Five Women, Three Cities, One Sky: A GBBC Story
- Chetana B P | Ishita D | Snigdha S | Sarah A | Karishma G
- 8 hours ago
- 12 min read
Across Bangalore, Delhi and Havelock Island, five naturalists reflect on birding, presence and the joy of noticing during the Great Backyard Bird Count 2026.
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” - Mary Oliver
There are ways of looking that are, in truth, really ways of loving. To attend to something without demanding anything of it, to stand still long enough for the living world to reveal itself. That, too, is a form of devotion.
The Great Backyard Bird Count 2026 (13th-16th February 2026) arrived in that spirit, as it does each year. Not merely as an event, but as an invitation: to look up, look out, and keep company with birds; to bear witness to those with whom we share our landscapes.
Five naturalists: Chetana, Ishita, Snigdha, Karishma and Sarah - set out across three different cities (Bangalore, Delhi, and Havelock Island). Across this distance, they made a small and generous promise: to step outside, observe the birds around them, and share what they saw. A collaboration in its gentlest form.
Observer 1: Chetana Purushotham, Bangalore.
GBBC has been very close to my heart since the first time I participated in the event back in 2016. I used to frequently visit the Andaman and Nicobar Environmental Team (ANET) in Wandoor, Andaman, and that year, there was a large group of researchers and research volunteers who worked there. The three days were meticulously planned – habitats identified, groups formed, routes decided, and equipment distributed. After years of not birdwatching regularly, that year’s GBBC jump-started my return to the glorious practice of spending time with birds.
Birding, for me, has evolved over the years. There have been many phases: the lifelist craze, the methodical checklisting, followed by the memorising-of-calls phase. Eventually, I started lingering longer with each bird, noticing their behaviours and interactions. I started sketching and doodling when I realised that you don’t have to be an artist to make art. After 15 years of birding, my approach now includes a little bit of all of these phases.
Last year, I realised that I was not spending enough time outdoors, and months would go by without quality, unfiltered time in nature. At the start of this year, I decided to go on a nature walk at least once a week for the rest of my life. I have managed to keep it up so far - though, then again, it has only been about eight weeks since the new year began.
During the weekend that coincided with GBBC, I managed to go walking on two days instead of one.
I observed this male Shikra along with my husband, John, and my aunt, Viji. What an incredible sight it was. I managed to take a photo using my phone and binoculars.
Perched majestically on his wooden throne, one foot tucked, surrounded by a thousand little twigs. He didn’t move or vocalise during the fifteen minutes we spent observing him. He had found the sunniest spot on a leafless tree, probably warming up for the day ahead.
Moments after we left the spot, we heard a cacophony of Shikra calls from the tree. We looked back and saw many twigs falling to the ground. There were at least two Shikras now. Were they quarrelling? Over prey? Or mates?
It is February, so perhaps the start of the courtship season?
I had not seen a Grey Wagtail all winter this year. I was beginning to feel as though I had taken them for granted. They were always going to be around along lake edges during Bangalore winters - or so I must have assumed.
On the last day of GBBC this year, I was relieved to finally spot one. I was birding with my mother and aunt, Viji, at a lake near our house. At first, all we saw was a small winged blob on a rock at the lake’s edge. Before we could lift our binoculars to get a good look, it swooped and flew to a distant bank. For most of the next hour and a half, it stayed at least fifty meters ahead of us.
At last, we spotted it up close. It looked perfectly content, perched on a beached coracle in the stinkiest part of the lake – the wetland that receives treated sewage water. It seemed to have found the perfect patch for catching insects. Hyacinth floated all around, interspersed with damp, exposed patches of the lakebed. It appeared to be using the coracle as a perch while dining on its catch.
A delightful, extended observation of this gorgeous winter visitor.
Observer 2: Ishita Das, Bangalore.
I don’t usually make field notes while birding. I never did. I don’t eBird either. If I do, it’s usually because I remember my friend Viral and feel that I ought to be a better contributor to citizen science. It never lasts. I might make notes for mushrooms and weeds, but they have not grown on me the way birds and insects have - not yet, anyway.
With birds, I remember where I last saw them. That is why, of all the birds I saw on this GBBC day (which I also don’t do every year, though I intend to), I wanted to draw the female Asian koel.
In my previous life, I used to live for spring, when my favourite Northern Cardinal males called. What a striking red, and what a melodious call. Then I waited for the Asian Koel’s calls in the evening, especially from a sad apartment in Bangalore. The dark, black, stealthy males. Despite being a birder, though not much of one for Indian birds then, I had not seen a female Asian Koel until around 2012. I had never chased one down to find her, either. And when I first saw one - very late in life for such a common bird - my mom was with me.
I showed her “Ma, oi je, meye koel.” (Ma, that’s the female koel.)
She said, and I remember to this day, “Arey wah! Mrs Koel. Mujhe nahi pata tha who aisi dikhti hain!” She had never seen one either. Mrs Koel. I liked that. I stored it away for future use.
Today is the future.
This GBBC, I went on a walk, and at one point, more than thirty people were looking at me for bird IDs - until, thankfully, we split up, and it was about twenty. This was at our neighbourhood lake, Puttenahalli Puttakere. As soon as a group grows beyond three people, my brain goes into hibernation, especially if I don’t know anyone.
Thankfully, Vidisha, a friend of mine, had come from far away, and a part of my brain woke up. I remember seeing a mixed-species flock and losing my nerve about getting the identification wrong, even though no one there seemed ready to contradict me with much conviction. It wasn't the correction I feared; I was afraid of miscounting or giving these eager, interested people the wrong information.
So I gathered my nerves, and then the names started coming on their own. White-eye, of course. Possible - but unconfirmed- Iora. Greenish Warbler (even if Merlin insisted it was Green Warbler, this is not a place for the Green). Female Purple Sunbird. Then someone exclaimed, “Loten’s!” (sunbird). That I had to confirm from the right angle. It was. Tailorbird. We have all three cormorants at our lake. And honestly, they must have had a wedding or something, because everyone who was related to anyone seemed to have arrived with their cousins’ friends. I had never had so many Indian and Little Cormorants on the same dead tree to differentiate. They really are not that different, my friends, when they sit together with their wings spread. That slight difference in size disappears. Only the rectangular versus sloping head remains.
And my head locked in its internal battle with perfection, wanted to tell each one apart. Great Cormorants are great to tell apart too. Explaining it to a very curious and patient kid helped. We also had the help of the excellent pamphlet Birds of Bangalore by Early Bird India. The organizer of the trip, Aarthi, had handed them out to the participants at our lake.
There was also a troupe of college students wearing badges around their necks, and I wondered what on earth(!) was going on, as they seemed to be following us. Later I found that they had never been birding before.
They were joining us, their teacher explained when she came to shake my hand. Yes, it’s very strange and unpredictable, where your next handshake might come from.
To be honest, GBBC walks are not the best for first-time birders, as the leaders are usually focused on the counting. As I was supposed to be. But they were interested, and I told them about herons and why they stand so still. It
still amazes me when a huge Grey Heron walks out of the rockwork straight towards us, having always been within three meters the entire time.
The koels and the White-cheeked Barbets had been calling all along. The sun finally shone on the Grey-headed Swamphens, and everyone marvelled at their colours. At a small lake in the middle of a very busy neighbourhood, there was iridescence.
In the end, there was a young college boy. As I said, my hibernating brain had barely registered the faces, but he broke through my unfocused gaze to present the beautiful Mrs Koel.
“Look there, what is that bird?”
And his smile was the same as my mom’s. I congratulated him on his great find, and he beamed even more. He made a video and showed it to me.
Mrs. Koel. I think she deserves to be honoured and appreciated. Not to remain barred and cryptic, even if she is both. So I made her purple. I hope she stands out to many more people now, just like my mom does these days. Because they are amazing, and they always make people beam with joy.
And the bird list? Ask the thirty people who were with me - and Agent 2 (Divya), whom I assigned to make it. And who did an absolutely wonderful job.
Don’t ask me.
Observer 3: Snigdha Sehgal, Delhi.
How much bird counting can someone in Delhi do while working from home - and during a bachelorette weekend? That was my Global Backyard Bird Count this February: working, and bridal-showering for my sister- luckily a walk in the park, literally.
I’m, at most, a balcony birder, though an enthusiastic one. I can’t distinguish common raptors or the little brown birds by sight, or even the common cheel and myna by sound. What delights me more is bird behaviour, especially when I don’t have bird names to distract me.
That February weekend, while much of the country was out on bird surveys and counts, I was mostly at my parents’ home and at Sanjay Van - the forest next to my sister’s place. My bird count happened in fragments: from a balcony chair, between work calls, and on a late-morning walk. So this was me, quite literally, backyard birding in Delhi.
Home is a lone bungalow surrounded by five-storey builder flats in a residential colony. Old trees have slowly given way to parking. Gardens have been brushed aside for widened roads and soil-less concrete. The greenery has moved upward - into potted plants hanging off balconies.
My mum planted our trees smartly spaced out for car parking, and so the house has old Saptparni trees and tall palms. She has also added truckloads of soil to the first-floor balcony and into giant discarded bathtubs on the roof, so we now have flowers, greens, and fruits. Over the years, the birds - migratory and otherwise - have memorised this home. God knows how they find this oasis hidden between tall buildings, but they do.
We have a tiny ornamental tangerine bush. Occasionally, it fruits profusely. The birds seem to know exactly when this will happen. It must have begun as a slow discovery. Bulbuls and Oriental White-eyes routinely fuss over a bowl of water kept nearby and use the bush to preen after their baths.
One year, two koels began showing up seasonally to feast on the tangerines. By 2024, we realised we had a regular visitor - a lone green bird with a yellow bristly beak, about the size of a myna: a White-cheeked Barbet! The white-eyes disappeared this year, but the barbet brought a friend. So now there are two.
I sit on the balcony - my morning work spot - and watch them. The barbets perch in the Saptparni tree behind, waiting for the bulbuls to buzz off and leave the water bowl.
The bulbuls bathe like no one’s watching, though I sit right there, watching in delight. Impatient, the barbets land closer. Time to bully the bulbuls out. But the bulbuls are stubborn. They splash and frolic until the barbets land right at the water bowl.
Barbet #1 bathes luxuriously, plonking its whole green body into the bowl. Shake, shake - like a wet dog - spraying droplets for a good twenty seconds. And then off it goes to the tangerine tree to preen and dry, a perfect setting for a sweet-and-tart snack. In the bush nearby, its partner sits waiting patiently. It now hops into the bath and then joins the feast.
They prod and dig into the tangerines, bursting them open with messy bites. In four or five pokes and gulps, one fruit is neatly nibbled and gone. It eats alert to my presence - quick, cautious glances between bites. One fruit, then another, and another. The bush holds fifty or sixty ripe tangerines. Within a week, they finish them all.
I take a photo to journal later. Do you see the barbet waiting for its partner while it bathes?
Other non-tangerine-eating birds watch the party sometimes. Today I see two mynas and a Rufous Treepie lounging on the Saptparni.
The next day, on a late-morning walk in Sanjay Van, the trees are full of sound. So many trees, not a bird in sight - but a constant chatter overhead. Is it a crow? Yes, and no. Crows, and someone else. Is that myna chatter? Not sure; it sounds too varied. There are cackles, chirps, and chees.
What sounds like a myna but isn’t? Or what chatters with mynas and crows? A treepie? I check Merlin for bird sounds. Yes - mynas and a treepie.
An hour into the walk, a pair of large, grey but slim birds suddenly fly in. They have giant, curving headgear attached to their beaks - the Indian Grey Hornbill! With them is one pesky, smaller bird, almost crow-sized but slimmer, with a long tail: another treepie. Over the weekend, I seem to find treepies everywhere! I watch the treepie and hornbill, busy in some strange interspecies conversation…
Further along the path, I hear a long, happy shrill - cheeeeeeeee.
“That’s the cheel!” I say, looking up at the raptor soaring above me. Black kites are common in Delhi, and I’ve confused them before with fighting cats and shrieking ladies. Then I see my friend’s toddler running towards us in glee, making the same gurgling, delighted “cheeeeeeeee”.
Fighting cats, shrieking ladies, and delighted babies.
Back home at my desk, writing this, I think about the birds I saw. These birds wait their turn at the bath bowl, make friends, and enjoy diverse company. They remember when and where their favourite fruit ripens, and call friends for the feast.
“Bird-brained” suddenly sounds like a compliment to me.
Observers 4 and 5: Sarah Abidi and Karishma Goenka, Havelock Island.
We live at the precipice of a reserved rainforest. For us, birding usually means stepping out into the yards and sipping coffee while species such as the Andaman serpent eagle, Black-naped oriole, and Vernal Hanging Parrot perch nearby. Even the more elusive ones, like the Asian Fairy-bluebird or the Andaman Shama, sometimes appear. There is a trio of Greater Racket-tailed Drongos around that have become local celebrities for their uncanny mimicry of Karishma’s cat.
During the GBBC, though, our walks become more intentional. For three days, we head out at the brink of dawn to bird. What changes during the Count is not just the notes we make, but the way we look. Each rustle becomes a possibility. Every silhouette among the trees invites a second glance. We linger longer at clearings, listen more carefully to overlapping calls, and debate identifications in hushed voices.
The real joy, though, isn’t in keeping a list or “counting” as such - it is in the moment when we see a flash of blue among a sea of green, or long-tailed parakeets squawking in the company of their peers. Swiftlets swirl in patterns as they begin their dawn patrol, and the shimmering green of an Emerald Dove glints like polished metal. Or a White-bellied Sea Eagle swoops down to catch its breakfast from the tidepools. It is in the sunlight that strikes a Dollarbird’s wings, and the rainbow that a Chestnut-headed Bee-eater wears on its body.
It is in the realisation that, all the while, from somewhere in the canopy above, unseen eyes follow us as closely - reminding us that in the natural world, we are never the only ones observing.
Perhaps the birds keep a list somewhere - the GBHC: The Great Backyard Human Count. And judging by the way we stare at them through binoculars, they probably have a category called "Particularly Odd Behaviour.”
GBBC highlights that science does not belong only in laboratories under the stewardship of experts. It is also the act of standing in a garden with a notebook, looking up, or looking down.
Across three mornings, the five of us observed a handful of species and wrote our notes down in careful columns. We drew. Gasped into our binoculars. Held ourselves in the softness of birdsong. And in those moments, we were joined by thousands of others across continents, forming an invisible fellowship of watchers, each one saying, in their own way:
Be quiet. The birds are here. We are paying attention.
The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is a four-day annual citizen science event held in mid-February by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which helps researchers understand bird distribution. Participants can record bird sightings on platforms such as eBird and the Merlin Bird ID app.
About the authors and observers
Chetana is a wildlife biologist, ocean explorer and educator. Dogs love her almost as much as she loves them.
Ishita is a wandering alien, who belongs nowhere, is from everywhere and believes in The Doctor.
Snigdha is a nature educator in Goa. She finds huge delight in nature, children and cool science experiments. Chetana and John took her snorkelling in the Andamans once and now she can’t unsee the sea.
Sarah is a silly goose, who waddles through life with a microscope in one hand and a paperback in the other. She loves exploration, science, maps and swears by Lord of the Rings. 🏴☠️
Karishma is a PADI Staff Instructor and marine naturalist, who loves the natural world in all her forms; she also creates creatures out of crochet and is a mother to cats.
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