Bats and butterfly

What do you do when you have all the time to walk leisurely and feel the sounds and movements around you! You discover something special. 

I heard during the walk, a chorus of waxing and weaning screeching sounds, at the corner of a less used mud path in the Christian Medical College campus. As I looked up, I saw hundreds of bats hanging fairly still except for their loud screech which broke the silence of that quiet path.  I wish I had a tele lens to capture this most unusual sight! The last time Anna and I saw a sight of tree full of bats was when we were driving through the forests, on our way to Bissum Cuttack, few years back. The only book I have here of of Indian birds by Salim Ali does not include description of the bats. So I am at a loss of the species of this nocturnal being.    

As I resumed my walk on the road which gently turned to the left, I noticed this butterfly basking in the sun and swaying with every movement of a slender branch in the morning breeze. It gave me enough time to take a few shots. I have a special liking for butterflies, because their formative stages through pupal and cocoon stages have fascinated me. Every butterfly tells us this story of its formation.

As I walked back to the room after seeing these sights, I recalled how life is lived in haste. The rhythm of daily life is lived in hurry. There is so much of sights and scenes around us that we need time to become students of nature! 

Saturday being a holiday, I noticed some pre-school children playing in the garden. One of them was tracking a green grass hopper in much excitement. He shouted for others to come and watch it. Their conversation turned to grass hoppers that they remember seeing in different places. A monkey appeared on the tree above them, while this was going on. One of the children had left a bag with an apple on the ground. The monkey grabbed the apple and climbed on the nearby tree and started nibbling it. The monkey was defiant and stayed on even after the children tried to chase the monkey away.  

There is always a surprise all around us!

M.C.Mathew(photo and surprise)