Don’t stop till you get enough.
- Harish Dixit
- Jun 14
- 4 min read
Harish Dixit
Senior Infrastructure Manager – APAC
For five years, a tiny, nine-coloured wonder had been giving me the slip.
The first time I heard its cheerful two-note whistle on one of my morning walks, I ran towards the sound.
But by the time I got there, the bird was gone. All I had was a sound recording and a heart full of hope.
After that, friends and fellow birdwatchers kept spotting it in different corners of the city.
It even entered people’s homes, primarily due to exhaustion and disorientation. Every single time, I was either out of town or when I rushed to the location, the Pitta had moved on, as if it knew I was coming.
It began to feel personal.
But I never gave up. I kept going out, kept listening, kept looking during its bi-annual migrations.
This summer, I planned a family holiday in Dapoli, Ratnagiri. We chose a homestay, nestled inside a fifty-five acre “Aamrai”, a mango forest of over three thousand trees.
My family wanted rest and beaches. I wanted one bird. The Ladghar beach was five kilometres away. The mango grove was right outside our door. It felt like the right place.
The very first morning, the Indian Blackbird whistled outside the cottage window and woke us up before the alarm could.
When I stepped out of the cottage, two Gold-fronted Leafbirds were chasing each other through the branches, darting and diving like children at play. I smiled.
The forest was alive and generous.
Then, at half past six, we set out for our morning walk, through the quiet mango grove, I heard it. That short, sweet, two-note whistle.
My hands found my camera before my mind had finished thinking. My wife stood quietly beside me, saying nothing, sensing everything.
We had walked barely a hundred metres when we stopped again.
There, not eight feet away, a small blaze of colour was moving along the forest floor. It held a dry twig in its beak, moving with calm purpose.
My brain took a full second to believe what my eyes were already seeing. The Indian Pitta. Closer than it had ever been. Not fleeing. Not hiding.
Simply going about its morning, building its nest, patiently.
Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke.
The bird couple made trip after trip, gathering nesting material, completely unbothered by the two stunned humans watching from below.
It was focused, peaceful and utterly magnificent.
Interestingly, the Pittas never flew straight to its nest. Not once.
Each time it returned with nesting material, it landed first on a random branch nearby, sometimes a metre away, sometimes a little further.
There it would sit, perfectly still, eyes darting in every direction, scanning the trees, the ground and the air around it for any sign of danger.
Only when it was completely satisfied that all was safe did it make that final short flight to the nest and get busy. It was as if the bird carried an unwritten rule,
“Never lead trouble to your front door.”
Watching this quiet ritual repeat itself, trip after trip, I felt a deep admiration.
Here was a creature that paired its hard work with sharp wisdom, never once letting its enthusiasm override its caution.
People often say, what wonderful luck. But I want to be honest. Luck had very little to do with it.
That morning in the mango grove was the result of years of quiet, unglamorous habits practised with discipline.
It was the result of training my ears as carefully as my eyes, learning the calls of Indian Pitta until it became familiar, because in thick forest you will almost always hear a bird long before you see it.
It was the result of understanding how seasons move birds across the landscape, and choosing Dapoli not randomly but deliberately, knowing the Western Ghats in summer hold breeding Pittas.
And above all, staying positive and saying quietly to myself, today could be the day, even on the mornings that looked grey and unpromising.
Every birdwatcher knows that feeling of a day that seems destined to deliver nothing, only for a rarity to appear at the very next turn in the path.
You just have to keep walking to reach that turn.
Five years of early mornings, missed sightings and long walks through empty forest paths had led to this one quiet moment.
And standing there, camera raised, hands steady at last, I understood something simple and true. Patience is not about waiting and doing nothing.
It is about waiting and still trying, every single day, until its enough.
The Pitta did not come to me because I was lucky. It came because I never stopped looking for it.
And that, I think, is the only secret worth knowing.
Enjoy this video of the Indian Pitta couple busy with nest building:
-chalatmusafir (HD)
Comments