Each morning now in April I heard a cuckoo from our apartment. That is quite something stay as we all do in a city. The trees surrounding Urbania are to thank for such occurrence. At Mumbai, appearance of a migrant cuckoo variety from Africa is considered the sign for onset of monsoon.
Urbania's simple pleasures include green expanse and the accompanying shelter to birds. This summer, our second at the G wing, we have been hearing the Cuckoo regularly. I don't remember cuckoo calls from our two years at the A Wing. Don't know whether cuckoos have increased or I have been paying more attention now. Anyway, coming back to cuckoos, two good places to hear them are: Azziano Road as it is called on Google Maps or road in front of Azziano FGH wings and Urban Farming Zone. At Azziano Road, you actually hear cuckoos from a distance but audibly loud. They call from trees along a pipeline near Festival Plaza. One morning, on a walk there on the paved road, I could spot two cuckoos. I first heard them and then could see them. Both were on trees locally called Vilayati Chinch or Foreign Tamarind and were calling out with their typical notes. They were slightly bigger than crows and speckled black and white and make their mellifluous calls. I could stand below the trees and observe them and listen to them. Sometimes it seems they are talking to each other with one appearing to respond to another at a distance. I could take pictures too but not great ones. So, festival plaza is where you should head to spot Cuckoos. The second place to hear them would be Urban FarmingZonr where you can get their sounds from across the Nala or from Brindavan Society.
Lapwings are common too around Urbania. This bird with a call that goes Did-you-do-it? is common in large open spaces like we have north of Urbania. This bird likely is nesting in the grasses at the garden reservation. One type of lapwing is the red wattled lapwing that has red colour near its cheeks. It makes nests on ground and is black and white coloured bird with yellow beak.
in May one day, waiting for a taxi I was looking out at the Coconut trees from the G wing Lobby and spotted two bulbuls on the Coconut trees. They seemed very casual and fearless and may have nest in the parking floors as I found them flitting into the building. I also found swallows flying around. They are amazingly graceful gliding through the air almost effortlessly. They too may have nests in P level parking space. The swallows of course will be found near water in our case the nalah. So the Nalah does have it's uses it seems. So for bird spotting you don't even need the venture out of the FGH Lobby areas. Male bulbus have a cap like structure on their head are also common at Urbania. They flit around from tree to tree and also make their characteristic calls.
At Urbania, we do hear the shrill calls of pariah kites. These birds of prey are brownish and feed on live prey and slaughter waste. They perch on high spots atop buildings and electrical poles. These birds have adapted them selves to cities.
Most common of our birds are sparrows, mynahs and crows. Some sparrows have been coming to our Tulasi plant to peck at it's flowers. Sparrows have conveniently parked themselves in parking levels 1 to 4 without having to pay for parking space and without parking allotment letter from Rustomjee. On the exit to Rabodi each morning, you can see large number of crows - group of crows is incidentally called a murder. They come there to feed on poultty waste discarded by delivery trucks. Mynahs, brown birds with yellow beaks are noisy ones that come in groups and scavenge thereby helping us keep surroundings clean.
In season you can see and hear parakeets wrongly called parrots at Urban Farming. They fly high and sit on wires dangling on tall buildings. They are of course very common birds.
The best I reserve for the end. Driving towards Mumbra and on the deviation from the Nashik highway I was pleasantly one day surprised to see sea gulls on the railings of the bridge over Thane Creek. I have now learnt sea gulls are common even at Talao Pali coming there for food scraps people thrown at them. Far from the sea their natural habitat sea gulls have adapted to human food offered them by people.