The blooming of flowers and movements of the birds in a garden happen ordinarily every day!
It is only when we notice them with attention we would encounter a sense of surprise. Each of the photographs above brought a sense of surprise to me.
Watching a pair of White-Rumped Munia in an intimate conversation was the most surprising of all (last photo).
The Barbet in the photograph below had a couched body posture while holding on to vertical stem. It was a difficult posture of balancing the body precariously!
The observational skills were introduced as essential for a clinical student of medicine by the professor of Medicine, Dr G.S. Sainani, when I first entered my clinical training as an undergraduate medical student in 1969. He did that to a group of 20 students, by making us walk along with him in the corridor of the outpatient services, telling us to note down every thing we noticed. During the sharing time, each student described something different than others noticed. That is how he initiated us to develop the art of observation, which laid the foundation for looking for what is beyond the obvious.
I understood the significance of this observational skill, during one of the clinics, professor Sainani took for us a few days after the earlier exercise of introducing us to the art of observation. An obese person used to clear his throat often, which was not a concern for him or his family. He was at that time treated for his high blood pressure. Dr Sainani ordered for a Barium swallow X-ray to look for Gastro-Eosphageal Reflux disease. It was when it came positive, his colleagues, post graduate trainees and all of us had a surprise. This throat clearing was present for one year which disturbed his sleep sometimes. It took a well informed mind to suspect the throat clearing as a sign of an underlying treatable disease.
I feel good for such an early introduction to being observational.
When I looked at the photos which I took yesterday morning, I noticed more than what I saw in the actual flowers and birds yesterday during the photography.
The visual and auditory attention are the means to develop good observational skills.
To be present fully to see and hear is an art which comes by practice. The attentive and alert look of the Munia is an illustration of an awakened look, different from the usual! It is this behaviour which makes one wonder, whether they are birds in courtship. Most observations can lead us to some valuable inferences.
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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