Basanta: The Bird of Spring

Spring in India is known as Basant. It is the season when many trees are flowering, there is warmth in the air, and the days begin to grow brighter. The hues of the season are predominantly yellow and red, and it is a rapidly moving time when old, dry leaves fall and new leaves begin to emerge.

The arrival of spring in our country comes after a long span of harsh, chilly, foggy winters. With it comes a feeling of warmth and an upliftment of the soul. Most of the geographical landscape in India is deciduous in nature. In the Northern Plains, the forests are largely dry deciduous, with some pockets of moist deciduous forests as well. During this time there is a sense of joy in nature when many herbaceous plants and shrubs begin flowering, often simultaneously with the leaf fall in many tree species.

Leaf fall is a periodic phenomenon in deciduous trees, which undergo regular shedding of their leaves. Spring therefore carries a mix of moods. On one hand, we feel elated as we witness flowering all around us, and on the other, we see the quiet fall of old leaves followed by the emergence of fresh ones.

Apart from flowering, leaf fall, and the flushing of new leaves, there are certain events that occur concurrently in spring but often go unnoticed because they are not very visible. The brightness of the day, the warmth, the light, and the subtle change in the atmosphere after winter often pass quietly without much notice.

Similarly, another event happens constantly yet remains largely overlooked, especially in urban and semi-urban landscapes: the changing sounds of the season.

The spring season, particularly in Northern India, is dominated by the calls of birds like barbets. As soon as Basant begins, we start hearing their very distinct and dominant call — a repeated “kutroo kutroo”, characterised by the guttural sound produced by this bird.

Across the Indian landscape, about ten distinct species of barbets can be found in different regions. In the northern parts of the country, three species are commonly seen:

• Brown-headed Barbet
• Coppersmith Barbet
• Blue-throated Barbet

Among these, the Brown-headed Barbet is the most common. It produces the familiar kutroo kutroo sound, and because of this call it is locally known in Hindi as Kutroo. This bird call becomes an almost omnipresent sound during the spring months. Since it is heard so frequently in the Basant season, these birds are also known locally as Basanta. The Crimson-headed Barbet is often referred to as Chhota Basanta, while the Brown-headed Barbet is known as Bada Basanta or Hara Basanta.

The barbets are rather naïve-looking birds. Their heads are brown in colour while their bodies are green. They usually occupy the top canopy of trees, and the sound they emit comes from their throats without the opening of their beaks.

Because they perch high in the canopy, it is often difficult to locate the exact tree from which the bird is calling. Their calls travel in all directions, and when one tries to move around to find the caller, it often seems as though the sound is coming from everywhere at once. This makes spotting the bird quite a task.

Courtship in the Season of Spring

At the onset of spring, barbets are looking to mate. The incessant calling is actually the male bird inviting the female for mating and reproduction. Soon after pairing, the birds begin making nests and eventually hatch their eggs.

Barbets are hole-nesters, which means they make their nests inside cavities in tree trunks. Interestingly, they do not always make new holes every season. If suitable holes already exist, they reuse them for nesting in the current season.

This is also the same time when Rose-ringed Parakeets are pairing, mating, and laying eggs — and they too are hole-nesters. As a result, small conflicts sometimes occur between parakeets and barbets over the occupation of these nesting holes. Both birds are lively and energetic, and watching such interactions can be extremely endearing.

Another fascinating aspect of Basanta is the Hindi name Kutroo or Koturoo, which comes directly from the sound the bird makes. This reflects how people of earlier generations listened carefully to the natural world around them and named things according to what they heard and observed. It also tells us that people once had more time to perceive the sounds around them and were more closely connected to the seasonal rhythms of nature and its species.

Today, however, our attention is often captured by the sounds and vibrations of gadgets. The calls of birds have slowly moved to the periphery of our auditory world. It is becoming increasingly difficult to hear and locate bird calls in urban landscapes. Yet the Brown-headed Barbet is one bird that continues to survive in good numbers even in cities.

In Delhi, for instance, their guttural calls can still be heard in local parks and in many residential neighbourhoods. Their persistent kutroo kutroo during the spring months is difficult to miss, as they continue calling for hours on end. If one pays attention, from morning to evening there are numerous bird calls vying for attention, and gradually one may even begin to identify the birds responsible for them.

The incessant kutroo kutroo of these birds during spring — and the names given to them by earlier generations such as Bada Basanta and Chhota Basanta — are part of a cultural memory that deserves to be shared.

Sharing these stories, especially with younger generations, can help them connect more meaningfully with the sounds of the season. It might encourage them to pause, listen, and perhaps even spot this innocent-looking bird perched quietly somewhere in the top canopy of a tree outside their window.

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Ramesh Pandey is an Indian Forest Service Officer currently serving as Director, National Zoological Park, New Delhi. He was awarded the UNEP Asia Environmental Enforcement Award 2019. The views expressed are personal.