A message of togetherness!

 

A Barbet joined a squirrel, and a Bulbul at the feeding station. Barbets are not sociable at the feeding station. 

The last photo is another Barbet watching this from a cable wondering whether to join or not. It did not join but flew away.

I spot interesting sights almost each day in the bird behaviour!

The garden space offers space for birds to be themselves and relational. 

The feeding table offers the invitation to be sociable towards each other!

The famous Salim Ali, the Orninthologist became bird friendly and later spent his life time describing bird behaviour following a terrible event in his childhood. Being from a hunting family and having had access to gun, he shot down a bird who had a yellow colour covering its neck. His uncle helped him to take the bird to the Bombay natural history museum, where the curator identified it as a rare sparrow. Salim was so disturbed by what he did that he dedicated his life to create nature parks to preserve bird life. 

I have few books of Salim Ali and visited a nature park named in his memory about forty kilometres away from our village beside a lake and dam. 

I have noticed that birds when offered a friendly environment, they surprise us by their gestures towards each other and even towards humans. 

A garden when made into a home for birds, they become hospitable and sociable!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A thriving plant!

The two photos of the same plant in our garden, taken after a week of the first one, tell a story of new blossoms in the second one and more to come!

A plant grows and bears flowers. That is its natural habit. 

It receives its nutrients from the soil and the sunshine promotes its photosynthesis. 

It had a stunted look for about two months when the day was cloudy and the rains hid the sunshine. 

The soaked soil during the rain and lack of sunshine impaired its growth and flowering. 

A conversation with a friend brought this message into focus. The conversation was about a person who finds the home environment stifling and reducing!

A  child is like a plant in a home waiting to thrive in a healthy environment! The interactive language of cordiality, accepting attitude and thoughtful acts of kindness promote emotional and social wealth of a child more so during the transition years from adolescence to becoming a young adult. 

As I listen to stories of dislocation in the process and sometimes watch the painful reaction of a young adult, I wonder if parenting relationship has suffered to be effective!

The news of a girl and boy disappearing a few days ago from our neighbourhood was a serious expression of the mistrust between parents and children. Although parents were able to trace them, the shock and pain it brought remain. 

A home offers a formative environment for transition from adolescence to adulthood. I wonder whether this is breaking down!

It is the young people who brought a change of political leadership in Nepal after a week of rioting and violence. 

The young aspirational generation is seeking for a change ! Is it possible that they are tired of the dichotomy of conduct and behaviour in their homes or society that they look for a change!

It is time to pause and reflect!

A plant blossoms when cared for!

I turn to our homes as being formative for adolescent children! I wish parents take time to  know their children and become path finders for them!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Reminder of Trapeze artist !

Although I notice the squirrels coming to the feeding table almost every day, it was only recently I became curious to observe their limb movements. 

They depend on the hind limbs to lift the body to move forward on a flat surface. While placing the forelimbs on the front, it lifts the hind limbs to lift and move forward the body, while it repositions the forelimbs ahead to repeat the movement cycle. 

While it has to climb, the forelimbs or the leading limbs receive the sensory input and guide to move the hind limbs to use the necessary force to climb. In the third photo above the hind limb is placed on the edge of the feeding table and squirrel lifts the body forward with the forelimbs assisting this process. 

The leading limbs while feeding are the forelimbs. 

As its body is horizontally designed and the ventral surface is in contact with the surface over which it moves, the four limbs do all the functions to give it strength during movements. 

The jumping that squirrels are used to between branches or trees are also limb dependent. They land with the limbs and stabilise the body on the surface as it lands. 

The acrobatic flair the squirrels have during the movements is graceful to watch. It has a few near miss falls, but manages to escape them by dexterous corrective movement. 

The squirrels are scavengers of the environment and are therefore are often moving around in all gardens!

Most squirrels are co-feeders at the feeding table in our garden. 

That makes the garden a hospitable place!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Friendly gestures!

 

The long bird calls of  a Bulbul after it dried its wet body in the morning sun was striking. It moved to be perched near another Bulbul in another cable. 

The above scene displayed the way how a Bulbul overcame its lonely feeling by showing friendly gesture to another Bulbul. The other Bulbul did nit reciprocate for a while. 

Later the two arrived at the feeding station together. 

I notice this in the avian behaviour- Bulbuls have a sociable disposition !

The bird behaviours are educational and instructive. They live supporting and helping each other! They communicate that to each other!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Given to give away!

At sunrise, I observed how leaves and flowers receive a new adorable look in our garden!

The sunshine gifts that appearance!

They receive and reflect the sunrays!

It is what we receive as a person which we reflect or radiate !

The abundance of goodwill we receive from all around us fill us to be overflowing!

I keep pondering on this !

What upbuilds or changes others is goodwill and thoughtfulness!

We are given to give away!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

Sobering behaviour !

To watch a Bulbul feed is a refreshing sight! It follows a rhythm that it has developed for itself! Every move during this feeding process has an aesthetic touch!

It bites just enough it can swallow and pauses between each bite. The ease and peace that a Bulbul conveys during the feeding is unique. The Barbet would take a large bite and struggle to swallow. 

Some bird watchers observed that Bulbuls respond to friendly gestures and can even modulate the chirps to convey messages. 

When the feeding bowls are not replenished with food, two regular visitors would fly inside the dining room where the fruits are kept. They have become familiar with the fruit corner.

Of all the birds who visit us, the Bulbuls are special as they seek out for contacts with us. They are the first to arrive in the feeding table in the morning and the last to leave at dusk! Their chirps after the feed have a different tone! The chirps during the feed are intended to invite other birds. The Bulbuls feel comfortable to feed along with others. They show no haste or threatening behaviour. 

Anna and I feel grateful that we have had some association with Bulbuls during the last thirteen years we have lived in our cottage.  It took three years to plan for a feeding corner. We had to change its location three times to make it more hospitable. The Bulbuls adjusted to these changes well. Now we have two pairs and three singles who are regular visitors to the feeding table. 

I have watched their sobering behaviour and communicative efforts. Theirs is a counter to being possessive or aggressive!

The melody of their bird calls respond in the garden during the day!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Seeing and processing!

I watched this Barbet gauging the environment at day break. I suspect that it is a habit of some birds to plan their flight paths by observing the environment !

The alert look is an illustration of a purposeful search for planning the movements. 

I found this instructional! 

Looking and sensing!

When I walk the dog, this form of behaviour is the habit of Daphne and Dulcie!

The  processing and interpretation of an information is the natural instinct of birds and dogs. 

It is a highly developed skill in humans!

The assassination of a press reporter in the USA, violence in Paris, and Nepal, the threat of a regional war in the Middle East.... I wonder whether those in responsible positions process and interpret situations well enough to anticipate danger and act to avoid them!

We live in a grieving world, where people suffer because some intend harm for others!

I wonder whether some global statesmen would emerge in the horizon to feel for people in distress and guide nations to be interested in the welfare and wellness of all!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Smallness as a distinction!

While tracking the small flowers in the garden, I noticed a reddish small Beetle looking like a Red Pumpkin Beetle, which is not common in our garden. It is a pest which thrives on millets. This Beetle avoids plants and crops where ants thrive. 

My interest was in its smallness. The description of its size is 5 to 8 mm. 

A garden has many such surprises!

I did not have a macro lens with me. So its body features are not fully visible. 

The biology of the environment is fascinating!

The sense of curiosity grown within me !

M.C.Mathew (text and photo) 

 

A home is a garden!

When I visited the plants found the above flowers around our cottage, I made an attempt to recall their history and flowering pattern!

They are plants which flower in their due season!

Yesterday, while in a conversation on parenting, a question came up about formative parenting!

Children during the mid childhood are a reflection of the home and the parenting practices. 

The attentive presence to their formative process is a parenting vocation!

And yet, it is where parents find the experiences disturbing!

A family who sought help for episodic bed wetting of their eight year old son after he was dry from the age of five years found themselves perplexed! It was during the private interview with parents it became clear that the episodic bed-wetting occurred when the father was on his business trip once in two to three months. Their son seemed to miss the long walk with his father and their dog in the evenings. When the mother substituted for the walk with their dog during the father's absence, the child remained dry at night!

It was a message that transitions at home have a formative influence during the mid childhood. 

The plants above bore flowers because they were tended to in a mindful manner!

A home offers such an ambience of emotional and social formation for children!

I sometimes wonder whether parenting engagement receives attentive presence to the extent children in mid childhood need! 

Children are flowers born out of good parenting practices. 

A family holds a meeting with their two children every weekend to listen to them in an unhurried manner. The family mentioned it to be occasions of building bridges in communication and knowing the aspirations of children! That family revises parenting environment  regularly to stay contemporary to the growing profile and needs of their children!

A home is a garden of life for children. Parental vocation is to be companion to their children in their formative journey!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)