I got used to look for birds perched at twilight in the morning in our garden staying still and silent! The bird calls begin when the darkness recedes and light embraces them. It is as if, a switch has been put on for the birds to begin the bird calls from differ places in the garden around the same time ! The silence would be filled by synchronous and turn taking bird calls which give signals to birds to move about!
I get enthused watching birds remain still, silent and in solitude, on different times in the day, as against the rhythm of movements and flights!
Yes, the effort needed for flight movements makes it mandatory for them to have time for grooming and resting !
I was travelling in a bus recently and was seated in a side seat which gave me the view of about forty passengers in the bus. During the travel time of half an hour, at one time when I counted, thirty eight were glued to the phone. The husbands and wives in some seats were surfing their separate phones! The sights and scenes on both sides of the road escaped their attention. About fifteen minutes of that travel was on a road, which had fields on both sides. There were bird movements between the cables. People were in the fields harvesting.
I wonder whether we replace conversations and sight seeing by engaging with phones! The prospect of being still and silent is only by deliberate choice. The mobile phone sounding signals of messages arriving, interrupt even when we want to be still.
I stood at a vantage point to see how people behave during a church service! While the message was being preached, one third of the congregation returned to their phones for short or long periods!
The bird watching is a healthy way of occupying oneself to feel the rhythm of life they follow which humans have lost partly or fully!
The birds practice to be still, silent and be in solitude amidst the regular flight movements and avian socialising!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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