The San Gabriel Mountains loom like an impregnable fortress for millions of migrating birds making their long and perilous journey to distant breeding grounds in the far north. “For birds flying north over the Los Angeles Basin and encountering the San Gabriel Mountains, Bear Divide is like a gate in the castle wall,” said Ryan Terrill, a biologist at Cal …
It was August 22, 2020, and with the pandemic travel guidelines slightly lifted, I made a quick dash to Gurugram to catch up with a former intern who was leaving for Oxford University. I hadn’t expected to hear the shrill, loud disyllabic ‘chee-wee’ cry of the Greenish Warbler, in a stray wild patch outside her high-rise apartment. The timid behaviour …
