Go into the lap of nature and seek at the most
mundane of places away from the disillusioning hoot and holler. I feel the deep
pools of universal compassion as the major constituent of the cosmic energy
transforming around us. Come, give me company while I tell a small tale of love
and parental care. It’s primarily about unconditional love without which the
shapeless fluid in tiny eggs won’t change into thriving, vibrant, hopping
winged life. There is an existential intelligence of love containing the secret
of creation. It sustains this amazing burst of life around us.
I see a tireless woman who is camera shy. During the breaks it takes rest on
the wire and there I go to take a picture. But it is really shy and doesn’t
allow me to click her with a close-up smile, forcing me to take a look at some
sister model of hers from the internet to know more about her species. Unmindful
of my curiosity-driven poking in her affairs, she is busy all day in knitting a
little cup of love on the branch of our Parijat
(night flowering Jasmine) for the new lives inside her. Well, best of luck soon
to be mom, little red vented bulbul!
Taking inspiration from her hard
work, I too decide to contribute to the cause and keep a watch on the
neighborhood goon, the big rascally cat, as big as a leopard cat in the wild. I
think my stick also needs to be in the scene somewhere.
No need to mention that her husband is a loafer and does
less work, fools around more. Possibly in the guise of warning tweets, it
flirts with the lady birds around. Well, not that scandalous because all men
are like that. He is just true to his salt. So forgetting about him, we can
talk a bit about red vented bulbul in general.
They are tentative smoke brown birds, double the size of
common sparrow and have partially crested black head that gives them a
semi-hawk, stern look. There is a very attractive crimson patch below the root
tail. Their white rump is very prominent in flight. They can be very angry for
their size. I am wondering about the shape and location of the nest. It doesn't
look too safe. It is simply a cup of rootlets. But then possibly they are
confident of defending the citadel.
All is well so far with the usual struggle. The net is set
up followed by laying eggs. I have chased away the cat many times. It has
stopped visiting. Ironically there are always counterpoints in nature. Once you
have the eggs, you see Shikra, a small hawk bird of the region. At noontime I
hear the parent couple's panicked notes and tweets followed by ruffling of
wings in the branches. I just run out exactly at the moment the hungry hawk is
trying to perch on the delicate branches for a belated egg breakfast. It flows
away and watches from a nearby tree. I loiter around to increase the morale of
the defending force. It makes an attempt again and due to my being still ready
for the job it has to fly away. I see it again the next day and become
painfully sure of its success. Then I just pray that its hunger be quenched
somewhere else, on a dead animal preferably. Thankfully I haven't seen it since
then. Possibly existential intelligence carries out our selfless plans in its
mysterious ways.
The nest is very small and looks a weak fort. Little do I realize
the couple's pugnacity in defending even a weak fort. In any case this is what
that keeps them busy, this ever-on game of survival between life and death.
They don’t have to build space rockets. They are here to simply survive and
survival needs almost 24×7 surveillance and awareness. Contrary to our belief,
it’s the other spices that live in total awareness. Slightest lapse and you are
gone. Since we humans have more time, we can afford to lie idle in unawareness and
get into huge follies.
With my typical human-centric make-believe sense of awareness,
again I poke my nose into their affair and wrap a piece of cloth around the
nest, leaving a hole for the birds to sneak in, making it a better house. In
any case, Mother Nature can do without my discretion. But then I have to take
some credit. The same old human malady, you know. So I presume that possibly
the hawk gets duped in taking it as some human design to capture it.
The hawk is not to be seen around anymore, by the way.
Possibly it has done as little as shift his awareness to some other nest
somewhere else. It comes very easily to them because they don’t have any ego
problem.
I have to take back my words hitting at the father's
laziness. He has earned my respect in many regards. While the mother is in the
creative process of managing the nest, the Dad has been keeping a stern sentry
watch from the vantage points in all this heat. I often see him perched on the
top end of a rusted out-of-use TV antenna pole. Even with hawk birds, few-times
bigger in size, he gives all that a father can. He fluffs his feathers to look
larger and makes cantankerous noise to distract the predator. He keeps on going
very close to the enemy and tow it away with the bait of a larger meal. What
won't parents do for their children! And still we fail to spot love as the
basic ingredient of the cosmic show running around us!
He is freer with crows that are also far bigger in size but
less lethal as a predator, lazier as they are. He just doesn't allow them to
sit anywhere on the surrounding trees, lest they spot his family. The more I
look at it, the more I am sure of the divine intelligence ingrained everywhere.
Whenever he is having a row with a crow, tweeting vivacious abuses at a furious
pace, the group of house sparrows, warblers and sunbirds add to the chorus, forcing
the larger bird to leave the scene in indignation and irritation. And they
don’t even need the certificate of friendship to play their part in the show of
friendliness.
Elsewhere, the collared dove looks silently with her mummed-up
stillness and majesty. The cantankerous babblers just babble in a group
possibly chasing a cat or even some little snake. Sternly professional mynah goes
with an air of well-meant business. Peacocks, exiled by pesticides in the
fields, sing mourning songs in the village. But who cares about the multi-colored
wonder of nature.
Monsoon has been normal, so everything is richly green.
Butterflies go with honeyed business among the bougainvillea flowers that
bloom to wildish proportions. And most importantly, I see the parents ferrying
insects, grass seeds and worms into the nest. Possibly hatchlings are there,
one step further.
Creation takes another tiny step towards fulfillment of the
divine goal. I hear very faint chirping. Yea, new life! A new beginning in the
stream of existence that links all of us. Life is just one common force driven
by cosmic intelligence and it blooms in endless forms and avatars. Another drop
of existence manifesting in the sea of supreme existence. Well, best of luck bulbuls!
Let's hope all goes well.
They must have gone a bit far this day. I hardly expect such
casual attitude from them but grab the chance to have a look into the nest.
Aha, life from close quarters, so open, transparent, innocent, vulnerable and
optimistic at the same time. Shaped out of the fluid. Soft, almost transparent
maroon-red balls. Their beaks are always open. The parents are busy throughout
the day, still it falls short. They have to eat relentlessly, grow as fast as
possible and beat the moment that may undo it all.
A squirrel lets loose a chit-chatty chorus. A group of
parrots passes with a fruitful shriek. A tatihiri
(lapwing) goes on a trumpeting hoot, possibly happy for its correct monsoon
forecast. A butterfly darts from bougainvillea to motia to mogra to rajnigandha to sunhair. The butterflies appear like the flowers’ extended self
dissolved in airy flirts. There are more birds than a decade back and it gives
some hope that Mother Nature isn't totally angry on us.
Now it turns out to be a roller coaster week involving lots
of noise. Well, the hatchlings have jumped out of the nest. I marvel at the change
from a soft tiny ball of meat to a handsome toddler. All that incessant feeding
bears fruits a bit quickly from human standards. There is no pause at this
level in nature. One miss, and you are gone.
I see one of them in the shrub below the nest. The parents
never fall short of nibbling at crows’ feathers whenever they happen to be in
the near vicinity. The father especially doesn't allow any bigger bird to perch
on any nearby vantage point that may expose the tiny hatchling.
They are all day putting out different sounds to communicate
in a mysterious way. The language of survival with its syllables of love. Presently
they spiritedly object whenever I am nearby. I respect their ownership of the
tree. In the scheme of things, they own it before me. I don't know about the
other hatchling, maybe it's there also in the shrubs, may be it hasn't
survived. Well, I am not looking for it either, because whenever I do they
abuse vivaciously and I feel like an intruder in the scheme of nature. Let's
hope this hatchling takes its first flight in the next couple of days. All the
best little one/ones!
Well, it turns out to be a happy ending. The little one stays
on the tree, after coming out of the nest, for couple of days. Remains
completely subdued, glued to a branch for two days while the parents ferry
food. On the second day it drizzles almost throughout the day. It stays like a
cute little ball under a cluster of leaves. It even jerks its feathering and
coat to shake off water. Well, then possibly it gets bored. It’s too difficult
for somebody to sit like that in childhood. After all, it’s pure, happy energy
unburdened of life’s thousand and one concerns.
In the evening it stops drizzling and away it goes on its
first sortie under a heavy shadow of clouds. Due to the monsoons everything
has almost double foliage. It helps him. I can see the parents loitering around
on a cluster of keekars nearby. More
than the little one, I am sure of the parents' ability to defend it. So I don't
see any big hassles.
They are no longer bothered about the tree and the nest that
they defended so stoutly for a month. They possess a thing in totality unlike
we humans who do it in fragments, which unfortunately makes us run forever. Now
they possess that cluster of lush green keekars.
I can see the father perched on that dead keekar
tree at his sentry point. Well, the world is better with at least one, and
hopefully two, bulbuls. Well done both you husband and wife!
Even a prickly keekar appears so luxurious in the monsoon season. The little
one must be in the cluster of trees, a larger world, learning the tricks of the
trade. I can see the parents loitering around very cautiously for the next
two weeks. They have a stern look and stout defenders of their rights for
their size. Just watching them busy, I can surmise that they still have the
little one somewhere in the branches to get them fulfilling the parental
duties. But now they look more relaxed, a clear signal that the young bird is
growing well.
After exactly two weeks of its first
flight to a bigger cluster of trees, this breezy morning, I see the fruits of
their struggle. It is growing. Boy or girl, I don’t know. In any case, they
don't bother about such gender issues. Their duty is full, not fragmented. It
has a slight plumage and a slender crown on its black head. It is sitting on a
high branch. And parents tweet from a distance. There it goes with a free swirl
followed by the proud Ma and Pa. They aren't concerned about the nest. They own
everything and nothing at the same time.
Well the tree has new tenants, a
pair of spotted munia. The already existing bulbul nest is still cozy but they
don't care about anything that doesn’t belong to them. They have made a new
globular grassy citadel still higher on the tree. All bird species have their
own types of standard, customized nests. They don’t have memory chambers to
retain all that information. In any case, memories are created basically with
learnt knowledge. Without trying to learn anything, they simply do it when it
needs to be done. Well, do we need more proofs of existential intelligence?
Coming to spotted munia, these are
smaller birds, the size of house sparrows. To ensure better probability for
their nestlings to survive, they need a better accommodation. A bit down the
new nest is another world, a tiny hammock cup nest of an oriental white eye. Little
worlds within a small world in a cluster of small tress.
The oriental white eye sits sternly
with its white band around the eyes. The more I see, the more I realize the
design of existential intelligence. These birds weigh a few grams and look at their
feats. The codes of existential intelligence are very smartly written. All this
won’t be possible if love doesn’t define the lives of each and everything in
setting up the course where they love their offsprings more than their own
lives. This love is the fuel of creation. Salutes to the supreme power!
There is no individually separate life. It is just an
ever-evolving, transforming process. All apparent forms are merely part and
parcel of the ever-expanding stream of energy. Individuality is simply apparent on
the surface because of the certain frequencies behind the shapes on which
creation is moving ahead in a particular sequence. But you still feel elated
when you see a milestone reached in the process. And here is the family: Ma, Pa
and the young bulbul. I see the
happy family on a dry crowning branch against blue skies overlaid with domes of
floating white monsoon clouds. The moment stands at the cusp of a small
milestone on the countless highways of creation.
They have built up the bridge to the continuation of ‘life
and living’ from their tiny point in the infinite scheme through their selfless
work of the last few weeks. The father, as they are, is aloof, to the left.
Ever pampering mother, like they are everywhere, is nearby to the right. And in
the middle is the prince/princess, the fruitful outcome of love.
The little one is almost the size of its mother. I can
recognize it only because it still has the childish manner of opening its
beak and shakes its wings expecting to be fed an insect. It is gradually
opening to free flights in an open world. It darts quite sharply, a bit
erratically though, and is seen out of the cluster of trees where it has been
hiding for the last two weeks.
They are still concerned about their little one. And they
will continue dutiful to their task till the day when it will take to the skies
of its own. The father takes liberties to be off the scene these days, and must
be definitely flirting somewhere. The mother, on the other hand, is just busy
with single point focus. I cannot see any other priority for her right now. She
makes sounds particular to their species and type. The little one is being
trained in different tones of sounds, for alerts, for socializing, for love and
who knows what other coquettes of the birdie world. I even hear it imitating
and responding to her.
On this despondent day, she nibbles at a guava on the courtyard
wall and the young one looks keenly. It also imitates its mother and takes
beakfuls of guava. It must have really liked it because it continues greedily
till a flock of sparrows lands and teases it by pecking at its tail. It then flows
away with visible irritation.
Now they take even bigger sorties in the open chunk of free
skies. But off and on, I see the mother and kid, and sometimes the father also,
on the dry branches of the dead keekar
tree from where the father scouted the skies for predators during the nesting
phase. Well, it has been a happy story. Well done bulbul pair. And best of luck
little one!
Don’t you see love in fluid motion
across the stream of this story? Try reading it again if you missed it. The
secret of love lies in such pleasing anecdotes perpetually unfolding in the lap
of Mother Nature.
