I noticed a Magpie Robin perched on a coconut palm about 200 meters away at about fifty meters height and tunefully engaged in its bird call. It was a clear morning with good light for photography.
What I discovered was fascinating.
At the beginning of the bird call the beaks are minimally separate, which progressively widens when the call reaches its peek sound level.
As I noticed this happening in successive bird calls, I thought it is the usual way a Magpie Robin begins and ends its bird call.
The way the bird call sounded tuneful and long, it might have been a male bird. So it was perhaps a mating call.
What is in a call! A bird puts everything into it. It is its way of claiming the right over its geographical territory and announces the mating intent.
I watched my colleagues decorate a partition screen with chart papers to give it a face lift and use it for displaying information. They measured and cut papers to give an equal space for pink and blue chart papers. In the midst of other engagements, I felt that they gave their full attention to what they set out to do. The screen looked spruced up and eye catching.
I found a similar sense of giving full attention by two other colleagues who visit the school for health survey of children. From preparing the protocol, getting the list of children, doing all the anthropometric measurements or testing hearing and vision and entering the data on the computer, they do what they do with utmost devotion and diligence.
I feel inspired by the emphasis on 'giving the best you have'!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
