Life At Mitthi

Greater Coucal Deep resonant calls , ‘coop, coop, coop’ often heard in the warm morning hours in our garden. The call is loud with good bass, enough to make one feel it emanating from some musical instrument. And just as a peacock scream is repeated by its fellow mates at different locations within the vicinity, similarly this sound is also carried forward to distant birds until the sound fades away. Acting on a childish instinct, I had tried imitating the call and it responded. This continued for a while till I saw the gardener from the neighboring  house prying to see the new kid in the area. This shy bird remained hidden from my view for many days before I spotted it hopping cautiously from the branches of a mango tree to Shirish. A fairly large bird with black head, purple black upper mantle and undersides, dark copper brown wings , ruby red eyes, short thick black beak and long black feathery tail. It is a very common bird in the Indian subcontinent and is an inhabitant of almos