Morning In Pune Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

It was again the month of April
Time was 7 30 AM and Sun was bright
But pleasant unlike in Mumbai:
I hear the two-tone note of the koel
And saw at a distance
On top of a Nilgiri tree with sparse leaves
Three birds, of different sizes.

Took my binoculars and focused,
Saw the largest was male koel
Black in color, and making the sounds
By the way its neck and beak were moving,
The middle one was the pretty female koel
Brown in color, and serrated
I couldn’t place the third one before it flew away.

Soon as he spotted me and my binocs
The male stopped its birdsong
Scrutinized me for seconds, and took off.
Now the female which had started
Its different and distinct song, like
Narrow-necked pot water gurgling out,
She kept sitting there, though uneasy,
Like the modern college-going girl
Who is not going to be cowed down by male gaze!

At a further distance,
I saw another bird; on scrutiny
Turned out to be a blue rock pigeon
With its usual pink feet of pigeons
And two black lines on the wings
Special to this species.

All along a little bulbul, maybe with decorated head,
Was calling continuously on a tree or bush
Between the pigeon tree and the Nilgiri
I searched and searched, both
With my eyes and my binocs
But couldn’t locate the little fellow
Who perhaps thought his red rump
Is not for display:
But he could have shown me the front!