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| The Elusive Koel |
I’ve always lived in ground floor
houses and may be that is why I have always nurtured this fascination for
houses on upper storeys. While we had lived in the same ground floor house for the
first twenty years of my life, given the Other Half’s passion for gardening, I’ve again,
in my later life lived in ground floor houses, most of them with large
gardens. So this time when I shifted into a first floor house for a change, I
was happy. And the icing on my cake of happiness was the balcony. It’s a medium
sized affair and being accessible from both the bedrooms, offers a great view
of the outside from within the rooms themselves. A large part of the balcony’s charms are the four
trees growing just beyond it. Two are neem trees, the third a wild tamarind and
the fourth a straggler yet unidentified. Spring in this city had been especially
generous this year and probably because of this, the trees are lush with
leaves, forming a cool green canopy around my balcony. It’s a real pleasure to
sit there in the mornings, in the cool of the early dawn, sip my favourite
Darjeeling tea [steeped, not brewed ;-)] and watch the birds beginning their
day. This post is actually about these birds and not about the balcony. The balcony bit was just a prologue.
The birds
I never knew this dry as dust city was
home to so many birds. A jungle of unattractive concrete buildings, potholed
roads, rotting garbage dumps, maniacal traffic, a dying river and singular lack
of greenery, this city bore me no appeal whatsoever; till one day standing on
my balcony I saw the birds! Attracted by the greenery of my neighbourhood, which
probably is the last surviving green in this city, they have made this place
their sanctuary. And my four trees are avian prime estates, offering premium
green shade, good quality sturdy branches and excellent nesting options in the
form of large tree holes (these have PLCs attached to them, by the way!). The
neem trees are for some reason the most preferred and at present families of
various species of birds have made it their home and nursery. Standing on the
balcony, almost at eye level with these nests, I am a silent but highly
interested spectator of their daily routine.
Brown-headed Barbet. This
gentleman was hitherto unfamiliar to me and so at first glance, I mistook him
for a kingfisher. But on closer scrutiny I realised he is quite distinct
from a kingfisher. Firstly, his beak, in comparison to that of the kingfisher’s,
is huge, like Gerard Depardieu’s nose in ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’. Then, his eyes,
which , unlike the kingfisher’s, are great dark orbs ringed with brown that
occupy a large portion of his head and for some reason remind me of a goggling
Salman Khan in Maine Pyar Kiya. However handsome you may say Salman Khan is,
folks, I think he goggles too much. The barbet’s call too is very distinctive,
a guttural but musical twrooot trwooot twroooot which he belts out with
unfailing regularity in the peak heat of the afternoons, jolting me from my
post lunch snooze. Finally, it’s the barbet’s colour which is a lovely
fluorescent green unlike the electric blue of the kingfishers. ( Are there
green kingfishers? I have yet to see a one, though I have seen plenty of blue
ones). In sharp contrast, his head is a rather mousy brown (that is why the
name ‘brown headed barbet’) and here I feel a bright yellow or a bright red would
have been much more
suited. But I guess nature had exhausted her store of colours by the time she
created the barbet’s head and so he has to, perforce, be satisfied with the
brown. And I know exactly who hijacked his share of red and yellow ...it’s
those cackling parrots that inhabit the tamarind tree and spend their time swooping
around showing off their yellow and red heads ......!Anyway, our brown headed
barbet is at present unconcerned about superficialities like feather colours as
he is in a steady relationship. His partner is just like him, only slimmer and
together they have occupied a hole in one of the neem trees and are nesting
there. They spend the entire day flitting around in flashes of green, carrying insects
in their beaks to feed the barbet brood. I haven’t yet had a glimpse of the
young ones as the tree hole is on my leeward side, but judging from the intensely
busy parents, I guess there must be a sizeable number of them.
The Mynahs. A
pair of Common Indian Mynahs (‘shaliks’ in Bong) have rented the tree hole just
above the barbets and the two neighbours spend the entire daytime squabbling,
name calling and intimidation, in keeping with the best traditions of ‘mere
pyare padosi’. I did a bit of reading on these birds and found to my amusement,
that of the number of Sanskrit names given to them, one is ‘Kalahapriya’ or 'the
one who loves a ruckus'. So very apt. But however ‘kalahapriya’ they may be ,
you cannot deny that they have such beautiful eyes.....jet black rimmed with a kajal
of bright ochre yellow and tapering elegantly to a point: ‘Meenakshi’ or the
fish eyed one....! But they have none of a Meenakshi’s grace or sophistication;
rather they are the local goons and my Barbet has his work cut out for him,
defending his flat from their unauthorised encroachment attempts.
Last Sunday, I was having tea and day
dreaming on my balcony, when I happened to look down upon the road below my
flat. I found a mynah fledgling sitting on the ground and none of the raucous parents
in sight. At first I thought that maybe the kid was being taught to fly. But then
when I saw that the little one was sitting a little too patiently as if waiting
for something to happen, I realised something was amiss. So I went down and
picked the baby up. I realised that since it was too young to fly (its eyes
were still closed), it must have fallen off the nest. Now, not being the
physical activity inclined and having never ever climbed a single tree in my
life, I was at a loss as to how to replace the lost kid back into its nest. I
consulted Other Half and for once he too was flummoxed. Then I had an idea. I
summoned a nearby parked truck and requested the driver if he could climb up on
its roof and place the mynah back into its nest. Thankfully and to my pleasant
surprise, the rough talking, heavily moustachioed, ‘member of the local akhara’
kind of driver agreed immediately (rather uncharacteristically, I thought).
Nestling the little bird with surprising tenderness in his huge beefy hands, he
swiftly climbed up the truck’s roof. Then because the nest was still higher up,
he actually clambered up the tree and placed the baby back gently in its nest;
helped in his endeavour in no mean measure by Other Half. And during this
entire operation, the mynah parents did not do much, except issuing one or two
half hearted screeches when my 6 month old too curious Labrador tried to sniff
at their baby. I really wouldn’t give these birds many marks for their
parenting skills. The barbets I think are better parents; but then who am I to
judge...
The Owls
When I sit in my balcony, at the exact
level of my eyes is a tree hole where an owl couple have taken up abode. I am
yet to determine the exact species to which these owls belong but I can tell
you that they are only slightly smaller than a crow, white with plenty of grey-black
markings, are both nocturnal and ‘dayturnal’(diurnal) and look quite
intelligent. Now I say that because unlike the barbets whose goggle eyed gaze makes
you suspect their intellect, the owl’s goggle (if you can call it that) for some
unfathomable reason, gives an impression of great wisdom. And this is further
enhanced by the slow motion horizontal bobbing of their heads which they resort
to now and then. It actually reminds me of my super brainy friends from the
South whose horizontal head bobbing famously indicated comprehension.
The owls have at present abandoned the
tree hole as the kids are all grown up, but they still inhabit my trees. I see them often, sometimes the parents and at other times
the kids, sitting quietly atop a neem branch and gazing at me in benign
fondness. And at night I can hear them babbling away happily in owl-tongue on
the branch just above my pillow. In the dark of the night especially when there
is a powercut and all else is shadowy, silent and sinister, it is reassuring to
hear them chatter unconcerned, just next to you.
Others of the Menagerie
A number of hornbills also live in the neighbourhood, though not on my trees.
They prefer the eucalyptus tree, of which there are plenty in the area, each one
taller than the other. The hornbill’s dusky grey colour melts into the grey of
the eucalyptus bark, creating the perfect camouflage; probably that is why they
prefer these trees. I think a pair of them have nested on a nearby eucalyptus , but the
tree being a trifle far away, I can’t be very sure. Unlike the chatty mynahs or noisy parrots, these birds, like village elders, are silent, composed and exclusive. They however, share one
thing in common with the barbets: their mammoth beaks. I sometimes think that
these beaks must occupy a place of pride in the avian community, like the
moustaches of Rajputs at the Pushkar Mela.
Then there are the tiny sunbirds, colourful, iridescent pixies
that flit from branch to branch like butterflies. They are so swift and so
restive that I have still not been able to capture them on film. Though they
are not hummingbirds, I have seen them hover confidently over flowers, just
like hummingbirds. My curiosity roused, I read up about them and thus came
to know that though the sunbirds and hummingbirds originate from independent
ancestors, they show what is known as ‘convergent evolution’, that is they have
a large number of similar features viz. their small size, long thin curved
beak, bright colours, nectar drinking habit and of course the ability to
hover.....
Another pixie like flitter is the Indian Magpie-Robin, or the Doyel. I
don’t know what it is called in Hindi but it is ubiquitous in India and I personally have spotted
these birds all over the country. The Doyel wears
a little black dress but with a difference. Its LBD has splashes of white on
the front and on the tail , a bold style statement. And it can sing too, a melodious call that
can give the Koel a run for its money.
As for the Koel, I have yet to see a
bird more shy and introverted than them. They keep up their incessant song from
dawn to dusk, filling the skies with plaintive longing; but try as you might,
you will never be able to spot them at their perch. Its like they are
completely invisible. Only once, did I actually manage to spot one of them, perched high
above my balcony, on the tamarind tree; a shapeless black mass silhouetted against a darkening
sky. Rarely, you can spot
them as they rush by in a clumsy flap of wings, as if they are ashamed of
their ungainly looks and are in a hurry to disappear from your sight.
And before I end, I must tell you
about my friend, the Heron. Spotting a heron in my neighbourhood is like
spotting a dolphin in the desert because the place where I live has no lake, no
river, no pond, no water body, not even an ornamental fountain.....! Indian
Pond Herons usually live near and forage in ponds or inundated paddy fields
(these too are absent in my neighbourhood) and so spotting one here was quite a surprise. On closer scrutiny, I realised that a small
concrete drain carrying storm water runs through this area and my friend was actually fishing
here. The mystery of his presence solved, we now took to admiring each other. The heron is of the
size of a hen, brown with dull white and black streaks. It looks as if it has got a pronounced
crick in its neck as it rarely ever extends the neck to its full
length and in the process ends up looking like a hunchback! Most of the time, I have seen it
treading with careful, measured steps on the grassy bank of the storm drain and
eyeing me with interest as I walk back home in the afternoons. If startled, say
by a stray dog or a whizzing car, it takes off in a graceful swoop, its wings
now stretched out in their full white beauty. Of late my friend is missing, may
be because the drain has dried out in the summer heat. But I hope he?/she?
will be back once the monsoons arrive to fill the drain with rainwater
and we could then take to admiring each other once again.
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| Brown Headed Barbet |
