BIRDS

Who does not like birds ! But for a few odd ones, everyone must be enjoying watching birds! I am a bird’s person and enjoy their chirping calling in the morning. Their gliding take- off and landing inspires me every time. Their animated conversation, occasional fights, scurrying walk in search of food; formation flight can be watched with admiration for hours together.

My day starts with feeding a few pieces of biscuits to my avian pets, who are not in cages. If I am late to get up due to any unforeseen reason these Mainas make it a point to come and peck on the window glass as they are used to greet me Good Morning every day! If I stare at them they will not go near the biscuits and touch. I must pretend as if I am getting into my room then only they will land on the patch of floor having the bits of biscuits. Then there will be a morning tea party attended by a dozen birds! Now a days I can make out whether there is any coup and toppling of leader in that group!!

I have been watching a pair of Barn Owl who set out for their business only in the evening. It is stated that in Hindu religion there is a superstition that citing Owls is not a good omen. But I have given a new twist. Goddess Lakshmi is using owl as her vehicle. So if we cite Owls may be she is coming to pay a visit to you !

They will be doing a few somersaults to impress us from the sky and land exactly at the same window sill every day. Later on investigation I have found out that they come there to attack and devour a type of insects who come out whenever there is a slight shower attracted towards the light and end up dead within a span of a few hours. Their dead bodies are devoured by Maina in the morning from the floor. Remaining ones are eaten by Owl and parivar. Recently there is a spurt in their population as I have seen two smaller new ones. After 9 PM when we shut our main door and retire the entire corridor is in the custody of this group who hunt small rats, other innumerable insects and have a gala time!

There used to be great Santa Banta joke, which I heard in Radio City 91.1 FM Bangalore some time back. Santa asking Banta. “Banta mankind has to learn a lot from birds. You see this bird which I have been watching more than a fortnight in this garden. See every day it is sitting with his companion humming a nice song from tree top “.  Banta replies “Santa, this bird is here every day. It is humming a nice song all true. But you do not know that every day it is arriving here with a new companion! We do not get to change our companion so every day we are sitting and talking to each other “ !

Apart from these birds I can see other ones like wood pecker, sparrows, pigeons ( though very rare), King Fisher, Bull Bulls, Cuckoo , Love birds, Francolin etc.

We have a factory of 1800x 1500 sq. feet. The construction is done so very carefully that no bird can enter inside by providing air curtains, PVC strips, wire mesh and what not. But it s the night mare of every food processing person to find a stray bird getting inside the factory on account of the nuisance the same can create. Apart from that in their anxiety to get away it can fly from North to East, East to South and South to West non- stop creating a commotion. If you have any visitor or delegation that day, this uninvited guest would come out and show prominently in front of your official guests so as to facilitate the pulling down of your pants for window dressing.

It so happened fifteen days back a maina entered the production area much to our nightmare. We were on 24x7 production and we were busy with x-mas season sale, targets and related pressure. The bird because of frequent movement of man power here and there in the processing area used to hide somewhere and was sighted on and off. But my sharp eyes were always on the lookout for it. Being a Ahmisa (non-violent) person I did not want any harm to be done to the maina (myna). Therefore I was always trying to take this out of my mind. But in the last two weeks the bird has got used to living in the factory.

Our evening walks were always around the factory. I used to find a line maina sitting on the mesh and pecking it. Slowly I could decipher that it was the companion of the maina inside the factory and they were in conversation. This used to be a routine sight every evening.  But the mana in factory despite best efforts like opening the window, door and letting group of boys to shoo it away was not moving out as it has lost its sense of direction and willingness to move away.

Now, we are busy with maintenance and so much movement of plant and machinery due to installation of a new line etc. I could not find this maina and safely presumed that it had flown away! Yesterday I was going around some electrical work and found instead of one two mainas ! Wow now my problem has become double fold!

If you cannot beat them better join them that seem to be idea of the second uninvited guest! Before we start production I must show my skill to drive this pair safely away….far away !!