Pilani the Little Bird Sanctuary

Pilani, on the outskirts of the Rajasthan desert, can't perhaps boast of city amenities but when it comes to birds we can assure you, it's virtually a little sanctuary.

The proud, majestic-looking peacocks flood and dominate the little town. They are fearless of the human population around; their throaty, harsh 'kayonk-koyonk' makes a full circle back to the first peacock. A peacock sometimes suddenly lifts its 4-5 foot long greenish-blue shimmering tale spreading it onto a fan with purple-blue 'eyes' peeping mischievously out of the curtain of feathers. It then dances in gay abandon with its throat clucking and feathers beating for an hour or two while the uninterested' peahens stand by. When chased by dogs, its usual predators, it lifts itself cumbrously, with a piercing irritated cry, flapping its wings furiously, raising a cloud of dust underneath, all in one quick motion, and flies off to the nearest refuge somewhere up on a tree.

If you are a gardener then you'd better erase all ideas of a peacock as a friend as it is very destructive. We have once seen a snake being torn to pieces by the sharp claws and beak of an angry peacock. All the poor defenseless creature wanted to do was to get away.

The peahens lay their eggs between January and October. They scrape a bit of ground with hardly any camouflage around or just lay 5-6 big creamy white eggs on a criss-cross of twigs on a low throne bush.

Babblers, woodpeckers and common mynahs, kites, vultures, green pigeons, cloves, bulbul and golden oriole are scattered all over the area in fairly large numbers.

The shrieking schools of destructive parrots attack the fruit trees during summer. Net-making between February and April in the already cut-out hollows of the tree trunks makes the job easy for them. The common little, brown, wise owl with large glassy eyes and a flat loud chatter haunt the night skies of Pilani.