Avian Encounters

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."

--- Anatole France

The love of animals in general, and especially birds, runs strong in my family on both sides; so this is a trait that I inherited and imbibed most effortlessly as I grew up. After countless hours of going through books and encyclopedias, numerous documentaries, simple efforts at bird watching and sometimes photographing, all with full encouragement and 'mentorship' from multiple corners... now I am quite proud of my semi-extensive knowledge of common birds at least of the Indian subcontinent. Quite often, spotting an interesting bird forms the highest point of a otherwise mundane day! Also, rescue stories (not just of birds) never fail to move and inspire me... that there is still hope, and there are still selfless, caring people around! I have been through numerous such rescue missions myself (with mixed success obviously, and establishing interactions that have lasted from under an hour to over 8 years!), and even though I cannot recount each and every one, they have all left a mark to varying extents! It has been on my wishlist since long to document at least the most significant among these, for the sake of the whole spectrum of emotions that the memories of these incidents bring along. Strangely, we have noticed that hurt and helpless birds have a uncanny way of finding us... me and my parents. It has happened too many times and in too many places: Rishra, Kolkata, Bangalore and Pune, to be a mere coincidence! Each time, in the end, we are left saying that we don't want to involve ourselves emotionally with another creature again because it's just too painful when we fail or when they eventually go away from our lives. But there is always the secret knowledge, that if the situation arises, we'll probably dive into it again!

1. Pashka --- She was our first and sadly she was also the most batttered and critical, and she came when we had had the least experience of such situations. I was just about 5 or 6 years old then, when one day my father walked in with a tiny little chick in terrible shape, whom he had somehow managed to save from a group of crows.  She was just too little and we had trouble recognizing what kind of bird she was as her down feathers were only starting to get covered by contour feathers, and the crows had pecked off clumps leaving exposed, bleeding flesh. Still, we were able to make an identification and we thought she was a Golden Oriole, not strange to our locality. However, there was very little that we could do to save her as she barely regained consciousness and there was no way for us to stop her from shuddering in shock and put any food into the tiny beak. She didn't survive the night and I was probably just left with a huge sense of disappointment at having lost the opportunity of having a beautiful pet.

                                                        Golden Oriole (Basanta Bouri)

2. Tito --- Tito came quite literally knocking at our window one stormy evening, and we found her crouching in a corner of our vast verandah, an unhurt young adult but thin and a bit bedraggled. It took less than a minute to identify our visitor, none other than a Indian Parrot! We were unsure of what to do with her, but she seemed a little shocked and nervous with whatever experience she may have had before seeking refuge in our verandah. Surprisingly, she didn't resist when we caught her up and carried her indoors to keep her secure for the night (under a basket?). The next day, she didn't show any resistance or an inclination to escape, so we got a cage for her which she climbed into without much trouble. She stayed with us for a few weeks perhaps, and gradually turned into a very effervecsent personality, who made always her presence felt. We could never get her to imitate our speech though and gave up after a few tries. In a matter of weeks, when she seemed strong and healthy enough and was beginning to show signs of missing her  freedom, we set her free. For a while, she didn't figure out that she was free to go, but when she did, she glided away, never to be seen again. We were happy that unlike Pashka, this left us with a happy ending!

                                                                 Indian Parrot (Tia)

3. Chiku ---- He was unique in the fact that we adopted not just him but his parents as well. He was a Oriental Magpie Robin, bordering between infancy and adolescence, and had fallen out of his family nest, when we found him huddled on the ground, with his parents watching anxiously but unable to carry him back or make him fly. We got him inside and gave him a new nest (an abandoned weaver bird's nest that we had acquired previously), which we kept in Tito's old cage in our open verandah, where his parents visited him regularly. Their constant coming-going and melodious whistles became an endearing part of our everyday life and we watched with amusement as the parents gobbled up the rice that we put out, bringing Chiku tasty morsels like whole wasps and other smaller insects (we also silently prayed that he wouldn't choke on these fancy treats). In a few weeks, we decided it was time for him to break free and go back to his real life. However, it was a correct decision which came at an incorrect time...too soon. He was either still too young or too conditioned to his secure cage life...in either case, he wasn't ready. He flew to the nearest tree top but was immediately attacked by a big group of crows and we watched him die helplessly, as also did his parents. We couldn't forgive our decision for days.

                                                       Oriental Magpie Robin (Doyel)

4. Furfuri/Furu/Furi ---- Recounting the days with Furu is the most difficult, as she was a very important part of our family for almost a decade and left us with a huge lot of highs and lows; and memories which aren't easy to sort out and select. I brought her home as a juvenile, once again rescued from a determinedly vicious pack of crows one spring evening. She was injured in many places and also in shock after her experience. We couldn't identify for a long time, the unusual dull greyish-green bird which resembled a dove or pigeon in its morphology, but set about trying to nurse her back to health and get rid of her general fear of everything around, including us (it is unbelievable, but she would retract into a corner and emit pitiful wails). We didn't have to keep her in a cage as she didn't attempt to fly but the initial days were frustrating, she refused to feed on her own and we had to get syringes to push stuff into her beak; but we didn't know what bird she was, so we were clueless about her diet. This initially led to disasters like frequent stomach upsets and we were left with giving her children's medicines for stomach issues along with the ones we were already applying on her wounds. Somehow, finally she regained her health and spirits after a struggle of many weeks but two things she never regained in her lifetime : 1. The ability (or will ?) to fly, i.e. she was left permanently crippled even though her wounds eventually healed;  and 2. The ability to eat on her own! Yes it is unbelievable, but we fed her by hand, every day of her life with us, and she would only accept food from my mother, me or my grandmother; and no one else, no matter what!
Anyway, what this resulted in was a new family member, the baby of the family, who became the apple of everyone's eye (visitors included), and whose feeding and other activities literally became daily rituals, around which everything else was planned.  She stayed free during the day, and in a cage at night for her own safety. We came to know her identity: a Yellow Footed Green Pigeon (Treron phoenicoptera). In eight years, she survived a move to a new place and life, went on vacations with us to multiple places, went through multiple tense phases of sickness; and proved every single day, that birds can be no less engaged and intelligent than dogs. She came to know our timings for coming home, recognizing her favorite types of food and throwing tantrums if they were not given. In infinite ways she demonstrated her intelligence, her personality and that she knew how to get her way. Also in infinite ways she demonstrated how much trust and attachment she had for us... something that one needs to see firsthand, in order to believe. I have never since felt a similar feeling of fulfillment to this extent, that I got from my association with this helpless animal. Finally, she died of illness, probably due to old age, and the shock and void she left was raw for a very long time, and will probably never be filled by any other.

                                      A Yellow Footed Green Pigeon (Sabuj Paira/ Hariyal); 

                  [Photograph instead of sketch for the one that left the biggest mark on our lives]

5. Unnamed ---- Unlike all the predecessors I have recounted, we met her in Kolkata, in the heart of the city. She was a miniscule Tailorbird, a juvenile again, who decided to fly straight into my head and get entangled in my hair as I stood on the road with my college books one day. I was taken by surprise but anyway, by instinct, I scooped her in my palm and carried her home, while a part-amused and part-disgruntled friend followed me with my luggage. We kept her for the night and she seemed to recover, so we took her back to the same spot the next day to release her among her kind. We were glad to see that there were indeed a few others in that zone, and the moment she seemed to be surrounded by them, and to be able to fly; we turned away. From our previous experiences, we really didn't want to know what happened finally, but I am hopeful that she met a better end than Chiku.

                                                       Common Tailorbird (Tuntuni)

Note. 

1. All the images used, have been collected from the internet from various different sources which I enjoy.

2. The use of he/she in this article is random or based on guesses depending on plumage and other characteristics. Only in case of Furu, we were certain; as she used to lay eggs which she aggressively protected even from us, until they eventually decomposed.