It’s obvious, sitting in the early morning sunshine on the balcony of my hotel room, that Spring is on its way to Jaipur. A pretty little Laughing Dove, twig in beak, keeps flying within inches of where I’m sitting and disappearing into a tall, broad-leaved shrub nearby. Her mate meanwhile sits unafraid on my balcony rail, puffing up his tiny chest and emitting a chuckling coo, roo-roo, roo-roo. Numerous miniscule, metallic blue-green and light-brown birds, male and female Purple Sunbirds, flit among the fragrant pink flowers of a Butterfly Tree (Bauhinia purpurea) uttering a shrill tzeet, sometimes tzeet-tzeet, sometimes tzeet-tzeet-tzeet. They fly quickly from flower to flower, stopping for a mere fraction of a second each time. They’re a challenge for a photographer – by the time they’re in focus, they’ve gone! I’m in the hectic
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