Most of the birds pictured are migratory waders, becoming airborne from a wetland in Kutch, Gujarat, western India.
If you don’t already understand how birds fly, this post will point you to some lucid explanation.
I took the photo at 5.40 pm on 12 February 2020.
In wintertime many of the birds on and around India’s lakes, wetlands and rivers are migrants who make an annual return journey from colder, more northern latitudes.
Some species have to fly directly over the Himalayas, although not, I think, the birds pictured.
I am almost sure that the bird on the image’s extreme left is a pied avocet, and that the upstanding individual is a black-winged stilt.
I think that all the others – the ones who had flown thousands of kilometres to spend winter in India – are black-tailed godwits. (I may be wrong, and I am happy to be corrected)
For a concise but thorough explanation of how birds fly, click here.
A New Zealand explanation is also good, and it includes a nifty video about the genus Limosa – godwits – whose four species are prodigious flyers, capable of covering vast distances, rapidly.
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Today’s music is Australian, short, and sweet.
In 2015 alto saxophonist Jack Beeche and guitarist Stephen Magnusson recorded their duo album Beeche/Magnusson.
Wings is a Beeche original.
If you are new to Stephen Magnusson, I suggest you click this.
The modest Melbournian is not one of the great self-promoters/marketers, but he is one of the world’s most wide ranging and most consistently imaginative improvising guitarists.