photosofbirdsofsrilanka

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

The snake in the garden

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.