Some moments cocooned in late autumn

 

Like a submissive protagonist in the seasonal play directed by nature, late autumn is handing over the baton to early winter. A rufous treepie, a dweller of the hills and now here for the winter stay, is seen on the gulmohar tree, picking dry ends of the branches to make a nest. Their distinct sound sails over the chirpy songs of the resident species with a palpable dissonance. The migratory couple is exploring a suitable nesting site among a clump of trees in the courtyard of an unoccupied house in the neighborhood. They but see a lot of monkeys in the locality and sensing the dangers born of the simian mischief they abandon the plan. Common sense seems their handmaiden. Ours seems a pale imitation of the unadulterated sense found among the non-human species.

Rockchats are very unassuming and non-pompous birds. A rockchat couple prefers to fly into the verandah to pick ants, spiders and even baby lizards if they are lucky on their menu for the day. They sometimes hop into the room and with an anecdotal perch stare into the dressing table glass with a mysterious clarity and certitude. The couple seems very happy in spending their days hopping and flying in the garden, yard and verandahs. It’s a silent, non-interfering bird. It’s nice to have them around. Both of them somehow add to the silence and solitude around me.

Even early winter has soaring daytime temperature. You can feel the heat. But the putative votaries of superstardom, the lethal shenanigans, the perpetrators of ideological excesses are busy in building hypersonic missiles. China is desperately scavenging for superpower status. They are taking panga with everyone around. It looks a myopic venture. I think they have preponed their jump onto the hot seat by a decade. They could have waited for some more time. Amidst all these bleeding-heart clichés, climate change is too common an issue to grab anyone’s attention. So the planet keeps smoldering.  

But still as an ode to the autumn, dry neem leaves drizzle down carrying the nostalgic nuances of better times when autumns were real autumns, not just in name like now. What is a dry neem leaf by the way? It’s but a bit naughty dust that rustles and rollers over; a kind of bit of earth flying for some fun. While, a flying bird is almost a visible representative of air.

In the curry patta leaves, there is a tiny ball of honeybees and near it a nest of spotted doves. It’s a peaceful and patient couple. They seem to have waited on the sidelines as other bird couples stole the procreative show during the monsoons. They reserved their love for late autumn and now slowly walk onto the stage.

The banana flower cone has oriental white eyes also. It’s a beautiful, tiny, light-green bird with a white ring around their eyes. Beyond the bloodthirsty beats of the human civilization, they are happy taking little sips from the dangling scarlet banana cone. In the mornings, there are beads of dew on the cone and these little birds just love breakfasting upon them.