In company with birds and animals

 

A basket is toppled. With typical simian assiduity, a mama monkey meddles with peace in the courtyard. The tiny imp on her back holds a raw banana as she expertly escapes. I can just bang a hollow bamboo on the parapet wall. She beautifully glides in air as she jumps to the other roof across the twelve-foot wide street. The baby safely perched on her back and holding the green banana as the trophy of their effort gives me a taunting, smirking look, as if to say, ‘You are no match for my mama!’

Even the doves, despite the foreordained tragedy about to take place in the scraggy, sparse nest, sometimes go against their nature and turn a fighter. A docile dove is a beautiful sight but to have these lovely cooing moments they need to fight with talons sometimes. It enkindles some faint hope for the hatchling in the nest—it’s a miracle that at least one egg was spared and there is a funny, hairless plump chick, forcing me to count it as a success even if it dies the same day. But there is every chance that you will be disappointed if you nurture hopes about the doves successfully raising a brood. I haven’t seen a single successful case in dozens of episodes witnessed over the decades.

The conspicuous calls of the long-tailed rufous treepie carry reminiscences from the hills. Sometimes they seem throwing a weighty pun at the local birds. It’s a migrant couple with cinnamon body, black head and bluish grey long graduated tail. These treepies are known to keep a covetous eye for the eggs and hatchlings of smaller birds. So the little ball of meat in the dove’s fragile, clearly visible nest has caught the treepie’s attention. The predator makes frequent forays to taste it. The doves don’t stand a chance against an eagle. But they think they can give it a fight against the treeepie. The moment the treepie lands on the curry-leaf tree, the doves turn soldierly and chase it away. The intruder takes off with a loud and shrill ko-ko-ko-ko. It kept coming for three days but the doves defended well.

As I have emphasized it many times, a dove hatchling needs to be very lucky to survive. The resident cats have smelt feline girls outside the fence. It meant at least the eggs survived. It seems the honey buzzer has found honey somewhere else, so it hasn’t turned up for the last few days. And now the challenger to its survival happens to be a treepie against which the docile doves can feign bravery for some time. Accepted that we need luck to survive but effort is luck’s operational part.