The beautiful nest

By Nimal Senanayake

The beauty of the world is not only due to flowers, butterflies and the passing clouds but also due to the twittering and fluttering birds. It is only the birds that can please our eyes and also can entertain us by their whistling of varying sweet tunes at the waking hours of the day.

All other beauties of nature other than the singing brook are there to be admired in silence. But there is nothing so sweet and exhilarating like the varying tunes of the birds, in whatever mood they make it, may be while making love or in fury due to an approaching predator.

While rolling on the bed in the early hours of the morning, gazing at the sky and the rays of the rising sun through the open window, one would be really happy to hear the cacophony of the wide array of birds that are becoming more and more scarce in the cities.

Whenever I had the luxury of rolling on the bed in the early morning, I always loved to listen to the beautiful singing of the tiny birds such as sparrows, parrots and other varilties, who have still not decided to migrate from our garden, despite it being located in a highly populated area.

But it is difficult to express in words the surprise and happiness, all of us encountered when our maid Soma informed that a tiny bird is building a nest inside our lamp shade.

My son was so much taken up by these new guests, he could not help raising his tiny hands and making various noises, so as to invite more birds to our house.

My daughter, who is very quiet by nature, sat in the chair nearest to the area, where the birds were roaming and started to gaze at them intently, as if to offer her assistance to the tiny friends in their labour of love. All of us were on full alert, about this new phenomenon and the developments in the courtyard of our house.

The beauty of nature, which we were trying so hard to recreate artificially inside our courtyard, by way of leafy and flowering potted plants and a large fish pond, has suddenly become a reality. The nature itself has invaded the house with the family of tiny living creatures flying in and out.

The father and the mother were flying in and out, throughout the day, may be about three-four hundred times carrying a few strands of coir and pieces of cotton and occasionally tiny twigs to fill the lamp shade, which was in the shape of an inverted globe.

After carefully weaving the outer structure of the nest, the inner lining was done in the most methodical manner, so that the eggs will be safe and warm when they are laid.

The process gave immense happiness to all at home, other than Timmy, the pet dog of the household and especially to my daughter, who spent most of her time talking to them. Timmy was not very happy because of the divided attention of his tiny Lady, who preferred to keep on gazing at those tiny creatures without running round with him.

Our maid who was an animal lover gave a lot of attention to the new guests with no reservations whatsoever, which was an unusually different treatment from what she normally extended to the human guests, who occasionally visited us from our home town, in search of accommodation in the city, for a couple of days. Invariably all the visitors to our house were given a lengthy narration by Soma, about the new phenomenon and everything that happened from the very first day.

My wife will start the story by telling how strange that the birds have now decided to seek shelter from humans, which they normally loathed to accept, when offered by humans, by way of captivity in cages. Then the maid will join in by telling how Timmy is responding to the birds by pretending that it had not taken any notice of them, but making it a practice to bark at the birds, when no one is there to be seen.

Then the daughter will come in slowly and start gazing at the nest, once in a way pointing her tiny finger to show the guests, if any activity takes place in our zoo, which is the name given by her The pair of blackish grey coloured birds with a tiny crest on their heads, called Kondayas kept on building their dream home with intense concentration and dedication, spinning and spinning strands of coir with their tiny beaks.

The untiring effort by both of them to protect their nest by flying from one corner of the courtyard to the other, with the highest degree of caution is unbelievable. My wife who was so sorry about the effort they were taking and the exhaustion due to their relentless struggle, kept on providing all types of food grains and rice for them to eat at every corner of the courtyard, which made the house look like a bird cage. How she could have been tempted to indulge in such childish things is really unimaginable, as she is a perfectionist extremely methodical, who could not tolerate even the slightest disarrangement, or any dirt inside the house.

The nest building came to an end and one day our maid announced that the eggs are laid and the mother had started incubating the eggs. One day the maid has fallen on the ground loosing her balance, when she climbed on to a stool to peep into the nest. It had been the best joke of the year and my daughter was repeatedly acting the scene of the maid falling and rolling on the ground. For her it was the re-enactment of the Humpty Dumpty’s great fall.

The beautiful episode of the bird family reached its climax, when the tiny chicks started twittering, raising their tiny heads one after the other. Their droppings were seen all over the floor and the carpet.

However much the bird mother tried to clean the nest and to take away the dirt, my wife too had to take some effort to keep the courtyard clean. The mischievous birdies started their first take off round the courtyard, bumping against the pillars and the photo frames.

In the morning they were seen all over the courtyard, one hanging from the fan, one sitting on the bookshelf and the other peeping from the cage, which really alarmed the wife and the maid. They were worried about the next door cat and Timmy, who may not hesitate to taste a new dish, if it falls just in front of their paws.

Mother bird started screaming, whenever the maid tried to pick them to put back in the nest, unlike the father who had learnt to trust her. With this unexpected turn of events wife and the maid decided to send the chicks away as soon as possible. So they started to feed them more food to make them grow faster.

Daughter was really enjoying all what was happening round the house than the others. For her the arrival of the bird family was a god sent to keep her occupied the whole day long and a pleasant diversion from the doll’s house and lazy Timmy, who ill-treated her occasionally.

Finally it was decided to send the birds away and I also was invited to take part in the ceremony. The maid took the small ones one after the other and kept them on a tree outside and all of us watched the mother and father taking charge of the first one and training it to fly. After sometime the first one grew more confident and started to hop about the tree. The second one too was taken out with extreme care by the mother, while the father was shouting from the tree encouraging the son to be confident and to spread the wings and start flying.

After sometime the mother was back to lead the last chick. She flew gracefully with greatest happiness and pride chirping some encouraging notes in the baby’s ear. This last toddler was the weakest of the three and it faltered in its steps in the first attempt. Father made a loud noise in a harsh tone, shouting that the son should not be afraid to spread its magnificent wings it has inherited from him.

Oh! the disaster struck and no one could believe their eyes, when the vampire bird; the nasty Ati Kukula suddenly descended from no where to snatch the tiny one. The mother and father bird were screaming and chasing behind the big bird, which held to its pray with wild frenzy. We too joined in the fray and were shouting and throwing stones but to no avail. The predator gradually disappeared among the trees. Heart broken the father and mother returned after their desperate hovering around the trees and flying up to the farthest end of the sky, screaming with pain. My daughter was happily enjoying the fun and the excitement, clapping her small hands and shouting at the top of her voice.

The two birds were tired and they were looking round in search of their two elder sons. We managed to help them by directing them to the bush, where those two were hiding in fear. They were happy and were looking at us with shining, grateful eyes. Then they made up their minds and settled down without any further delay, to restart their routine duties and to start caring for the remaining two, giving their full attention to them. The great tragedy, which we are still finding so difficult to forget and on which my wife still keep on brooding, appeared to be a normal happening in their day to day bird life. Their fortitude was so great that they did not want to show their agony to the outside world, other than the occasional wailing of the mother bird, which she could not hide. I am still waiting with great anxiety, for their next mating season to begin, to see the bird friends of ours, restarting their breeding days, to make the life joyful for everyone at our home.