Given how ridiculously common the Rufous Treepie is supposed to be across Peninsular India, it’s frankly embarrassing that this bird has me acting like a hopeless groupie. Perhaps it’s because Bangalore has been thoroughly colonized by the villainous Rock Pigeons (those sky rats) and their slightly less offensive cousins, the Spotted Doves (I’m team spotted dove, depending on the day that you catch me), that any flash of something with actual personality sends me into a mild meltdown.
In all of 2025, I managed to spot a Rufous Treepie exactly once. I’d shown up early for a meeting with the school admin on a scorching summer day, and there it was, casually cruising into a clump of African Tulip trees inside a walled, suspiciously forested compound.
I stood there in the parking lot for a long time, sending desperate psychic pleas to all bird gods for it to show up again in vain.
Despite having done my homework and being able to identify the thing with reasonable confidence, I stubbornly refused to write about it. One measly sighting felt too much like a one-night stand—I needed … commitment.
Fast-forward to last week, when we were in Mangalore. I was standing under a Naga Vana, a thickly wooded refuge fast being encroached upon by real estate developers. Towering over the primitive stone deity was a massive vine-covered tree, and on the tree there were a bunch of birds.
There was a very industrious Black-Rumped Flame Back woodpecker, hopping and drilling for juicy grubs, dropping wood shavings onto my head like some kind of a budget snow globe. There were at least half a dozen noisy Greater Racket Tailed Drongos playing musical chair on the tree canopy. There was one adventurous Golden Oriole, wearing the bird equivalent of a neon Hawaiian shirt, that had this uncanny ability to disappear into the foliage when perched even with its ridiculous hue.
And then, finally, the Rufous Treepies showed up. Like they’d been waiting for their dramatic entrance. After being ghosted for so long, I ignored the rest of the A-list and fixated on these rust-colored divas.
By now, Mira had joined me, and together we stood there watching the birds, necks craned upwards.
Treepies, apparently, are a type of Corvid, much like the magpies. Who knew that Corvids are such a cosmopolitan crew! I genuinely thought “corvid” was basically fancy Latin for “crow,” and crows were the whole franchise.
Personally, I find the Rufous Treepie unfairly good-looking. It’s got a sooty black head, a comically serious, thick triangular beak that screams “I have opinions,” and a body in this perfect burnished cinnamon-orange—a shade lighter than the Greater Coucal’s “I just rolled out of bed” vibe. The wings flash black with crisp white borders, and that pattern carries on into the long, stiff tail like it’s wearing a perfectly tailored tuxedo tailcoat. All in all, the bird looks like it dresses for dinner every day.
They are opportunistic feeders and adapt readily to urban sprawl. I try not to analyse why they aren’t sighted where I stay. Like in a working marriage, some behaviours are best left unstudied.
Watching the birds in the grove, with animistic deities around me, I lost track of time till the Muezzin’s call from a nearby mosque reminded me that humans will never allow the birds’ song to be the loudest voice of nature.
All for the better, I consoled myself later, when I was told that an enormous python lived under the tree, right where I was standing.
The Reluctant Book Worm 
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