Living in lockdown: It’s time to document birds from your balcony

Mornings during the lockdown are busy for architect Neeraj Chawla. Every day, for two to three hours, Chawla photo-documents the birds he can see from his fifth-floor

Mornings during the lockdown are busy for architect Neeraj Chawla. Every day, for two to three hours, Chawla photo-documents the birds he can see from his fifth-floor apartment in Rail Mitra Cooperative Housing Society, Charkop. In the first three weeks, he’s spotted 18 different species. Chawla is among those in the city who have discovered an interest in birdwatching while staying at home.

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“The activity not only keeps me occupied, but also helps to document the behaviour of avian species. Most birds are nesting since it’s breeding season,” said Chawla.

Apart from common birds like house crows, rock pigeons and house sparrows, Chawla has seen black-crowned night herons making nests and spotted the Asian koel as it waited to drop her eggs in crows’ nests. Coppersmith barbet. golden oriole, rose-ringed parakeets and fan-tails are regular visitors. As summer approaches and flower nectar is available, the purple sunbird, common tailorbird, red-ventured bulbul, and white-throated hingfisher have made an appearance.

For Chetan Divekar, who works for a travel company, birdwatching is an activity that he can do with his children. Recently, he participated in a balcony-based birding workshop that had almost 180 participants from all over the world, and was conducted via a mobile app.

“Now is the right time to introduce your children to these things, because otherwise they have school. Now that they are locked in, they can spare time to look around and understand the beauty of nature,” Divekar said.