Lately

A few days back I revived my Instagram account. Do look it up if you are around: http://instagram.com/anvita_lakhera
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Remember a post I did on reading and how publishing is "whitest white and male dominated". Well, if you've followed recent events then you'd have come across this (among many articles regarding the same on the 'watermelon joke'):
Why is American book publishing so white: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/dec/02/american-publishing-white

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In other news, they are back in town. Migrant gulls in large numbers come flying over the city rivers in winter, be it the Hudson or the Thames. White darts swooshing past my windows, carrying sunlight on their wings. 

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While the resident house sparrows seem much satisfied with the bounty offered by grasses going to seed. Thank you very much.

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At some point in time autumn without a word to anyone, adhering to a well-clocked schedule, peaked. All before the rains came in.

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Sleet on Thanksgiving brought to mind what it would be like in the coming months. Autumn is a far-away dream. Already.

“Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.”
– Mark Strand, “Lines for Winter”  (RIP elegant, beautiful poet.)

Ghosts of Gone Birds / Extinct Boids

What is the purpose of art? Where does its power lie? The answer to such questions vary depending on one’s state of mind– sanguine, cynical or pragmatic. Regardless of what the answers maybe, my favourite ongoing art project is ‘Ghostsof Gone Birds’. Over 200 artists, writers and musicians attempt to breath life into birds long gone (in large part due to human actions) so that other living birds that are under threat may survive. A part of the profit from the sale of the original art works and 50% of royalties from the book are donated to critical bird conservation efforts worldwide.

The book: a visual record of the four exhibitions

Some pages from the book.

The Snail-Eating Coua, Chris Harrendence (left) and Brace's Emerald, Victoria Billet (top right)

Another rendition of the Snail-Eating Coua, Brandon Lodge

The Snail-Eating Coua, a non-parasitic cuckoo from Madagascar became extinct in the 19th century. Deforestation, introduction of Black Rats (that competed with them for food) and domestic cats (that preyed on them) lead to their demise. Brace's Emerald hummingbird lived in Bahamas since the Pleistocene became extinct due to habitat loss and destruction (by agriculture) at the end of 19th century.

Margaret Atwood's knitted Great Auk

Last recorded sighting in 1852, the Great Auk once common in the waters of North Atlantic was important to Native Americans both as food and a cultural symbol. Used as fish bait and hunted for its beak, skin and feathers the species became extinct from the face of the earth, despite late efforts to save the birds.

Not just illustrations, even words bear witness to the silenced voices

When Ralph Steadman was asked to contribute one work of art, he, in what comes as no surprise, provided a book full of 'Extinct Boids', an illustrated record of extinct and imaginary birds in his inimitable style. The result is this book:

On the cover is the Dodo bird, the unfortunate symbol of all the birds that have been lost and gone forever. Not even a single complete specimen of the bird exists. Appropriately the book begins with an Egret– the bird that was hunted to the brink of extinction for its plumes that adorned women's hats. It was the campaign against plume-hunting that lead to the establishment of RSPB– the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. (In the US it lead to the declaration of the first wildlife refuge, Pelican Island in Florida.)

Japanese Egret

In Ralph Steadman's imagination:
How a Bird is Born
One minute there is an egg, the next there is a boid!
One big push and an inky shake of its plumage, and a boid is boin!

How a Bird is Born

Real and Imagined Boids, 240 pages of them

For more about Extinct Boids click here.

The Peacock

The Peacock we know (and don't know).

A peacock tries to impress a peahen.

The fabulous colours, the result of structural colouration.

Peacock feeding on seeds laid out for birds in a residential locality in India.

The Peacock (male peafowl) with its showy tail and iridescent colours is not just hard to miss but easy to dismiss, except when he spreads his tail and dances. That is the only time when we care for him. Other than that we only think about peacocks when someone says the words ‘National Bird’.

There is much about the peacock that we think we know. But I suspect there is much we don’t.

I could tell you that the iridescence plumage of the peacock isn’t due to colour pigments but is a result of structural colouration– that means the fibres in the tail feathers scatter light, in accordance with a complex optical interference phenomenon (Bragg reflections). And as optical interference depends upon the angle of light, the colours seem to shimmer as we view the peacock from different angles.

But I would rather talk about how the bird, which is a forest dweller, now comes looking for food to houses that are being built on what once was forests. Instead of roosting on trees, the peacocks now settle for the night on cell phone towers that have taken the place of trees.

Peacocks scavenging for food in open garbage dumps was one of the reasons why I started observing birds as a means to understand the impact of human consumption on other living beings. Before that I spent a large part of the day looking at garbage dumps– the other side of human consumption. But garbage dumps aren’t attractive enough to make people understand that their every action has a consequence. Or that there is no such thing as ‘free choice’.

In Silence

Baya Weaver Male. Watercolour pencils on acid free cartridge paper.

Goldfinch on Coneflower. Watercolour pencils on acid free cartridge paper.

Juvenile Indian Silverbill. Watercolour pencils on acid free cartridge paper.

Barn Swallow. Charcoal on acid free cartridge paper. Messy and fun.

The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech. –Vincent van Gogh

The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing...should be taught to every child just as writing is.

    – John Ruskin

Perhaps if people were encouraged to draw something everyday, they'd talk a lot less. They'd begin to appreciate the importance of silence, of observation, of not getting entangled in the outward appearance of things. By watching a pencil slowly follow the contours of the subject, they would learn to edit out the superfluous and the unnecessary; they'd perhaps learn to not just see things but also comprehend them.

It would make the world a more peaceful place, even if all our problems wouldn't get solved (I am certain half of them would) at least there would be a lot more of silence. And when we say we seek peace, we often mean we are looking for silence– an absence of man-made sounds.

That's the limitation as well as the limitlessness of words– their meanings are not locked in some dictionary. We give them meaning. Words by themselves neither hurt us, nor make us happy. It is the intention behind them that does. Humans often confuse the medium for the message. By giving words such absolute power we are neglecting all the other human senses that make us sentient beings.

By making words, and the noise they bring along, the favoured method of expressing ourselves we have lost all other forms of communication. The first being the ability to communicate in silence.

Hold Firm

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(First posted here.)

In the foothills of the Himalayas I came upon a party of Bushtits and Babblers so merry and affable that I had to pause and consider. As a Black-throated Bushtit swung upside down on a branch I almost asked, “How do you manage to keep your wits when the blood rushes up to your head? Don’t you ever get disoriented and lose your grip?” But I did not need a reply. The grip was steady and as easily as it had swung upside down it swung back, and was upright on its feet again.

Perhaps the problem isn’t that the apple cart gets overturned every now and then. Or that what once was infallible no longer holds true. Or that morality gets periodically outdated. Or that ethics follow some (as yet) undefined evolutionary principles. The problem arises when one is so immersed in watching the pendulum swing to this end and then the other and then back again that one loses track of the moment when it is required to be steadfast– to survive and absorb and endure and still be steadfast.*

Though I am sure the Bushtit would have liked to add that a grasp of geomagnetism and the physical laws, is more beneficial than one could ever imagine.

* William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

Snow Day

“The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.”
― Robert Frost, Dust of Snow

The complete album and post is here.

The World is Amazing

“The world, whatever we might think about it terrified by its vastness and by our helplessness in the face of it, embittered by its indifference to individual suffering—of people, animals, and perhaps also plants, for how can we be sure that plants are free of suffering; whatever we might think about its spaces pierced by the radiation of stars, stars around which we now have begun to discover planets, already dead? still dead?—we don’t know; whatever we might think about this immense theater, to which we may have a ticket, but it is valid for a ridiculously brief time, limited by two decisive dates; whatever else we might think about this world—it is amazing.”
― Wisława Szymborska

My most recent cause of amazement was the Red-breasted Flycatcher, which once I spotted it seemed as common as the House Sparrows (making a valiant comeback), reminding me of another red-breasted bird moving through the bare trees in another winter, on another continent. 

At the bird feeders

Bird feeding is perhaps one of the most economical and rewarding of all methods to observe wildlife. Putting out a little food and water is an invitation enough for birds to come calling. And the diversity of birds (and insects) in the neighbourhood is a good indicator of the 'health' of the environment.

However, the path to hell is often paved with good intentions so a word of caution. While a bird feeder can range from a dining plate to a hanging coconut shell, be aware that a dirty bird feeder is a breeding ground for disease. Clean the feeder as often as you clean your teeth– at least once a week. Also while DIY feeders are a celebration of human ingenuity, it is high time that we stop using (let alone reusing) a plastic water bottle and calling it eco-friendly. There is nothing "green" or sustainable about that.

Don't treat birds as a dustbin to discard stale and rotting food. Just like excess of bread and other processed foods like biscuits and chips aren't good for human consumption, similarly they aren't suitable for birds. During breeding season they can prove to be disastrous to the survival of chicks. Buy a bird guide. Get to know your future guests. Find out what they like to eat. Learn their names. Be considerate. Be polite.


The complete photo album is here. The bird feeders in the accompanying photographs are from Kew Gardens.

The Woman Who Stares at Birds

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 
 
While the first part of this aphorism, perhaps, is a caution to activists of all manner and fashion, it is the second part that I can attest to. For I have stared long at birds, and the birds have stared back at me. Though in 99% of the cases it is the birds that have noti

ced me first, what with me being nothing but a clumsy ape.

In the process I am most certain we have gazed a bit into each other too.

I can almost see the question form on your lips, “And what have you learnt?” I could counter with a question of my own, “Does every life experience need to end in a lesson learnt?” For if we gaze, howsoever briefly, into the human world learning– as in acquiring knowledge or skills– wouldn’t be our shining beacon. Though for a bird acquiring knowledge and skill is often a matter of life and death.

But staring at birds has made me realize a few things about birds and about humans. Birds aren’t indomitable. Their life too is all about struggle and adaptation. No less than the life of any human. Their songs may appear to be joyous and rapturous, even effortless, but like any artist they are almost killing themselves to produce beauty: Pouring huge amounts of energy and a collection of past experience of generations to distill a few notes of sheer brilliance.

If we could suspend our arrogance, our sense of superiority, for just an instance then perhaps happiness would not be a pursuit. Nor the end point of all our pursuits.

The Birds: Painted Stork, Purple Sunbird and a very wet House Sparrow.

Also would like to add that the facebook page will feature more photography while the blog will feature longer writing pieces.

In My Mother's Garden: Part 2

When I talk about birds in my mother’s garden people often imagine a rambling old bungalow set amidst acres of land. So I always end up measuring out the few square feet with my hands: slightly broader than this dining table but much smaller than this living room. The thing that most people seem to overlook is that birds don’t need huge swaths of land; they get by with much less.  Especially birds in the city.

I have had the pleasure of watching house sparrows flock to the seventh floor ledge (barely broad enough for a human to stand on) in our apartment in Bombay. On the tiny balcony in London a bird feeder secured by a shoelace and a few tall plants were invitation enough for the robin, the blackbird, the wren, the great tit and the blue tit and its brood to come visit. The spotted woodpecker to was, well, spotted.

But, yes there is one thing that attracts the birds to my mother’s garden and its vicinity– the garden is allowed to run a little wild. There are a variety of plants, many of them have been around for years and many like the tulsi are allowed to go to seed ensuring that there is plenty of food for different kind of birds, the creepers aren’t trimmed and thinned too often ensuring bird have places to gambol in. And so the birds come.

The point being a bit of water, a little something to peck on and a safe place to perch and preen on is all that the birds look for. And like the merry ramblers of yore, once their few needs are met, they stick around and sing a little song or maybe even share a tale or two.

In My Mother's Garden: Part 1 is here.

Afterword: The Neem tree in the second last picture was planted by my mother in the common area opposite her house some 15 years back. At that time people would look at it and shake their head and mumble, "Wouldn't grow, soil too arid, too many termites, Neem trees don't grow in this region (??) and so on and so forth." However, neither the tree nor my mother seemed to be listening. Today the tree not only gives shelter to a host of birds but seems to be growing so rapidly that its top few branches have to be trimmed every spring as they touch the overhead high-tension wires.

Birds in order of appearance: Brahminy Myna, Black Redstart, Indian Robin (male), Oriental White Eye, Common Myna, Purple Sunbird (female), Red Vented Bulbul, Common Crow, Ashy Prinia, Jungle Babbler, Tailorbird, Little Brown Dove (Laughing Dove), Rufous Treepie, House Sparrow (male)

Look Up!

 

Look up at the birds 

they're making me laugh

making me cry some.

Look up*

The world of coincidences works in mysterious ways. At some point in my life I used to consider coincidences as subliminal messages, an attempt to jolt us into whatever it is the conscience wanted/wants to jolt us into.

Some days back by some (subliminal?) quirk of fate I came upon a song. It was NPR’s Song of the Day, and the perfect gift. It has a beat as good as any to march forward on. It could be an anthem for the beginning of a new year of new possibilities. It is called "Birds". So well, why not? New sun in my arms…

* Birds a song by Caithlin De Marrais. You can listen to it here.