The Biped Barometer

The Pied-Crested Cuckoo was spotted in the national capital, and once again this migrant bird made good on its promise of pitter-patter.

Black- capped, white-necked and wearing its signature feathered-tiara, the Pied-Crested Cuckoo, carried along by the monsoon winds and the clouds, annually flies into India from Africa. At the end of May, on a sweltering morning in our national capital, this monsoon mascot glided in, before folding down its wings and disappearing in a keekar tree in Okhla Bird Sanctuary, UP.  It reappeared in a minute, with breakfast in its beak—a hairy worm that it bashed against the branches. Within 48 hours, a light drizzle licked the earth and buildings in the capital, and in four days, the monsoon hit the coast of Kerala. Once again, true to our name for Chatak, this migrant bird in India made good on its promise of pitter-patter.