Single Bulbuls!

 

This season is the mating time for the common birds in our garden. I  see now more birds in pairs moving between their flight stations. Some Bulbuls who come to the feeding station regularly come as pairs. 

There are some Bulbuls who move about alone. I noticed three behaviours in such single Bulbuls. 

The first photograph above of a Bulbul represents the mood and behaviour. I find some Bulbuls perched in a stooped position with no communicative intent or body behaviour to get noticed. 

Some other Bulbuls who are familiar with us come to the courtyard and perch in the cable and give away bird calls. I observe them to be looking at me and pausing for photographs. I guess the time of the visits of some Bulbuls at this flight station and look out for them. They make some bird calls and when I noticed them enough they fly away.

A third behaviour of single Bulbul birds is to look for a tall perching  site and stay there giving away their bird calls loud and long, sometimes even for ten minutes. They are tuneful calls like what it would be when a bird is calling for mating!

I understand that some birds remain permanently as pairs and some form pairs during the season and some others remain single!

My thoughts of late, have been with single people. A friend of ours who is in his eighties now, bid farewell to his wife ten years ago following a chronic illness. This friend well until now and living alone  in an apartment near to his two sons, had a stroke and has been convalescing for a while. He is not socially interactive now. 

Another friend who lost her spouse has lived well inspite of the drain and weariness that she felt on some occasions. She felt surrounded by friends and felt supported. 

I took time to remember all the single people who have remained unmarried or lost their spouse suddenly due to accidents or short illnesses or those who moved on due to age related situations. I find most of them wishing for more support and social contacts. 

I tried recollecting if I heard any sermon on attending to the needs of single people in the congregation. Rev. Peter Miller when he was the vicar of the St Andrew's church and later St George's at Chennai took an interest to look out for people who were single in the congregation or in the neighbourhood. In fact he arranged for them to be picked up for fellowship meals he arranged. There was a roaster he had for elderly single people to be picked up to come for the Sunday service and taken back home after the service. 

I know of some elderly people who are home bound, who wait for someone to come to visit them. 

If a person is single because his or her spouse moved on young with young children to take care of, the needs of such people are compounded. 

Seeing the behaviour of three Bulbuls, I was reminded of the attitude and behaviour in three of them. One Bulbul looked down cast, another Bulbul looks for socialising opportunities and the third Bulbul is alive and communicating. 

I find similar behaviours in the single people I know of!

The Bulbuls reminded me of the thoughtful ways Anna and I can get more associated with the single people we know. They having endured grief have an experience to enrich others!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)