Nothing heralds the advent of spring in Delhi like the semal (silk cotton) tree. Behind the flaming red golden and fading green of the semal, the spring skies look warmly blue.

As the flowers begin to bloom, brown and coppersmith barbets, sunbirds, bulbuls and even an occasional grey hornbill will take refuge in the tree, eating, chilling, looking for love in springtime.

In fact, bulbul sharma tells us in her book, that the great poet Kalidasa liked spring so much that he made spring an important character much like cupid in Kumarasambhava;

And then within these mountain-forest reaches,
Skilled to distract saint's thoughts from heaven above
The young awakening Spring now yawns and stretches,
Beloved companion of the god of love.
The ashok then, its trunk and branches laden,
Full-flowered with foil of many a green leaf-shoot
Impatient, quite forgot to expect a maiden
To wake its flowers with ankle-tinkling foot.