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’.

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. 

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.

The Bird, the Tree, the Monkey

The story begins on a cold, pale winter morning somewhere in northern India. It starts as a simple tale and then like all good stories grows up to become a fantastical allegory. Something you heard on your grandmother’s lap or in my case something that my youngest niece told me one hot, intense summer afternoon when she was 4 years old. It is not so much about where you heard the story but how and what about it you remember. And most importantly why it comes back from the unfathomable chambers of forgetfulness.

I see the reticent peacock, the benevolent fig tree and one defiant monkey and something like a story stirs in me. I say, but the story wasn’t about peacocks, or monkeys, or fig trees. And then the story in its entirety comes rushing back to me.

That is another magical thing about stories.

Postscript: The peacock in the first picture is a regular visitor to the rooftops where people leave it offerings of food grains. In part due to their religious beliefs and in part due to the peacock's beauty. But the same people think nothing of dumping their daily garbage in the small wild patch that the peacock calls his home.

The tree in the second picture is the Ficus benghalensis or Indian Fig or banyan tree, known as bargad (in Hindi), our national tree, destined to be chopped down in the not so distant future. For some human has claimed the spot where it grew for years as the site for his house. Not a word is mentioned about the countless species that will lose their home.

The monkey in the third picture was a lone male, most likely shunned by the monkey troop, and in desperate search for food. It eyed the vegetable grocers cart with little success and settled for a meal of stolen roti and  banyan leaves. The monkey too is revered in India but human's endless need for "space" is testing the limits of reverence.

This leads us to the reawakening of some other story, whether well-remembered or intentionally forgotten.

The Bird Hours

Open publication - Free publishing - More birds

These are a few minutes of the many, many hours I spent watching birds over the last few years. Just outside the window or out and about the trees near wherever I lived.

Click on the image to expand and read this e-book.

Perch

Can your bird sing?

All is well with the world 
When the day begins with the zeet zeet bird 
Singing outside the window. 
A tune without the words
Harbinger of hope– that tiny thing with feathers.

Where ever you maybe,
Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.*

*Chinese proverb.

I see sunbirds

Winter bird

The winter bird is contemplative.
Unlike the bird of spring,
or even the bird of autumn
it is much less inclined to sing.

In winter there’s isn’t enough daytime to spare,
but all the time in the day to reflect. Winter is a time to prepare

For the ecstasies of spring
The headiness of summer, the enchanting rain
The mellow pleasures of autumn
Till winter comes visiting again.

And the winter bird sits down to comprehend:
Does a circle have a beginning? Is the beginning also the end?