Four Parakeets

India · nature

Four rose-ringed parakeets perched in the bare branches of a winter tree, one already eating from a tuft of pink flowers below. A small green argument against winter.

Rose-ringed parakeets are the loudest birds in the Indian winter. The deciduous trees in the cities go bare around January, and the parakeets — long-tailed, intensely green, the males with that thin black-and-pink collar at the throat — take over the empty branches like a noisy committee that has just learned the building is theirs. They are best photographed when they have stopped moving, which is rare, and when several have stopped moving in the same tree, which is rarer.

This was one of those moments. Four birds had settled on the branches outside a balcony, two looking outward, one preening, one already feeding on a remaining tuft of small pink flowers. The branches behind were pale grey-brown; a low concrete wall ran horizontally across the centre of the frame. I held still for as long as I could and let them stay. Parakeets are bound to be photographed badly, because they will not pose. They will, however, sometimes forget you are there. That is the picture worth waiting for.

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