The little birdie lad

 

It’s a tailorbird boy. I remember it tagging around its parents among the garden plants, its parents shouting the moment you stepped into the zone where it was hiding. That was during the winters and it was really smart of them to keep their chick out of the dining table of the brown female feral cat that sunned itself on the premises. Now in this early May heat I think the adolescent tailorbird chick is on its own. I don’t think it goes out of the garden walls. It has enough among the plants and trees in the yard to meet its dietary requirements.

The boy tailorbird has chosen an interesting place to sleep during the night. There is an iron hook in the once barn wall—now housing my dented old car instead of mother’s buffalos and cows—about five feet from the ground. From it hangs a dusted polybag having dried flowers meant to be used as seeds next spring and a couple of thin rubber tubes hanging in loops. And in one loop there it perches for the night.

The birdie boy retires early for the day, when it’s still bright enough to see it sitting at its place. It doesn’t mind our moving around the perch on our normal routine tasks. But it has almost crashed into my nose a couple of times when I inadvertently went too close to its house.

At night it almost mixes with the surroundings by raising its fluffy fur and drawing itself into a little ball. Since it’s an adolescent boy, it’ll be a dashing handsome man by the time the monsoons arrive a couple of months down the line. I hope by that time it will be grown enough to have a partner.