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Each spring, a certain stretch of Delhi’s Outer Ring Road turns a delicate shade of red as new leaves appear on a row of Pilkhans. Somewhere in the salt-encrusted flats of Najafgarh, greater flamingos take long strides on their dainty legs. Scores of fireflies light up the dark corners of a city forest. Jackals appear briefly on jogging tracks before scurrying away, and a saw-scaled viper basks in the sun on a slope of the Aravalis in the southern ridge. These are the sights from the wilderness that remain hidden to most people in Delhi, too busy to look beyond the car ahead of them.

Yet Delhi has the distinction of having the second-highest avian diversity among all the capital cities of the world, with over 400 species of birds recorded so far. As birds are widely acknowledged to be important markers of the health of a land and its ecosystems, it says something about the habitats that sustain them in this ever-growing megapolis. If one adds more than 250 species of trees, 65 species of butterflies, 25 species of snakes, along with a host of large and small mammals, amphibians and insects, Delhi has a lot going for itself.

This abundance...

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