Everywhere the birds are joyful and noisy; nowhere more so than at the silk-cotton and the coral trees.  These, although botanically very different, display many features in common.  They begin to lose their leaves soon after the monsoon is over, and are leafless by the end of the winter.  In the early spring, while the tree is still devoid of foliage, huge scarlet, crimson or yellow flowers emerge from every branch.  Each flower is plentifully supplied with honey; it is a flowing bowl of which all are invited to partake, and hundreds of thousands of birds accept the invitation with right good-will.  The scene at each of these trees, when in full flower, baffles description.

Scores of birds forgather there—­rosy starlings, mynas, babblers, bulbuls, king-crows, tree-pies, green parrots, sunbirds and crows.  These all drink riotously and revel so loudly that the sound may be heard at a distance of half a mile or more.  Even before the sun has risen and begun to dispel the pleasant coolness of the night the drinking begins.  It continues throughout the hours of daylight.  Towards midday, when the west wind blows very hot, it flags somewhat, but even when the temperature is nearer 100 degrees than 90 degrees some avian brawlers are present.  As soon as the first touch of the afternoon coolness is felt the clamour acquires fresh vigour and does not cease until the sun has set in a dusty haze, and the spotted owlets have emerged and begun to cackle and call as is their wont.

These last are by no means the only birds that hold concert parties during the hours of darkness.  In open country the jungle owlet and the dusky-horned owl call at intervals, and the Indian nightjar (Caprimulgus asiaticus) imitates the sound of a stone skimming over ice.  In the forest tracts Franklin’s and Horsfield’s nightjars make the welkin ring.  Scarce has the sun disappeared below the horizon when the former issues forth and utters its harsh tweet.  Horsfield’s nightjar emerges a few minutes later, and, for some hours after dusk and for several before dawn, it utters incessantly its loud monotonous chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, which has been aptly compared to the sound made by striking a plank sharply with a hammer.

March is the month in which the majority of the shrikes or butcher-birds go a-courting.  There is no false modesty about butcher-birds.  They are not ashamed to introduce their unmelodious calls into the avian chorus.  But they are mild offenders in comparison with the king-crows (Dicrurus ater) and the rollers (Coracias indica).

The little black king-crows are at all seasons noisy and vivacious:  from the end of February until the rains have set in they are positively uproarious.  Two or three of them love to sit on a telegraph wire, or a bare branch of a tree, and hold a concert.  The first performer draws itself up to its full height and then gives vent to harsh cries.  Before it has had time to deliver itself of all it has to sing, an impatient neighbour joins in and tries to shout it down.  The concert may last for half an hour or longer; the scene is shifted from time to time as the participants become too excited to sit still.  The king-crows so engaged appear to be selecting their mates; nevertheless nest-construction does not begin before the end of April.