Early Bird held a Bird Rhyme contest in September 2019 asking people to indulge in writing short, witty poems on five common birds - Indian Roller, Paradise Flycatcher, Pied Cuckoo, Purple Heron, and Purple Sunbird. The response to the contest was overwhelming.

The participants let their creative juices flow describing the dazzling colours, fancy plumes and flashy moves of the birds. We received a total of 117 entries of which 46 contributions were for Purple Sunbird, 24 for Pied Cuckoo, 13 for Paradise Flycatcher, 19 Indian Roller and 15 contributions for Purple Heron.

A big thank you to all you creative folks for your enthusiastic contributions.

We had fun going through all the entries but it was quite an uphill task for team Early Bird to shortlist the top 5 Bird rhymes.

Congrats Anu Rajagopal, Anupa, Aparajita Dutta, Garima Bhatia, Kalpana Jayaram, Madhavi Raj, Manjari Jain, Nisha Bhakat, Niyati Mirajkar, Peeyush Sekhsaria, Puja Sharma, Rahul Narlanka, Rama, Ramya Coushik, Sailee Sakhalkar, Suchi Govindarajan, Swathi Sidhu, and Vinay for making it to the top five.

Hearty Congratulations! Madhavi Raj, Rahul Narlanka and Suchi Govindarajan for making it to the final list. Your Bird Rhymes will be featured on the Early Bird bookmarks.

The Early Bird bookmarks with beautifully illustrated birds by artist Smita Kaushik and poetry by the winners of the Bird Rhyme contest will be available soon.

Apart from the above contributions we received entries in vernacular languages too. Few of the best rhymes are below