It was a hot sweaty day at about 4oClock in the afternoon. I was
seated on my rocking chair, watching a satellite TV program. The sounds
of twittering birds coming to feed and bathe, at the bird bath in the
garden were the usual sounds. Out of all the sounds the sound of the
yellow billed babbler, also called 'Demalichcha', sometimes called
'seven sisters', because of their tendency to move in groups, was the
loudest. It was always an incessant cackle.
Words rarely fail these birds when they are in company. They cackle
when alighting on a new tree for the day. They cackle when their friends
arrive. They cackle when food is spotted. It is days of cackling for
them.
All of a sudden the intensity of the cackle increased and the
pitch increased to shrieks. The number of birds in the vicinity also
increased. I was wondering what upset them and went out to have a look.
A whole bunch of them were on the top branches of a mango tree near my
porch. They were screeching away in cacophony. All the time their wings
were fluttering while perched on the branches. I knew that a pair of
them had built a nest on this particular mango tree. The parents would
bring tit-bits and feed the two fledgling youngsters. One of these days I
expected to see the youngsters take flight.
I looked up into the
clear blue sky above. A couple of crows were circling and occasionally
alighted on the roof of my house. I wondered if the crows were the cause
of the panic. Then my wife joined me on the scene, attracted by the
commotion. She spotted a 'rat-snake', a 'garandiya', 'saerai paambu'
with it's head in the nest. The passage of the chicks inside it's belly,
could be seen by the outside bulge in the serpent's skin. I shoo'd it
away with a branch, but it's work was accomplished. There was no more
answering sound from the nest. The day had ended prematurely for the two
chicks. The snake slid away into the undergrowth accompanied by the
curses of the 'demalichchas'. The animated conversation and shrieks and
wing flapping s toned down in half an hour. No birds nested for the
night on that tree which usually had a few. In the morning the parents
were not to be seen near the tree. They had mingled with the herd and
perhaps forgotten all about the tragedy. It is us, only humans, who
remember sorrows and losses. I waited for the sunset, for before every
sunset there was a right royal gathering of all of them, on the mango
tree. But to-day I heard the babble in a neighbors garden. They shunned
this tree. I knew a house without infants is not a home. Instead a pair
of Red-vented Bulbuls appeared with their cheerful chatter. They went to
snooze on a nearby margosa tree. The mango tree with the empty nest,
had become a leper, among the birds who flocked in numbers only the
previous day.
