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Right from the beginning, the plan felt ridiculously ambitious. In July 2025, over three rain-washed days, wildlife photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee and I were travelling along the Beas River in Punjab, hoping to spot the Indus river dolphin. According to India’s first-ever survey of river dolphins, released in March 2025, only three Indus river dolphins remain in the 185-km stretch of the Beas Conservation Reserve.
A day before we left, heavy rains drenched the landscape. The river swelled and spilt over the banks, swallowed the plains and turned the landscape into a patchwork of paddy, pools, and knee-deep muck. We waded through this slippery world, stumbling over puddles, calling out to farmers on tractors for a lift, until, defeated, we settled at a bend along the Beas.
The riverside spot was ordinary at best. A large banyan stood like a centrepiece, encircled by a concrete chabutra (bench). A much younger neem tree, with fresh neon leaves, stood a few feet away. To our right, a bare-bricked granary, packed with the season’s produce, loomed above us. Behind it, a gleaming white-and-gold gurdwara blared morning prayers. They all faced the reed-lined Beas — the landscape’s lifeline.
Minutes after we settled along this edge of the river, at the heart of the neem tree, a raucous battle broke out. A common myna (Acridotheres tristis) swooped in, a frog clutched firmly in her beak, to feed her chicks nestled in a hollow in the bark, while fending off intruders. Crows, jungle babblers, and a lone woodpecker seemed intent on claiming the hole. A few feet away, on a tree, baya weavers fought while building bulbous nests from the reeds that lined the river. From a nook in a granary, a spotted owlet (Athene brama) glared at us. We turned our binoculars and lenses away from the Beas, towards the drama. Under pregnant grey skies, a little corner along the Beas had come alive. “Nature has other plans today,” said Mukherjee.
The Beas is Punjab’s smallest and cleanest river. It rises in the Himalayas and flows for about 470 km before it meets the Sutlej just before the Harike Barrage in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district. During the monsoons, its waters overflow and spill into its floodplains, nourishing them with a fresh layer of alluvial soil. A floodplain is typically an area of low-lying ground adjacent to a river, formed mainly of river sediments. It is the most fertile stretch because of the nutrients that a river brings in, but it is also subject to frequent flooding during the monsoon. The first slice of floodplains from the river, locally called “palli”, is some of the most fertile land that is highly sought-after by farmers.
Seasoned birders will tell you that the monsoon isn’t the best season for birding, and yet the monsoon shares a special relationship with birds. “In a tropical country like India, summer and the following monsoon bring a surge of insect life, amphibians, flowers rich in nectar, and fruits. Many birds breed in this season, simply because there are enough insects and amphibians to feed on,” says Asad Rahmani, ornithologist and conservationist.
Several birds take advantage of the season and work hard to attract mates, build nests, or feed their young. With the air thick with rain and calls, the monsoon is a season of urgency and display. Males call louder, don brighter breeding plumage, and compete fiercely for attention, while others build nests and raise chicks.
While we sat by the Beas, the common myna female made multiple trips to the paddy field to bring back insects and frogs for the chicks that waited in the nesting hole. Chicks often need protein at this stage to supplement their growth, and insects, amphibians and reptiles, found in abundance during the monsoon, are the perfect source.
Baya weavers, like many birds during the monsoon, were in their “breeding plumage” — a special set of feathers that many bird species moult into during the mating or breeding season. A non-birder might easily mistake a male baya weaver for a sparrow in the non-breeding season since both wear muted browns. But come breeding season, a transformation occurs. His crown turns a brilliant, lemon yellow, and a dark mask sets his face apart.
While we waited, several baya weaver males meticulously tore strips of grass and leaves from the reeds to build bulbous nests with narrow entrances. These nests are typically built near waterbodies — in this case, the river — while the paddy fields and reed beds lining the banks offer easy access to building materials. I counted at least six nests, each at a different stage of completion. Spontaneous fights broke out between rival males building in the same tree. (1) During one squabble, a female arrived to inspect the nests. If she approves of the progress, the (2) male continues to complete it. If not, he starts all over again.
They breed from late April to August, and are most active during this season when they devote their energies to excavating nest holes in riverbanks. They also nest in niches in wells, granaries, and buildings with crannies. Males and females work together to line the hollows with sticks and hay before laying bluish eggs. Along the Beas, we noticed nesting spots had turned into sites of frequent skirmishes. Sometimes, nests previously made by bee-eaters were forcefully taken over, adding to the drama.
The sparrow-sized male flicked its tail up while it fluttered excitedly around the bushes by the river, calling loudly, hoping to catch the attention of a female. Ashy prinias build nests of leaves in bushes and shrubs during the monsoon. In northern India, their nesting season runs from March to September, peaking with the rains. During this time, males trade their duller plumage for bolder colours: a dark, almost black crown and cheek, and a noticeably shorter tail.
The granary by the river was its own ecosystem. The walls, decorated with streaks of white droppings, held clues to who the tenants were. Bursting with activity, it looked less like a storage shed and more like a bustling apartment block that made room for a variety of species: owls, pigeons, and squirrels. Each tenant was busy building nests, feeding young ones, or raiding another’s nest to claim it.
While the squirrels and parakeets went about their business, oblivious to our interest, two spotted owlets snug in a nook remained suspicious, taking turns to fly from their concrete hideout to a fig tree nearby and back, and glaring at us.
Swallows and swifts feed mostly on aerial gnats and other small flying insects that flit around the banks and adjacent fields. A wide range of flying insects, including flies, mosquitoes, midges, bees, wasps, alates of ants, moths, butterflies, and beetles are called “aerial plankton” or aeroplanktons (tiny lifeforms that float and drift in the air, carried by the wind) and are common around waterbodies.
There is something undeniably robust about the monsoon. And though the dolphin never appeared, the season offered its own generous gift — a front-row seat to intimate moments of birds courting, nesting, and bringing new life into the world.
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