Forgotten spring is the time for reds
Before the mosquitoes of April descend and fans are cranked up, there is the short, resplendent Indian spring. All over the country, Indian flowers are peeking out of their branches, new seedlings are pushing through the soil, nests are being built in golden, not-yet-hot air.
In Central India, the first palash flowers have started to blossom. In Chennai, the mornings and evenings are salubrious and welcoming. In Delhi, tulips nod their stately heads on central verges and roundabouts.
We celebrate our monsoon, our winters and, to some extent, our summers. Spring lies like a sliver between the seasons, barely there for most of the country. Yet, this is a season worth relishing. Every year, as Valentine’s Day descends and red-themed advertisements make their way into my phone, I think of the real reds, not the commercial ones. There is so much vivid red in nature—and February and spring is a wonderful time to see it.
Huge, red semal flowers—waxy, simple-patterned and much loved by birds and bees—begin to open, and subsequently plop to the ground. When the flowers are done, the tree will have pods with a silky, cotton like fibre in it. There’s the red of birds that become more active around spring. Like the coppersmith barbet, that starts making its tuk-tuk-tuk call at springtime. This lively green-and-white bird will usually call from the tops of trees.
You could almost miss it, if not for the scarlet forehead and throat—this barbet looks like it’s wearing a red cravat. Barbets are the harbingers of summer. As the weather gets balmier, they start calling every morning. I can’t recall a single February without the metronome call of the barbet each morning, the bird’s head pulsing through the trees like a flashing siren, a sight and sound I look forward to each year.
Then there’s the vermilion red of the red munia, also called the strawberry finch. The males develop a brilliant red body during the breeding season, which is late winter and early spring in many parts of India. The bird doesn’t look, unlike a ripe strawberry with freckles.
While birdwatching recently, I observed a clump of grass next to a wetland. In the golden morning light, there was a tremor. I expected to see a warbler from Central Asia. Instead, in the brown vegetation was a red munia, its breeding plumage shining like a beacon. The bird took a strand of grass and flew to a spot I couldn’t spy. Then, it returned, expertly pulling off another strand to fly away with. It was building its nest, and the new, breeding-plumage red could put a greeting card’s colours to shame.
It would be facile to say you don’t need a card if you have nature’s changing colours. Rather, nature’s colours are really the entire shade card, and they only ask us for one currency: our attention. For me, the best greeting card is a morning full of colour, an expected bird call, and an animal building the foundations of a home for its young. In this season, the carmines, vermilions and scarlets are a bonus, but I’ll be watching the entire spectrum.
Neha Sinha
Conservation biologist and author
Twitter: @nehaa_sinha