A master camouflage. The smallest of a rag tag inconsequential nest. Almost like the few remaining sinews of an old old nest. And a pulse of life throbbing to bide precious time. Each beat counts. It means a huge step towards free-winged flights in a few days. Here each second counts. It's a laughing dove hatchling.
Well, a dove is a dove indeed. A silent most stoic bird. I always wonder how come they even survive as rest of the birds appear to be angrily, enthusiastically and energetically competitive. Doves look like the ascetics of the birdie world, always sitting silently on the laid back sidelane. I even laughed at them as lazy ones, having witnessed seemingly half-hearted attempts at patching up a famished little nest that would allow the mother to put merely paws in the middle, leaving rest of her body out. But then i also had an inkling about mother existence's ways of squaring up things even in those apparently weak cases where the odds appear terribly against them. Now this hatchling clings almost unseen, barely at a height of 8-9 feet. Cats have been duped. Even a greater coucal, ill famed for spotting tiniest of nests in the foliage, sat a few yards away on the wall and missed it. Wonderful!
Well, these are Laotsian birds. They win by not fighting outrightly. Their strength is their patience, composure and calmness. They go about their nesting business almost imperceptibly. After the hatching, the already famished nesting hut has lost many more sinews to make it look like the useless wreckage of a many season old little nest. And on its edge, lost in the colours of deception, throbs the prospect of a life. The only clue to what is going on is the laughing museful song of the laughing dove parents now and then from a distance. They hardly raise a ruckus when i check out their little household, as if under a mystical realisation that that which can't be cured, must be endured. They stoically do what they can, and watch over the unmanageable without that typical browbeating.
Imagine, last season an oriental white eye had patched up the littlest of nesting cup. It was a wonder of nesting architecture. So small, hidden under the leaves. But its symmetry turned it outstanding. The predatory caucal spotted it, leaving me flabbergasted how come its radar caught this few grams of grassy cup weaved with such effort. And now this apparently clumsy jottiing of few dry twigs and pieces of dry grass, in the branches of a small tree, barely 8-9 feet above the ground, and not even hidden too much in the foliage, carries its success story so far. The altruistic attitude of doves takes them onto a path of surrendering spontaneity, a sort of open hearted acceptance, which hardly creates ripples on the stage of life, allowing them to carry out this cute coup. Well, may be they laugh so cutely to be named laughing turtles. Possibly, they laugh at this world competing on the scales of complexity, while they laze around in the hazy sunshine of early winter and laugh out into the cool air.
