The parrots are here

They come in groups, at dawn and dusk. They squawk and screech, and raise a racket. Who said parrots are sweet-talking birds?

Babblers come calling

Babblers are busy birds. They come in a group of six or seven. It's like a military operation. They come, keep babbling to each other, upturn the soil for insects, grains, eat and fly away together. This one, of course, was perched on the tree.

Birdcalls at dawn and dusk

Having lived for more than 15 years in urban Delhi and Chennai, it is a different experience to hear birds from the trees around my campus residence at ICRISAT. Raji, my wife, hates the 5 am cuckoo though. After perching on the tree next to our bedroom window, he starts his alarm call early in the morning - with every coo getting louder and shriller.
Here's the villain.



And below is his mate.

In the field

A farm worker walks through an experimental field.

A sorghum head in the same field.

The bovine connection

Agricultural research is incomplete without livestock research. It is awesome to watch the gigantic cattle (being researched by the International Livestock Research Institute) return to their sheds in the evening. Of course, an entourage of egrets follow their every step.

Sunset at ICRISAT

I have watched the sun setting over ICRISAT hundreds of times. The beauty is that no two sunsets are same. Sitting at the edge of the mud bund that stretches into the ICRISAT lake, it is peaceful to watch the sun slide under the horizon, only to rise the next morning and hit me sharp on my face from the east-facing front door. I will keep returning to this theme over and over again on this blog.