In July India becomes a theatre in which Nature stages a mighty transformation scene. The prospect changes with kaleidoscopic rapidity. The green water-logged earth is for a time overhung by dull leaden clouds…the rain pours down in torrents, enveloping everything in mist and moisture. Suddenly the sun blazes forth with indescribable brilliance and shines through an atmosphere, clear as crystal, from which every particle of dust has been washed away.

…the winged termites appear after the first fall of the monsoon rain. These succulent creatures provide a feast for the birds  The ever-vigilant crows are of course the first to notice a swarm of termites… The kites are not far behind them. These great birds sail on the outskirts of the flight, seizing individuals with their claws and transferring them to the beak while on the wing. A few king-crows* and bee-eaters join them. On the ground below magpie-robins, babblers…and other terrestrial creatures make merry. If the swarm comes out at dusk…bats and spotted owlets join those of the gourmands that are feasting while on the wing.

The earth is now green and sweet…the pied crested cuckoo uplifts his voice at short intervals.

In July the black-breasted or rain-quail (Coturnix coromandelica) is plentiful in India. Much remains to be discovered regarding the movements of this species. It appears to migrate to Bengal, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Sind shortly before the monsoon bursts, but it is said to arrive in Nepal as early as April. It would seem to winter in South India. It is a smaller bird than the ordinary grey quail and has no pale cross-bars on the primary wing feathers.

July marks the end of one breeding season and the beginning of another…In the present month the last of the summer nesting birds close operations for the year, and the monsoon birds begin to lay their eggs. July is therefore a favourable month for bird-nesting. The paradise flycatchers leave Northern India and migrate southwards a few weeks after the young birds have left the nest.

The nesting season is now at its height for…the various babblers and their deceivers—the brain-fever birds and the pied crested cuckoos. In order to satisfy it the unfortunate foster-parents have to work like slaves, and often must they wonder why nature has given them so voracious a child. When it sees a babbler approaching with food, the cuckoo cries out and flaps its wings vigorously. Sometimes these completely envelop the parent bird while it is thrusting food into the yellow mouth of the cuckoo.

Numbers of young bee-eaters are to be seen hawking at insects; they are distinguishable from adults by the dullness of the plumage and the fact that the median tail feathers are not prolonged as bristles.

Of the scenes characteristic of the rains in India none is more pleasing than that presented by a colony of nest-building bayas or weaver-birds… Every bird-lover should make a point of watching a company of weaver-birds while these are constructing their nests.

In…June…practically the whole month is composed of hot, dry, dusty, oppressive days; for the monsoon rarely reaches Northern India before the last week of the month.

The first rain causes the temperature to fall immediately. It is no uncommon thing for the mercury in the thermometer to sink 20 degrees [Farenheit] in a few minutes.

No sound is more pleasing to the human ear than the drumming of the first monsoon rain. During the monsoon the silence of the night is broken only by the sound of falling raindrops, or the croaking of the frogs, the stridulation of crickets innumerable, and the owlet’s feeble call. Before the coming of the monsoon the diurnal chorus of the day birds begins to flag because the nesting season for many species is drawing to a close.

With the first fall of rain the tunes of the paradise flycatchers and the king-crows# change. The former now cry “Witty-ready wit,” softly and gently, while the calls of the latter suddenly become sweet and mellow.

The monsoon transfigures the earth. The brown, dry, hard countryside, with its dust-covered trees, becomes for the time being a shallow lake in which are studded emerald islets innumerable. Stimulated by the rain many trees put forth fresh crops of leaves.

There is much to interest the ornithologist in June.

In June a very striking bird makes its appearance in Northern India. This is the pied crested cuckoo (Coccystes jacobinus)*. Its under parts are white, as is a bar in the wing. The remainder of the plumage is glossy black. The head is adorned by an elegant crest. The pied cuckoo has a peculiar metallic call, which is as easy to recognise as it is difficult to describe. The bird victimises, not crows, but babblers; nevertheless the corvi seem to dislike it as intensely as they dislike koels.

It is true that the gold-mohur trees and the Indian laburnums are in full flower and the air is heavily laden with the strong scent of the nim blossoms. The pipal trees…now offer to the birds a feast in the form of numbers of figs… This generous offer is greedily accepted by green pigeons, mynas and many other birds which partake with right goodwill and make much noise between the courses.

The birds do not object to the heat. They revel in it…The breeding season is now at its height… the man who remains in one station, if he choose to put forth a little energy and defy the sun, may reasonably expect to find the nests of more than fifty kinds of birds.

The most notable performers are the cuckoos. These birds are fully as nocturnal as the owls. The brain-fever bird* (Hierococcyx varius) is now in full voice,the eternal “brain-fever, brain-fever, BRAIN-FEVER,” each “brain-fever” being louder and pitched in a higher key than the previous one, until the bird reaches its top note…  the Indian cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus)…dwells chiefly in the Himalayas, but late in April or early in May certain individuals seek the hot plains and remain there for some months. The call of this cuckoo is melodious and easily recognised. Indians represent it as Bouto-taku…To the writer’s mind the cry is best represented by the words wherefore, wherefore, repeated with musical cadence.

In the case of the blue-tailed bee-eaters the nesting season is now at its height… The Indian oriole# (Oriolus kundoo) lays from two to four white eggs… Both sexes take part in nest construction, but the hen alone appears to incubate.

May and June are the months in which to look for the nests of that superb bird—the paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi). This is known as the rocket-bird or ribbon-bird because of the two long fluttering tail feathers possessed by the cock. The hen has the appearance of a kind of bulbul, being chestnut-hued with a white breast and a metallic blue-black crest. For the first year of their existence the young cocks resemble the hens in appearance. Then the long tail feathers appear. In his third year the cock turns white save for the black-crested head. This species spends the winter in South India. In April it migrates northwards to summer in the shady parts of the plains of Bengal, the United Provinces and the Punjab, and on the lower slopes of the Himalayas. The nest is a deep, untidy-looking cup, having the shape of an inverted cone. It is always completely covered with cocoons and cobweb. It is usually attached to one or more of the lower branches of a tree. Both sexes work at the nest and take part in incubation. The long tail feathers of the sitting cock hang down from the nest like red or white satin streamers according to the phase of his plumage. In the breeding season the cock sings a sweet little lay—an abridged version of that of the fantail flycatcher. When alarmed both the cock and the hen utter a sharp tschit.

Even as April showers in England bring forth May flowers, so does the April sunshine in India draw forth the marriage adornments of the birds that breed in the rains.

The snipe and the quail are likewise flighting towards their breeding grounds. Thus on the 1st of May the avian population of India is less by many millions than it was at the beginning of April. But the birds that remain behind more than compensate us, by their great activity, for the loss of those that have departed. There is more to interest the ornithologist in April than there was in January.

The bird chorus is now at its best.

In the hills the woods resound with the cheerful double note of the European cuckoo# (Cuculus canorus). This bird is occasionally heard in the plains of the Punjab in April, and again from July to September, when it no longer calls in the Himalayas. This fact, coupled with the records of the presence of the European cuckoo in Central India in June and July, lends support to the theory that the birds which enliven the Himalayas in spring go south in July and winter in the Central Provinces.

Ornithologists stationed in Central India will render a service to science if they keep a sharp look-out for European cuckoos and record the results of their observations. In this way alone can the above theory be proved or disproved.

April is a month in which the pulse of bird life beats very vigorously in India.

This exodus is usually preceded by the gathering into flocks of the rose-coloured starlings*… Large noisy congregations of these birds are a striking feature of February in Bombay, of March in the United Provinces, and of April in the Punjab.

Rose-coloured starlings spend most of their lives in the plains of India, going to Asia Minor for a few months each summer for nesting purposes. In the autumn they spread themselves over the greater part of Hindustan, most abundantly in the Deccan.

In the third or fourth week of February the rosy starlings of Bombay begin to form flocks. These make merry among the flowers of the coral tree, which appear first in South India, and last in the Punjab. The noisy flocks journey northwards in a leisurely manner, timing their arrival at each place simultaneously with the flowering of the coral trees. They feed on the nectar provided by these flowers and those of the silk-cotton tree. Thus the rosy starlings reach Allahabad about the second week in March, and Lahore some fifteen days later.

Among the earliest of the birds to forsake the plains of Hindustan are the grey-lag goose and the pintail duck… The destination of the majority of these migrants is Tibet or Siberia, but a few are satisfied with the cool slopes of the Himalayas as a summer resort in which to busy themselves with the sweet cares of nesting… Examples of these more local migrants are the grey-headed and the verditer flycatchers, the Indian bush-chat and, to some extent, the paradise flycatcher and the Indian oriole.

The Indian oriole is not the only species which finds the climate of the United Provinces too severe for it in winter; the koel and the paradise flycatcher likewise desert us in the coldest months…The return of these and the other migrant species to the Punjab in March is as marked a phenomenon as is the arrival of the swallow and the cuckoo in England in spring.

Towards the end of the month the silk-cotton trees begin to put forth their great red flowers…

The fowls of the air are more vivacious than they were in January… The coppersmiths…begin to hammer on their anvils. As in January so in February the joyous “Think of me … Never to be” of the grey-headed flycatcher* (Culicicapa ceylonensis) emanates from every tope…The large grey shrikes add the clamour of their courtship to the avian chorus.

Courtship is the order of the day…

…the white-browed fantail flycatchers begin to nest. The loud and cheerful song of this little feathered exquisite is…one of the most familiar of the sounds that gladden the Indian countryside.

January is the month in which the avian population attains its maximum. Geese, ducks, teal, pelicans, cormorants, snake-birds and ospreys abound in the rivers and jhils; the marshes and swamps are the resort of millions of snipe and other waders; the fields and groves swarm with flycatchers, chats, starlings, warblers, finches, birds of prey and the other migrants which in winter visit the plains from the Himalayas and the country beyond…

From every mango tope emanates a loud “Think of me … Never to be.” This is the call of the grey-headed flycatcher* (Culicicapa ceylonensis), a bird that visits the plains of northern India every winter. In summer it retires to the Himalayas for nesting purposes…

The nuthatches begin to tune up in January. They sing with more cheer than harmony, their love-song being a sharp penetrating tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.