White, brown, golden and black

Anna and I watched  herons arriving in a wet land on our way to work yesterday morning. Only while scanning through the photographs in the evening we realized that,  they had an array of colours of feather, beak and legs. I suppose it would have been difficult to make it out from a distance of about hundred meters.

This is not  a natural wet land, but an uncultivated paddy field, which got water clogged in the rain of the previous evening.

The herons were the commonest avians feeding in the paddy field on grains, crabs, fish, etc. Now most of the paddy fields lie vacant or have been used for cultivation of pine apple, banana, coconut, etc. The farm labourers are too few and the cost of hiring them is prohibitive that it is no more economical to farm the land fro paddy in the state of Kerala. 

So the herons too have got displaced form their normal habitat. The government has started a heronry in  a vast wet land in northern Kerala as the ornithologists have been campaigning to preserve some species of them who are almost extinct. 

I shared this picture with a passionate bird watcher who mentioned to me that there may be at least ten different species of herons one can locate during the winter months in this part of our state of Kerala, the difference in the species being minor variations of colour of beaks, feather, size of neck, shape of the body, etc. 

The occasion of the sighting of the herons gave me an opportunity to share some childhood memories of playing in the water clogged paddy field outside our cottage, catching fish, crabs, etc. On one occasion, I was bitten by a snake which coiled itself around my ankle which froze me in fear. My parents rushed me to a physician who was specialised in ayurvedic treatment for snake bite. To our great relief, he confirmed from observing the bite marks that it was a non-poisnus snake. I needed no treatment. It was the first time Anna was hearing this story of my childhood.

There is much unexplored memories that spouses can share with each other to relive their childhood and connect even more deeply with each other's life. Marriage, in that sense, is an ongoing journey of exploration, confession and celebration in an ambience of intimacy.

MC..Mathew(text and photo)