Neighborhood Avian Roll Call: Part 1

“Adhalle Adhinde Oru Sheri”

Roughly translated, it means “Isn’t that the right of it?”

A simple, elegant, if slightly cryptic Malayalam phrase that gently reminds us: no matter the situation, there is an inherent rightness—a quiet spirit of goodness—in doing the better thing. It goes beyond legal obligation or strict equality. It’s a soft acknowledgment of fairness, grace, and quiet decency.

For instance, no one has to give up their space for a schoolkid struggling to board a crowded bus. But when an adult makes space so the child can scramble aboard more easily, something feels fundamentally right. After all, isn’t that the better way?

You get the idea.

I find myself returning to this axiom often. In those cases where I can’t be bothered to explain the rightness of an action, the unfairness of a decision, or why basic legality isn’t enough decency, I resort to uttering this phrase (to myself or whoever is with me) and hoping the essence of fairness diffuses into the world.

Take my recent desire to buy a good (read: relatively expensive) pair of binoculars. Isn’t it only right that I first study the local birds properly before investing in finer optics?

Adhalle adhinde oru sheri?

So here’s a partial roll call of the rowdy regulars in my neighborhood—the ones I can now identify with reasonable confidence.

Bulbuls: Red-vented and Red-whiskered. Noisy, bold, and abundant. These were my gateway birds into birdwatching—cheeky little characters that hop and pop around with an irrepressible cowlick, looking like they’ve just stepped out of a Tintin comic.

White-cheeked Barbet: My go-to “flex” bird for beginners. Unmistakable call and shabbily magnificent in emerald green with splashes of other jewel tones. Beautiful proportions and a salmon-pink beak that lights up through binoculars.

Black Drongo: My favorite—almost unfairly easy to identify. That deeply forked tail is a flying cheat code. (Its dapper cousin, the Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, takes the elegance even further.)

Indian White-eye: A cute, bouncy little lemon drop of a bird. Perfectly drawable even as a stick figure.

Red-wattled Lapwing
The bird on stilts, sporting bold red commando markings on its face. One of the few I can reliably identify by sound—especially when a lone straggler calls its way home through the night.

Shikra: Small, swift, and strikingly handsome in grey with yellow accents. Supposedly common here, but every sighting still feels like a gift.

Greater Coucal: Our local Count Dracula. A curious mix of jaunty confidence and unhurried grace—equally at home walking, hopping, climbing, or gliding. It builds its own nest and carries itself with surprising integrity for a member of the cuckoo family.

Asian Koel: Famous for its distinctive call. A sneaky brood parasite, but always a delight to spot—especially when it chooses the thickest, leafiest trees, showing excellent taste in real estate.

Pied Bush Chat: The black-and-white, double-scoop version of the Indian White-eye. Round, fluffy, and irresistibly cuddly.

Eurasian Hoopoe: Surprisingly familiar-looking, as if it wandered out of a storybook. Its soft cinnamon plumage and extravagant crest give it an almost Aztec flair—an unnecessarily fabulous bird that never fails to charm.

Rufus Treepie: A favorite of mine. The colors and the beak and the starched, stiff tail are a dead giveaway. Corvid. Solid.

Rose-ringed Parakeet: The quintessential indian ornamental bird. Surprisingly robust and aggressive. Sports a powder-blue shade, along with the usual green and rose pigmentation.

Indian Gray Hornbill: Thick, curved beak. A rhythmic flap-flap-glide gait. Very well adapted to city life.

Small minivet: A brilliantly colored bird. Looks like its underparts are bathed in Fanta.

Purple-rumped Sunbird: Tiny and iridescent. Brilliant hues of metallic green, brown, purple, and crimson.

Loten’s Sunbird: Our vocal local. Has a nest in our bil patre (Aegle marmelos) tree. Scimitar-shaped, extra-long, extra-curved bill. Disturber of peace.

Purple Sunbird: A bird I owe a write-up to. Purple when it wants to. Black when it wants to. But what a purple!

Asian Green Bee-Eater: A dart of a bird. Cute and gregarious with a savage technique of incapacitating its prey. Dwindling presence in our layout. Probably due to the constructions. Can’t blame them.

Magpie Robins: Bum wagger. Big stepper. A monochrome favorite of mine who isn’t shy to hop down to the ground for a juice treat within cheeky distances from humans.

White-Throated Kingfisher: Portends omens. Blue, crimson, white blurred comet. Shinkansen inspirer.

Common Mynah: Big-brained bird hiding its exceptionalism in plain sight in numbers. Must have a great PR team as it has evaded collective bias, positive or negative, despite its ubiquity.

I think there are a few more that I can reasonably add to the list. Part two incoming.