Spring Migration Superstars- Comics for Birdlife International

Meet 7 Spring Migration Superstars- the European Bee-Eater, the Common Cuckoo, the Common Swift, the Barn Swallow, the Collared Sand Martin, the Common Ringed Plover and the White Stork. The comics have been created for Birdlife International's #SpringAlive campaign in which we introduce young birders to spring migrants. Thanks to Birdlife once again for collaborating with me.

Barn Swallows in the Himalayas

A comic on Barn Swallows nesting in the Himalayas from my column with Saevus magazine. With this comic, I complete six years of my association with Saevus, which also reaches its six year milestone with its March 2018 issue! Congrats to Saevus, and a big thanks for their continued association with Green Humour.

The comic takes inspiration from Ms. Janaki Lenin's beautiful article on Barn Swallows, published in The Hindu.

15 Amusing Bird Nests

Nests are a truly remarkable result of evolution and an example of the artistic superiority of birds over the rest of the animal kingdom. Edward Hamilton Atkien devotes one whole chapter of his widely read 'Tribes on my Frontier' explaining why in his view, birds are a much more sophisticated class, owing to their elaborate coutrship displays and their preference for tastefully designed houses. Although nests are usually thought to represent decorative and elaborate structures such as the cup-shaped nests of flycatchers or the hanging nests of the weaver, the term applies to a wide variety of structures which are used to harbour birds'eggs. These may range from the intricately stitched nest of the Common Tailorbird to the shabby, haphazard arrangement of twigs used by doves. Some birds like the murres lay their eggs directly onto rocky ledges while some swifts construct their nests entirely out of their sticky saliva. Nests are yet another reflection of the fact that birds truly are creatures of taste.

A very happy Wildlife Week! And as always, the compilation is available as a poster, which you can order by writing to me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com. Saevus readers will have seen 11 of these already in the August issue of the magazine.

This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.