Wildbuzz: The house of many nests
Inherent in the charm of hosting bird nests is the temptation to see eggs/chicks up close, watch their progress and click pics for popular social media posts. That triggers a negative chain reaction with other people also wanting to see “cute, blabbering chicks” in nests they discover
*Birds and the Jebarajs go back a long way. When Abraham Jebaraj built his house in Kharar’s Dashmesh Nagar opposite the bus stand in 2012, he grew trees and planted abundant foliage. Wisely resisting the temptation to put out feed for birds, the Jebarajs placed water bowls in the back and front gardens. They believed birds had first right to their home, as their tenancy pre-dated the “lawful allotment of the plot to the Jebarajs”!
Birds readily took to their hospitality. The garden hosts nests of three to four species every year: Red-vented bulbuls, Eurasian Collared doves and Purple sunbirds. This year, during monsoons, the Jebarajs were elated: a peahen had laid eggs for the first time in the shrubbery.
Out came five chicks, and mother took them to top of the car shed for safety, before she brought them down into the garden after a few days. The peahen and chicks stayed in the Jebaraj garden for two weeks, drinking water from bowls before vanishing. Their part of Kharar has few parks, so the Jebarajs really don’t know where the brood was taken by the peahen.
Inherent in the charm of hosting bird nests is the temptation to see eggs/chicks up close, watch their progress and click pics for popular social media posts. That triggers a negative chain reaction with other people also wanting to see “cute, blabbering chicks” in nests they discover. Parents get disturbed and abandon the nest. Our so-called love for chicks results in their death and entails a demoralising nesting failure for parent birds.
The Jebarajs have curbed this tendency over the years. “Earlier, we would venture close to nests. But now we maintain a distance and refrain from posting nesting pics on social media. We will in future not click pics of nests and instead observe nesting activity from a distance with binoculars,” Abraham’s son, Aaron Jebin, who is a content creator at IT Park, Chandigarh, told this writer.
Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav
* What could be more resplendent in its representation of India’s freedom than gorgeous birds flying across a fluttering Tricolour. Prashant Awale is a passionate photographer with a special interest in the petite but resilient flowers of the high mountains and is by profession an instrumentation engineer at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. Hundreds of his wild flower photographs enrich the database of Indian flora.
After his alpine treks, Awale comes back loaded with flower photos, some species nameless. He later strives to identify them. But what’s in a name? The beauty of flowers or birds is such that it does not need a name as a prerequisite to enjoyment. As if the flower itself would ever know the name given to it!
Awale’s eye, which has a remarkable penchant for photographic compositions, noted the presence of Lesser flamingoes at the Seawoods wetland and just beyond a glorious Tricolour atop the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation’s head office. His imagination instantly conjured a vision of flamingoes delivering a flypast to the Tricolour.
“I had to wait patiently for the right moment. My wife, Vrushali, accompanied me and while I got busy with my professional camera, she took beautiful cellphone videos of flamingoes. It took us five hours of observation while waiting for those moments when flamingoes arose and flew to secure the desired frames. Flocks of flamingoes sailing by the Tricolour radiated an impression as if they were, in their own special way, celebrating ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’,” Awale told this writer.
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