Earth Sublime

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Of trees, birds and neigbours

Numerous trees compete for space in my garden – the jackfruit, the guava, the sixty years plus coconut trees, the pomegranate, sandal, plaintain leaf, jamun, papaya and the mango. Hence, this attracts birds to my home in large numbers. Of late, there is a constant visitor who never fails to turn up every day -the hoopoe. It is a bird brown in colour and what saves it from appearing ordinary is its crest. Along with its partner, it can be seen digging in my garden and fishing out insects from the ground. Both of them are quite at ease coming to my home and probably regard us as their friends. Sometimes, it is seen unfurling its wings and shaking its crest.

At home, during this monsoon season we have had small birds building nests and starting to feed their young ones - The tailor birds on the Jack Champak sapling, sunbirds on the Mango and 'Nerale' tree, Oriental Magpie robins, red vented bulbul, including one of the smallest of birds - the flower pecker bird. Even the sparrows nest under the roof tiles. The young one of the flower pecker bird can be seen sitting on the small pomegranate tree. The parents closely watch and feed their young ones with accurate precision every one and a half minutes. Sometimes, other birds like the sun bird and the tailor bird searching for insects come near to the baby flower pecker bird. On one occasion, the young one opened its mouth wide demanding food from this sunbird also. Though the chick is young it can hop, fall from the branches, move to the other twig and even kill the red ants. Sometimes though, it gets bitten by the red ants as well. And, it is still surviving. We have seen some of them sucessfully reaching adulthood and the this life cycle is repeated again.


Many of our neighbours remark that we have such a large space in front of our roof tiled house. They wonder as to why we have let trees and bushes grow wild and also as to why can’t we demolish our old house and construct a new one adding a few shops as well and then rent it out. But we feel the pleasure derived of having trees and birds nesting in them cannot be exchanged for any monetary considerations. Perhaps, the newly planted gooseberry, bamboo and other saplings will grow fast and dense so as to shield our house from prying eyes and well-meaning neighbours.