Indian nightjars are found in NW India and adjoining parts of Pakistan, as well as Sri Lanka and S of the Himalayas in the low elevations E to Bangladesh, Myanmar and Vietnam. (Nitin Lokur)

Indian peafowls are resident breeders across most of the Indian Subcontinent and and in many parts of N India are protected by religious practices and forage around villages and towns. (Sachin Somwanshi)

Red avadavats are found in the open fields and grasslands of tropical Asia, breeding on the Indian Subcontinent during monsoons. (Vinayak Yardi)

Red-headed trogons are resident in subtropical and tropical moist lowland and montane forests in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam. (Sagar Gosavi)

Indian rollers are distributed from Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent where they are found N of the Vindhyas mountains. Like other rollers they are known for their rolling flight pattern during breeding season. (Nisha Purushothaman)

Oriental dwarf kingfishers are found in found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. Photographed here in the W Ghats (India). (Caesar Sengupta)

Yellow-billed cuckoos are common in SE United States. All populations declining, and now listed as Endangered in California. (Dan Pancamo)

White-backed vulture landing in Kenya. In 2012 they were further uplisted to Endangered. (Andre Marais)

Spotted antbirds are found in the subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama; as well as Colombia and Ecuador. (Frank Thierfelder)

Short-eared owls have one of the largest distributions of any bird with breeding populations in Europe, Asia, N and S America, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and the Galápagos Islands. (Sagar Gosavi)

Malabar pied hornbills are relatively common in tropical S Asia distributed from India and Sri Lanka E all the way to Borneo, preferring evergreen and moist deciduous forests with fig trees. (Gururaj Moorching)

Narina trogons are hard to find throughout their wide distribution throughout Africa from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia, and from E Africa to E and S South Africa. (Kyle de Nobrega)

Vigors’s sunbirds are endemic to the Western Ghats (India) and have been reported in the Nilgiris. (Gururaj Moorching)

Gulls are adaptable foragers that opportunistically feed on fish and marine or freshwater invertebrates, but will take insects, earthworms, rodents, eggs, carrion, offal, reptiles, amphibians, plant items such as seeds and fruit, human refuse, and even other birds. (Ganesh Baga)

Southern double-collared sunbirds are endemic to the S parts of South Africa and prefer gardens, fynbos, forests and coastal scrub. (Graham Traas)

Giant kingfishers are the largest kingfisher in Africa and are resident throughout SubSaharan Africa. (Richard & Eileen Flack / www.theflacks.co.za)

D’Arnaud’s barbet most commonly seen in arid regions of the Rift Valley (e.g. Lake Baringo and Samburu), preferring savanna grassland and dry scrub. (Adam Riley / www.rockjumperbirding.com)

White-bellied woodpeckers are found in the evergreen forests of tropical Asia from the Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia, and are separated into 14 subspecies. (Nisha Purushothaman) (Nisha Purushothaman)

Nilgiri flycatchers have a very restricted distributional range in the hills of S India, preferring the higher altitude shola forests of the W Ghats and Nilgiris. (Mohamed Mothi)

African hoopoes (Upupa epops africana) are found in S and E africa, and are the most rufous of the nine subspecies. (Anja Denker)

White-throated kingfishers are one of the most widely distributed tree kingfishers found in Eurasia from Bulgaria, Turkey, W Asia all he way E through the Indian Subcontinent to the Philippines. (Aromal Asokan)

Bokmakieries are near-endemic to South Africa and Namibia with an isolated population in the mountains of E Zimbabwe and W Mozambique, preferring open habitats like karoo scrub, and fynbos, as well as parks and gardens in urban areas. (Richard & Eileen Flack / www.theflacks.co.za)

Brown-necked gulls breed on the high plateaus of central Asia from Tajikistan to Inner Mongolia, migrating to the coasts and large inland lakes of tropical S Asia in winter. (Caesar Sengupta)

Purple-rumped sunbirds are common resident breeder in S India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, preferring scrub and cultivated land with trees. (Caesar Sengupta)