एक अकेला इस शहर में

Back in 2021, the Taiga Bean-Goose was all the buzz in town. I was just getting into birding then, and while I didn’t quite grasp the full excitement, I knew it was rare and of course, I dove into eBird to learn more.

That’s when I first came across the word “vagrant.” Naturally, I Googled it. According to Google, a vagrant is “a person who is poor, without a home or job, moving from place to place.”

But in the birding world? A vagrant is a bird found far from where it’s normally supposed to be, outside its usual range or migration path.

Same word, different meanings. Funny how that works. In human terms, being a vagrant isn’t something that is usually celebrated. But in birding? A vagrant is a rock star. It shows up unannounced, and suddenly everyone's talking, chasing, and documenting it like a feathered celebrity in the wrong part of town.

After asking around and piecing together birders' clues, I finally made it to Bhigwan, on the trail of the famous Taiga Bean-Goose. This bird had wandered far from its usual route, somehow lost from its own kind and was tagging along with a flock of Bar-headed Goose instead. 

When I finally spotted it, there it was. Clearly the odd one out in the flock. Different posture, different plumage, a total stranger among familiar faces. And yet.. it was completely at ease. No signs of panic. No flustered flapping. Just calm, going about its day as if this detour was always part of the plan. What struck me even more was how effortlessly the Bar-headed Goose had accepted it. No drama, no fuss, just a quiet welcome into the group. In the bird world, even a vagrant can find a place to belong, how beautiful is this world.

As I watched the Taiga Bean-Goose move calmly among the Bar-headed Goose, the usual string of questions began to flutter through my mind.

• Will it ever find its way back to its original flock?

• Can it keep up with the Bar-headed Goose, especially during their high-altitude migration?

• What made it stray in the first place?

I even wondered, half seriously, if the Bar-headed Goose had held some kind of referendum before accepting this wayward visitor into their ranks. After all, the Taiga Bean-Goose benefits from the safety of the flock, but what do the Bar-headed Goose gain from bringing along this feathered outsider? 

It felt like an act of wild kindness, no hesitation, no judgment, just inclusion.

Over time, I found answers to some of these questions. As for the rest, the instinct behind flock acceptance, the emotional logic of geese, their mysteries stories behind the detours still linger, floating in the background like birds in an open sky.

As a birder, you eventually cross paths with vagrants, the rare ones that show up where they don’t quite belong. With a treasure map,  you chase them across towns and wetlands. Some vagrants blend into flocks, finding unexpected company. Others wander alone, silent and striking against the landscape.

Chasing a vagrant bird isn’t easy. It’s a rare, mostly once-in-a-lifetime chance. But just like Murphy’s Law, something important always seems to come up in life right when the bird shows up! I’ve been lucky to catch a few of these rare visitors, each one a small miracle, each sighting a story of its own. Here are a few of them.

Seeing a vagrant bird always leaves me with mixed emotions. There’s the immediate rush, the thrill and gratitude of witnessing something so rare. But alongside the excitement, there's a quiet sadness, especially for the ones traveling alone. I can’t help but wonder: Will they ever make it home?

My thoughts drift as I watch them. I try and imagine what it must feel like, to be on a journey, lose your way, and suddenly find yourself in a strange land. If it were me, would I be lucky enough to find a new flock? Or would I land somewhere completely alone? And then it hits me, maybe we all go through vagrant phases in life.

• We take a new job: unfamiliar place, new people. We adapt.

• Getting married: new routines, new “flock.” We calibrate .

• We stand up for our values and suddenly find ourselves in uncomfortable, even lonely, territory. We survive.

• We go through heartbreaks that push us into silent, solitary spaces. We heal.

• Any act that pushes us beyond comfort zone, stepping into the unknown, facing new fears, migrating into unfamiliar territory feels like a personal migration. We learn.

Like vagrant birds, we don't always choose the detour. But when it happens, we adapt, we calibrate, we survive, we heal, we learn. And over time, what once felt foreign becomes part of our story.

Maybe, like the Taiga Bean-Goose among the Bar-headed Geese, it's not always about returning. Sometimes it's about how gracefully we carry ourselves in the unfamiliar. How we keep going. How, even in our loneliest moments, there's quiet resilience.

And just as we birders celebrate the unexpected arrival of a vagrant bird, rushing with binoculars and cameras in hand, smiling wide. We can learn to celebrate the vagrant phases of our own lives. Those moments of uncertainty, solitude, and change... they might just be the most defining ones of all.