The bird looked like a sweet ball of wool. Against the winter cold, it had fluffed up its chest feathers, looking more cottony than feathery. A pigeon feeling the cold, I first thought. Only that this ‘pigeon’ had a beak with an edge that glinted sharply, and large talons that opened, then fisted, then opened again, flexing for a dive.
I was looking at a Common kestrel, a bird of prey that graces our skies and high perches. On a short visit to Uttar Pradesh last month, I scanned a residential colony for birds. There were sparrows and munias flitting through hedges in an abandoned lot. Sunbirds inspected flowers. And on the highest portion of a towering community water-tanker, a kestrel watched the proceedings.
This month, I was on the outskirts of Delhi. I was watching a pylon, waiting for something. After a while, through the frosty cold, it emerged. A powerful bird with intriguing black patches and a yellow ring around its eyes that missed nothing, and strong yellow feet. This was the Peregrine falcon, and like the kestrel, it chose the highest part of the tower to perch in.
India has many kinds of birds of prey. Migratory marsh harriers hunt waterfowl in wetlands, Ospreys hunt fish. In our fields, the Black-shouldered kite—with a snowy white body and ruby-red eyes—hovers in a single place like a chopper, flapping its wings at a bewildering rate before it strikes its prey below. Birds of prey are at the top of their food chains, and they accumulate toxins rapidly from the prey they eat. The State of India’s Birds report finds that birds of prey (also known as raptors) are declining in India—overall abundance has come down for many of them. This is consistent with a global decline in raptors. Eagles get electrocuted, vultures are threatened by the illegal use of a range of painkillers like diclofenac. Other birds of prey are affected by poisoning or toxin accumulation.
That day after spotting the Peregrine, I continued scanning the skies for more raptors. Shortly after, a black and white bird appeared, holding up a fish in its talons. This was the Osprey.
Our waterbodies are full of terrible things—phosphates, sewage and other effluents. It is hard to imagine how contaminated a fish found in a metropolitan city would be.
Raptors remind us that it is not enough to see a bird or a fish. We also need to ensure poisons get treated, not just discharged. That the things we create travel very far, ending up in the bellies of animals we may not even know of. With an abundance of scavengers like crows around us, it may be easy to miss a kestrel or a falcon that once hunted close by. Birds of prey often take up vantage positions around us, looking at the world through a fierce gaze that is desperately trying to survive cities, polluted streams and crowded coastlines.
It would be a tragedy to not make the world better for them. As we go about our routines every day, I would like to think a raptor will always be watching.
Neha Sinha
Conservation biologist and author
Views expressed are personal
Posts on X (formerly known as Twitter): @nehaa_sinha