Celebration of movements and sounds!

 

The sun shining bright around 8 am and the garden around our cottage becoming a place of movements and bird calls, broke the monotony of monsoon rains that persisted for two weeks. During the short period of forty five minutes before the clouds covered the Sun, it was a gala time for birds. 

It was the Tailor bird I noticed first, hidden in the foliage and tunefully singing its bird calls. Following that a Drongo and Tit  joined the short flight between trees. The Bulbuls at least six of them appeared in different part of the garden. They seemed to be like birds wanting to fly unrestrained between trees. It was one occasion when I noticed that birds found pleasure in flying between the flight stations.  

After the monsoon commenced, Barbets were not regularly seen. The Barbet alone stayed sunbathing without short flight movements. The White-rumped munia birds are not regular visitors to our garden. Their presence added to the colourfulness and cacophony of the morning. 

The trees without their bird visitors during the monsoon season look bare in the mornings. The flowers do not have their regular visitors of honey bees and butterflies. The garden was deserted without these normal movements and sounds for the last two weeks.  

The photos I took of Leaf bird, Sunbird, and Wood pecker looked overexposed in the bright sunshine. That was a contrast from the photography in the golden hour at twilight, which gives surprisingly warm photos. 

Our garden has several fruits that birds come for.  The squirrels and birds  find ripe papaya, banana, rambutan, custard apple, and jack fruit even before we notice them. During the monsoon season, especially when there is no respite from rain, the garden is devoid of the avian visitors. 

I felt elated by the movements and sounds of the morning! 

Since 7th of June, when the national election results were announced, with no single party getting the majority, it was a season of suspense. The ruling party of the last ten years managed to stitch up an alliance and formed the government yesterday. The alliance of the opposition parties had hoped to do better to have a chance to govern. So we will witness a season of political uncertainty with the ruling and opposition parties struggling to keep their flock together. The Indian politics has regularly witnessed parliamentarians changing of loyalties. 

Amidst this gloom, it was a refreshing time to receive the greetings the birds brought! 

What surprised me was the way Daphne and Dulcie kept moving in the garden to come close to the trees from where they heard the bird calls. 

Anna also joined this festivity!

It was a morning of bird festival for about forty five minutes in our garden !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)