It was after a few months, I was able to get a few decent pictures of an Iora bird. They hop between branches so quickly that getting a focus is difficult. They are early morning visitors even before the sunrise. They like the shelter of the foliage where they look for insects and larvae.
In fact I do not know if the bird above, which was today's arrival, is a Common Iora or Marshall's Iora or if it is male or female. It did give away a few musical tunes. That made me wonder whether it was a male. I read somewhere that during the breeding seasons, the, male bird would fly up and down with fluffed feathers to display its colourful wings and body in order to attract a female. But the season of nesting is from May to September.
In that two minute contact with this bird, while it was hopping between branches, I noticed that it was a well groomed bird, shy of my camera. It quickly moved its face away as I was close to it, by about ten meters.
It is when we see such colourful birds, which are small and sing tunefully, one gets an impression of the abundance of discoveries, we can make of all the surprises around us in nature.
This brings me back to a question that I have stayed with, about open spaces, lawns, bushes, small trees! Why is that in pursuit of development, spaces get consumed for conveniences, disregardful of displacement of birds, squirrels, butterflies, dragon flies, grass hoppers and Honey bees.
During a visit to an institution recently, that has trees and plants scattered in many places in the campus, the frontage of a large building, which was an open space with a flourishing lawn, had a denuded look with raw earth. The lawn was stripped in preparation for a car park! The boundaries of this space had bushes and plants, where bird families of Magpie Robin, Bulbul, Myna, Weaverbird, Tailorbird, Sun bird and squirrels were normally resident or nested. There were visitors such as Pigeon, Rufus treepie, Wood pecker, Lapwing, Kingfisher and few others. I wonder whether for about fifty trees and plants uprooted, an equal numbers were planted elsewhere in the campus! I felt disturbed and concerned. I do not want to doubt the good intention of decision makers, but I feel for the avians and the green environment that suffered a loss!
A sample of birds, if I remember correctly, I spotted during my earlier visits to the area, which is now getting ready for the car park!
I wish more people will hang bird feeds even in public spaces to allow birds to feed and live!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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