explorer-9-blog - Tumblr blog

explorer-9-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Treasure amidst the City

It was a lazy Sunday morning, I had just woken up, took my phone and plugged it for charging and sat on the sofa still waiting for my body to come out of slumber. This was a daily routine. I sat there gazing at the greenery outside from my living room balcony. My balcony faces the garden from where you can see the Ashoka trees with their thick foliage, few coconut trees at a distance and a badam tree and a peepal tree at the periphery. There is something soothing and calming in this sight of the leaves fluttering in the breeze, movement of birds from one tree to another and the melody of various bird sounds. Obviously the crows are the lead vocalists you hear but in the background one can hear the different artist pitching in and it is those artists and contributors that make it a melody.

So as I was saying, it was a typical start to the day and as I sat there my brother tells me that he just saw a crow sized black bird with brown wings flying and settling behind the thick floiage of Ashoka tree, intrigued I joined him in the balcony and now we were trying to get a glimpse of it, hoping the breeze would shuffle the leaves a bit or the bird would make a movement to enable us to get a sight of it. And just moments later we see the leaves move at a place due to the birds movement and a closer look gives us the glimpse of the light brown back of the bird. Its like a trailer which keeps us interested and as we keep looking at the tree we are able to track its movement behind the leaves as it is a big bird. Finally it comes and settles at one of the branches towards the outer end giving us a full view and it was a triumphant moment as our patience bore fruit. As we admired it's beauty we realized it bigger then a crow, I asked my brother to take a pic so that we can flaunt it but just as he went to get his phone the bird took flight stretching it's brown wings and it was a beautiful sight. My brother came back with the phone and I told him it's gone. Nature had done a good balancing act. He saw it come and settle. I saw it settle and leave.

The next step was to google the description and find out who the unexpected visitor was. The result was immediate. The beauty is called 'Crow pheasant' or 'the Greater coucal'. I liked the name greater coucal. It suits the image of the bird. Crow pheasant makes it sound ordinary and it was not ordinary. The internet image helped us admire it's finer details like it's orange eyes and the blackish Purple body. Step 3 was to share our discovery of sorts with fellow beings with its name and internet image. Wow what a start it was to my day and I sat there with a sense of joyous fulfillment.

The events of the morning took me down memory lane and to the reason why this plain looking at trees, listening to bird sounds and occasional rare bird specie sighting is so pleasing to me. And this friends is the treasure I want to reveal. My family moved in to this Mumbai society in 1986 right after yours truly was born. Since my childhood I remember not waking up to the alarm but chirping of sparrows. We didn't have ACs in those days and both the bedroom windows would be kept open to let the air pass and keep the room temperature pleasant. One of the bedroom windows had similar view as from my living room balcony being adjacent to each other. And the next bedroom window had a green curtain of sorts. And no I am not talikng about the cloth ones. Once you open the cloth curtain you will find a Ashoka tree almost hugging the window grill and this was the abode of the sparrows. And our society has these Ashoka trees at a distance of every 6 feet along the motorable road inside the colony. So that window was flanked by this Ashoka tree and one to its either side. As if this wasn't enough, we have a mango tree just behind these Ashoka trees, so even between those Ashoka trees all you can see was green. And in this way the sparrows became our early morning alarm. I don't see them much now and the sound has also gone down several notches. Also the AC being used now has made us close the window :(. So as kids we woke up with a natural alarm and mom and dad used to carry us to the living room and setlle us on the sofa there. And though we didn't value the sight from our balcony much then, we now realize it was paradise. With the years gone by the present day view from the balcony desribed above has changed a bit. In our childhood days the green from the Ashoka trees was complimented by a bright red gulmohar tree in its full bloom. This and a full grown cocnut tree with its branches spread out was what we saw every morning. This coconut tree was right in front of the balcony and the badam and peepal tree were visible from between it's branches then. If only I could do anything to have that sight again.

The parrots were regular early morning visitors of the coconut tree and unlike other kids we never found parrots rare or exotic as we used to see them everyday. The gulmohar had a charm of it's own. The blazing red had a different beauty during sunset with the mix of orange skies. When the red petals fell to the ground it seemed as if the gulmohar has a laid out a red carpet for residents of the society. We lost the coconut tree to pests and the gulmohar to construction of a building. Had instagram and camera phones existed then, my balcony view would have been my best muse.

One other thing which is worth mentioning is the sweet sounds of the cuckoo that summers brought with them. The cuckoo has always been a frequent visitor. As kids you just enjoyed the sound and didn't take the pains to find the bird. That and the cuckoo made it difficult too. Everyone will agree it's not easy to spot one. But that too was accomplished when I sat to study in my bedroom window during my CA days. As opposed to a crow it had a slender body, longish tail and a smaller beak. Spotting a cuckoo till date is exciting as it's not as common as the parrots were. Summers also meant school vacations and I am glad that unlike kids of today, we spent our childhood vacations in outdoor activities. We used to play cricket in the morning till lunch time and after lunch we used to meet again as sleep was considered waste of good vacation time. Tired from the morning cricket and full with lunch we used to just sit and chill in the afternoon. And the place to chill was our colony garden. We had a tree we called our own. This was a small tree bearing small white flowers with a 4-5 feet trunk and branches going upwards in all directions from the center. Thus once you climbed the trunk you had 4-5 strong branches to sit and lean on. The tree easily managed the weight of 4 ten year olds. And our afternoons were spent mostly sitting on the tree and at other times playing marbles in the soft red soild in its shade. As we grew up while the sitting on the tree remained the same the tree changed. The small white flower bearing tree no longer could fit us and we had our sights on bigger things. Now we could climb the trunk of the mango tree. Not the one near my bedroom balcony but the one in our garden. Yes we had 6 mango trees in the colony and the seventh one had its trunk outside but the fruit bearing portion was inside our colony. So the teenage afternoons were spent on the mango tree in the garden. We used to pluck mangoes targetting the fruit with rubber balls or using a bamboo to pluck them. The mango fruit is also of different varieties as we all know. And the tree in our garden had a peculier variety. The fruit was round and slighly bigger in size. We used to call it 'Laddu keri' cause of the round shape. And we took pride in it as this was nothing of the ordinary. After plucking the raw mangoes we used to ask the society Gardner to slice them for us and give us a mixture of salt and red chilli powder to eat with it. Till date it's a pleasure to see the mango trees in full bloom with the fruits just before the arrival of the monsoon.

With so much greenary around the beautifully coloured butterflies and hyper active squirells were a common sight. But we have also spotted snakes in our garden while playing cricket and an owl twice or thrice at night. One thing i find silly now is the fact that we never stopped playing in the garden despite the snake sightings. We might have stopped a game a couple of times but we used to be back the next day or the same evening if we had stopped a game in the morning. Over the years I have seen many rare birds be it from my balcony or while studying for my CA on my terrace (cost me an attempt) [list below]. Nature, thus, was always an integral part of my growing up. No doubt it has a calming and soothing effect on me till date. This greenery around me is like a treasure in the midst of this hustling and bustling city.

Other notable bird visitors -

Magpie Robin it's a songster very melodious

Purple rumped sunbird - small and elegant

White spotted fantail - its got a name from its look, yes it has a fanned tail.

Eurasian golden oriole - this was a rare sighting. I have never seen a yellow bird before and it wasn't difficult to find a yellow bird native to Mumbai on Google.

#nature #birds #birdlover #Mumbaibirds #birdwatcher

-Bhavik

1 note · View note