The Untold Poetry of Nesting Birds
The first signs arrive quietly. Long before the monsoon clouds gather over the Indian horizon and before the smell of wet earth rises from the land, I begin to notice a restlessness in the trees. Summer in India is never merely a season of heat and dust. It is also a season of preparation, of pairing, of persistence and love making and matchmaking. From March to June, the countryside, wetlands, village groves and even the neglected corners of crowded cities begin to pulse with a hidden urgency. The trees do not announce it in words, though their branches suddenly flush with fresh leaves and attractiveblossoms. The birds transform their energy into whistles and trills, in chase and call, in twig and thread, they reveal that the season of nesting has begun.
The male Koel of the Cuckoo familyhas beautiful glossy black plumage with red eyes and is mostly heard and rarely seen 
The female Koel unlike the male looks entirely different in its plumage and does not waste energy in making nests 
The White Breasted Kingfisher makes it nest inside a nest-pit make in a wall of mud on the banks of ponds or lakes 
The river Tern catches small fish to feed its chicks as they make a simple nest on small scratch on the ground mostly on islands 
The Hawk-Cuckoo is another clever fellow who does not make nests but lays eggs in another birds nest 
The tall Sarus Cranes bond for life and make massive nests on the ground with plenty of vegetation to raise their progeny
Every morning, as I step outdoors, I feel as though I am walking into a vast open-air nursery stitched together by instinct. As I always have my binoculars and camera handy in my vehicle it becomes easy to document the birds in action. The air itself seems alive with movement as Sparrows dart around carrying dry grass in their beaks. Swallows skim low across ponds collecting mud pellets from the slush. Barbets hammer tirelessly into tree trunks like tiny carpenters. Kingfishers vanish into tunnels dug deep into riverbanks. Somewhere in the distance, the haunting cry of the Koel melts into the heavy summer air like a song dipped in longing.
What fascinates me most is how every bird becomes an architect during this season. From thumb-sized Sunbirds that stitch hanging cradles with spider silk and soft fibres to mighty Eagles and Vultures piling gigantic platforms of sticks atop cliffs and tall forest trees, each species follows its own inherited blueprint. Some weave, some tunnel, some scrape the bare earth, while others borrow abandoned hollows or glue wet mud into delicate cups. Tiny nests sway like fragile pendants from branches, while giant nests grow so large and heavy they can survive for years, repaired and reused season after season. Yet every nest, whether small as a teacup or broad as a cartwheel, obeys the same timeless grammar of survival in the form of shelter, warmth, safety and the silent promise of life waiting to hatch.
I often pause beside a hibiscus hedge near my home where a pair of Red-vented Bulbuls have been busy for days. To an unhurried eye, their movements may seem casual, almost playful. But when I watch closely, every flutter carries intention. One bird disappears into the shrub and returns with a dry rootlet. The other follows with a feather or strand of fibre. Slowly, invisibly, a home begins to appear between the branches and leaves. Nearby, a Common Myna peers possessively into an old cavity in a cracked wall as if inspecting real estate. Above it, a Purple Sunbird flashes in the sunlight like a sliver of blue fire, darting repeatedly to the same hanging creeper where a pouch-like nest swings gently in the breeze.
Spring in India is not dramatic in the way temperate countries describe it, with melting snow and carpets of tulips. Here, the transformation is subtler, hidden in flowering Gulmohar, Mango blossoms and Neem shoots. But for birds, this is the grand season of architecture, courtship and care. The flowering trees become both shelter and supermarket filled with a range of items like nectar, juicy caterpillars and insects, feeding countless hungry parents preparing to raise their young fledglings.
The familiar House Sparrow is among the first to begin its domestic chores. Once so common that people hardly noticed it, the sparrow now feels almost precious to me. I see it squeezing into roof crevices, ventilator holes, forgotten signboards and veranda corners carrying grass, straw, feathers and whatever else modern life provides even bits of paper, plastic thread, even strands stolen from old doormats. There is something deeply moving in this adaptability. The bird has not changed its ancient instinct because it is we who have altered the texture of the world around it. Yet despite concrete, cables and chaos, the sparrow still builds what it has always built, a cradle of hope tucked into a human-made niche.
But nowhere does the drama of the nesting season become more spellbinding than in the mysterious world of the Cuckoos. Every Indian summer carries their loud and long soundtrack. The liquid, echoing call of the Asian Koel drifts through mango groves and city avenues alike, sounding romantic and melancholic all at once. Yet behind that beautiful melody lies one of nature’s most audacious acts of deception.
The Koel does not build nests. It does not incubate eggs or feed its chicks. Instead, it watches. Quietly. Patiently. Hidden among dense leaves, the female Koel studies the routines of crows with astonishing precision. The moment a House Crow leaves its nest unattended, even for seconds, she swoops in. An egg is laid in haste, sometimes another removed, and she vanishes before the rightful owners return. The egg she leaves behind is no accident of nature. It is an evolutionary counterfeit, carefully shaped over millennia to resemble the crow’s own eggs.
I have often watched crows feeding young hungry Koels, completely unaware that they are raising an impostor. The Koel chick grows quickly, begs loudly and monopolises attention, while the foster parents work tirelessly to satisfy a hunger that is not genetically theirs. The deception is astonishing, but it is also strangely elegant and a survival strategy sharpened by time.
If the Koel is a stealthy infiltrator, the Indian Hawk-Cuckoo is a master of psychological warfare. Its shrill “brain-fever” call rises through the summer afternoons like a fever dream. But even more remarkable is its appearance. It resembles a small hawk closely enough to terrify smaller birds. Jungle Babblers panic and scatter at its approach, abandoning nests for crucial moments. That is all the cuckoo needs. In slips an egg, unnoticed and perfectly timed.
Some cuckoo chicks go even further, ejecting the rightful eggs or nestlings from the nest entirely. Ruthless though it seems, this is nature’s cold arithmetic, efficiency perfected through evolution. Across India, many cuckoos play variations of this extraordinary game. The Jacobin Cuckoo arrives with the monsoon winds, while the emerald-green forest cuckoos move like ghosts through dense foliage. Tiny Prinias, Babblers and Bulbuls unknowingly become foster parents in a silent evolutionary chess match played every summer.
And yet, just when I begin to think the Cuckoo clan is built entirely on trickery, nature surprises me again.Deep within thick undergrowth, I sometimes glimpse the copper-winged Greater Coucal, also belongs to the Cuckoo family, moving slowly through the grass like a secretive monk. Unlike its parasitic cousins, the Coucal builds its own nest, a bulky dome hidden in dense vegetation. It incubates its eggs, feeds its chicks and guards its family with quiet dedication. There is no deception here, only patience and care. The elegant Malkohas again part of the Cuckoo familyalsofollow this older path, weaving modest nests and raising their young honestly.
That contrast fascinates me endlessly. Within the same bird family, one branch perfected the art of deception while another preserved the discipline of parenting. Nature, I realise, never believes in a single formula. It experiments constantly. It adapts, diverges and reinvents survival in countless ways. Afterall the fittest survive for the present and for generations.
The birds of the Cuckoo clan such as the Asian Koel and Indian Hawk-Cuckoo, not building nests is a brilliant shortcut shaped by evolution itself. By outsourcing parenting duties to unsuspecting host birds, they save enormous time and energy otherwise spent weaving nests, incubating eggs and feeding demanding chicks. This gives them the freedom to lay more eggs across different nests, spreading risk and boosting survival chances. While crows, Babblers and Prinias toil tirelessly as foster parents, the Cuckoos remain sleek wanderers of the canopy as masters of strategy who turned deception into one of nature’s most astonishing survival tools. As this entire breeding and brooding theatre unfolds not only in remote forests but all around us, in gardens, roadside trees, village ponds, electric poles and forgotten urban corners. The next time you hear the Koel calling from a mango tree or notice a Sparrow vanish into a crack in the wall, you know that you are witnessing more than ordinary bird behaviour. We are all watching one of the oldest stories on Earth unfold again and the timeless, tender and often astonishing grammar of nesting, written every summer across India in feather, instinct and song.
Text and Photographs by
– N.Shiva Kumar
