Nesting birds

It's time to move once again, this time to eastern India. Couldn't help but notice the nesting birds in and around our place in Faridabad, quite like the time was to move from Gurgaon. 

It was a certain heaviness in the otherwise sleek yellow footed green pigeon that caught my attention at first 

Finally, I could locate its nest on the top branches of an oleander bush, well covered by the flowering creeper Madhumalati. Can you see the bird peeking out?

This was probably not a very good location, and I saw it after a few days inside the deodar tree. 

Looked in retrospect, a little perturbed by the attention it was getting from me, now appearing to question my motives, now appearing to fluff up its chest in a show of valor  

Yellow footed green pigeon, Faridabad

Meanwhile, the neem tree (margosa) was in flower like never before, and the ground below was a carpet of  white with fallen flowers 

And so was the krishnachura tree or gulmohar 

The deodar tree harbored another nest, that of the oriental white eye. 

Oriental white eye, Faridabad

The woven nest was quite small, smaller than a teacup! 

Left the bird to its own devices, for we must keep our distance from them during nesting activities.

And so, while these birds carry on with their nesting, it's time to move my nest once again.

In the mood for smooth jazz today, so here is Lily: Lily was here by Candy Dulfer and Dave Stewart

The Shikra at close quarters

I have seen this bird many times, perched on the fencing of the small grove adjoining our house in Faridabad. And always it flew away as soon as it saw me looking at it. Its really quite small, hardly bigger than a pigeon and I am glad we could catch him recently 

Male Shikra, Faridabad

Also known as the Indian sparrowhawk or little banded goshawk. Although widely distributed, such close sightings are rare and it must have been drawn by something in the surroundings 

The female was also nearby, with yellow eyes in place of the ruby red of the male ...

Brown headed barbet

This ridiculous looking bird is keeping the mornings busy with its signature call that goes kuttroo kuttroo kuttroo across the neighborhood although it manages to hide itself so well that one has really, really to persevere in one's efforts to spot it. And as I firmly believe, these arboreal  avians can only be photographed when it allows us to. As you can see, this particular bird seems more curious than shy, rather uncharacteristically! 

Brown headed Barbet in Faridabad, India

All barbets have  bristles above their beaks and that adds to the spectacularity, I must  say. So this one is probably a young adult, and that could also be the reason it wasn't scared at my antics with the camera :))