On Sunday, I saw a bulbul, several parakeets, a flock of some kind of ducks and one grey hornbill sitting on a peepal. The bulbul was perched on a telephone wire and I stopped suddenly and stared with the intention to identify it. In my line of vision was a verandah, with a man sitting with his feet up clad in a lungi. He saw me looking upwards in his general direction and scrambled quickly to his feet and tied his lungi. Perhaps he thought I was trying to sneak a peek up his lungi. However, this was not my intention at all.
In any case, I was pleased to see the hornbill. I saw my first hornbill when I was in Rajapur in Konkan. That was the Malabar hornbill, a delightfully awkward looking bird - all yellow and white and black and an outstanding award-winning beak. A and P were as excited as I was and we looked up the bird in Salim Ali at once. A and P plan to move to Rajapur when they retire. I hope they will have a comfortable guest-room with a comfortable bed.
