JOIN USBirds of different feathers
We wake in the dark to the sound of a young boy whistling. It’s a bold and dulcet tone, wonderfully pleasing to the ear, a lilting timbre of carefreeness floating up from the forest below our hut. Someone’s really happy, we think, though the hour is surely unearthly. We listen quietly in the dark, wondering who could be walking about at this time, though the leafbed on the forest floor is silent and the voice seems to float in from different places at different times, until it stops, just as suddenly as it had started.
Outside, the trees are still skeletons penciled in the blackness. Their wiry frames rustle gently in the breeze; the sky through the treetops still has a few stars lurking from the night, and the faintest of amber hues from dawn that is still an hour away. And then again comes that whistling song.
Spotting the elusive
Farther now, down in the small nullah that runs dry through this patch of forest at the Old Magazine House at Ganeshgudi, near Dandeli Tiger Reserve in Karnataka. There it is louder, bouncing off from the stones on the dry waterway, but it suddenly stops again in mid-song. As if the singer has just remembered that he has forgotten the rest of the words. The silence of the forest lingers hesitantly, unsure if it should return, or wait for the singer to remember.
What we’ve been hearing is the Malabar whistling thrush. We finally get to see the bird later that morning, as it perches lightly on the rocks, its deep blue glistening against the old brown of the moss on the stones. It is a brief glimpse, for it is a skittish bird, but not for nothing is it also known as the ‘Whistling Schoolboy’.
At Ganeshgudi, such are the gems that await those who seek, while still being content for nature to come to them. Birdwatching isn’t really about watching birds; it’s more about having to look (and sometimes look very hard!) for them. Restless and twitchy, moving about the world with an intention very different from our own, the very nature of birds make birdwatchers a restless and fidgety tribe — always on their feet, oblivious in their own pursuit, squinting into every canopy, and peering into every bush. For a birder in a forest, vacation or not, the armchair isn’t really the favourite piece of furniture. At Ganeshgudi, however, the gods are much kinder, and their munificence is such that even if one were content to just sit at a single place and watch the forest all day long, there would be so many avian treasures to see.
Putting on a show
Travellers always hear such fables, but the belief only comes only with the seeing. So as the afternoon wanes and the shadows lengthen, the anticipation builds. The heat of the day settles tiredly on the ground like a dusty cloak. The trees that tower over the camp smother the sunlight and a hushed silence begins to descend as the forest prepares for dusk. The croaking of the barbets begins to fade, and every now and then, a chatter of parakeets shoots through the canopy, as if scramming to get home.
There are a few watering holes and birdbaths around which a hide has been set up. We wait patiently and soon the first flutter can be heard in the bush and among the bamboo. Crouching behind the hide, we do not know what the bird is — just a white tail perhaps, bobbing up and down, sometimes flitting from one branch and then settling on another.
You get the feeling that this is a show, that the actors are coming on stage now, the spotlights are turning on, and the audience is blurring to darkness as the curtain is finally lifted.
The smallest and the boldest of the lot — the black-naped monarch — breaks the suspense and finally flits into the clearing, settling on a branch, with one practiced eye on us and the other on the welcoming water below. This little and delightful bird loves his water; swooping down, he will dive into it for a drink and then splash around in joy before heading back to his perch. But he just cannot have enough of the water, so there he goes again, heads back to the little pool, and his joy of sputtering about in the water doesn’t seem to diminish with every turn. It’s the same with our delight as well, at being able to watch this from so close quarters. And it’s as if a cue has been given for the others to emerge from the shadows.
The flame-throated bulbul emerges next. It’s aptly named; the yellow in its throat shimmers in the late sun. A much bigger bird, when it descends to the water, the monarch is forced to flee, waiting at the fringes when his pool shall return to him.
It’s all transient
One by one, in a manner that makes you forget time and its passing, you will get to see birds which’ll take your breath away by the sheer beauty of their colour and the incredulity of their plumage. You can’t peel your eyes away from the dark-fronted babbler that moves about rather studiously and is almost coy when it gets wet. The Oriental white eyes come in a noisy flock; like synchronised swimmers at the Olympics, one diving into the water and one darting out of it. The Indian scimitar babbler is a skulker and arrives late and appears not too fond of the water. The emerald doves are the boldest and the most graceful. The black-rumped shama and its sweetest song is heard long before the bird appears, and is soon followed by the exquisite Indian paradise flycatcher.
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Finally, long after the birders have had their fill, the day ends. In the evening, we sit around the campfire, listening to the darkness of the forest. For the jungle, this has just been another day; while for us, this has been an experience unlike any other. The treasures that are nourished in our forests are timeless and irreplaceable, seemingly placed for a reason beyond human comprehension, but always a pointer to what can be irretrievably lost, if, as a race, all we care about is material progress that comes from bleeding the earth. With each tree and each bird that makes its life in nature, places like Ganeshgudi still exist as miracles, trying to teach us lessons we all ought to learn before it is too late.