Of the common species that build in March and the previous months the following are likely to be found with eggs or young—­the jungle crows, sunbirds, doves, pied and golden-backed woodpeckers, coppersmiths, hoopoes, common and brahminy kites, bulbuls, shrikes, little minivets, fantail flycatchers, wire-tailed swallows, paroquets, spotted owlets, swifts, scavenger vultures, red-headed merlins, skylarks, crested larks, pipits, babblers, sand-martins, cliff-swallows, nuthatches, white-eyed buzzards, kites, black vultures, pied and white-breasted kingfishers, finch-larks, Indian wren-warblers, wood-shrikes, cuckoo-shrikes, green barbets, tawny eagles, and the terns and the other birds that nest on islets in rivers.  Here and there may be seen a white-backed vulture’s nest containing a young bird nearly ready to fly.

Towards the middle of the month the long-tailed tree-pies (Dendrocitta rufa), which are nothing else than coloured crows, begin nest-building.  They are to be numbered among the commonest birds in India, nevertheless their large open nests are rarely seen.  The explanation of this phenomenon appears to be the fact that the nest is well concealed high up in a tree.  Moreover, the pie, possessing a powerful beak which commands respect, is not obliged constantly to defend its home after the manner of small or excitable birds, and thus attract attention to it.

Fortunately for the tree-pie the kites and crows do not worry it.  The shikra (Astur badius) and the white-eyed buzzard (Butastur teesa), which are now engaged in nest-building, are not so fortunate.  The crows regard them as fair game, hence their nest-building season is a time of sturm und drang.  They, in common with all diurnal birds of prey, build untidy nests in trees—­mere conglomerations of sticks, devoid of any kind of architectural merit.  The blue rock-pigeons (Columba intermedia) are busily prospecting for nesting sites.  In some parts of India, especially in the Muttra and Fatehgarh districts, these birds nest chiefly in holes in wells.  More often than not a stone thrown into a well in such a locality causes at least one pigeon to fly out of the well.  In other places in India these birds build by preference on a ledge or a cornice inside some large building.  They often breed in colonies.  At Dig in Rajputana, where they are sacred in the eyes of Hindus, thousands of them nest in the fort, and, as Hume remarks, a gun fired in the moat towards evening raises a dense cloud of pigeons, “obscuring utterly the waning day and deafening one with the mighty rushing sound of countless strong and rapidly-plied pinions.”  According to Hume the breeding season for these birds in Upper India lasts from Christmas to May day.  The experience of the writer is that April, May and June are the months in which to look for their nests.  However, in justice to Hume, it must be said that recently Mr. A. J. Currie found a nest, containing eggs, in February.