Defense Colony: birds & dogs (& the Taj Mahal)

Dear all,

We are staying in a middle-class community, a neighborhood called Defense Colony, so named because it was at some point housing for lots of military-affiliated families. We have a third-floor flat with access to an intimate roof terrace equipped with a score of potted plants and a nice view of neighboring rooftops. For those of you with bird books handy, here is a recitation of birds I could see from the rooftop every morning:

• pigeons
• the corvid with the gray body and black face and tail
• lots of circling kites with forked tails and brownish gray bodies
• a starling-like bird with a yellow beak and eye-mask and white bands on its wings
• and the wonderful small green parrots (parakeets?) with red beaks, purple collars, and long tails tending toward yellow and blue.

I could also look down to the dusty street and see the local street dogs, all medium size, medium colors, with pointy ears and curly tails. At about 3:00 every morning we had the Defense Colony Running of the Dogs: the streets below were filled with howling and barking and general canine commotion, as what sounded like hundreds of dogs ran up and down the streets in a baying pack. It was, actually, the first thing my 5 housemates mentioned to me when I arrived, having apparently impressed (and oppressed) them mightily. Funnily enough nobody mentioned the parrots so I discovered them for myself. They also contributed to the morning racket, joining their piercing “aacck!”s to the crows’ caws and the pigeons’ sobbing about 6:00 every morning.

I got up early.

I am taking lots of pictures. I have been to many sights. I have bought my first Indian shirt.

Also, I saw the Taj Mahal. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, even on a smoky day and overrun with happy tourists. Actually the tourists, being many of them dressed in spectacular holiday sarees, rather enhanced its moonshine beauty. Looking down from the Taj to the river with binoculars I saw what I think was some kind of kingfisher: long beak, bright turquoise back. I got a blurry picture with the zoom to consult later.

The parrots (parakeets?) here are green with big red beaks, looong fringy tails that are yellow underneath, a purple line that kind of mustaches down from the beak and loops back around the neck, and I think yellow eyes.

Happy solstice, and I hope to write more soon (I am at least taking notes in my little notebook, jouncing along in taxis in between activities),

love love love,
Deborah