from our terrace. I miss them desperately. But the painful thing is the plastic waste strewed inside the lake. The ibis and egrets are foraging near the plastic trash which is disheartening. We are unwisely spoiling the environment with plastic trash and the wild is crying with helplessness.

Nature does not need humans. Humans need nature. Lets be humble and reduce our greed. Hope the situation improves soon and normalcy is restored.

Here is a clip of Asian Koel song and confused White-browed wagtail to refresh the day

Check out my Bird Series blogs here : NKBirdSeries