Till my only child started school, I was a full time mom. Looking back, I would call it the most blissful part of my life. I have also realised that one of the best things about bringing up a child is learning new things yourself.
One routine that Y & I would always look forward to was our daily evening ramble. Chatting our way along a lot of greenery, we would come across playful dogs, grazing cows, butterflies, snakes, ants and lots and lots of birds. For Y, every bird had to have a name and it was here that I would feel thoroughly challenged. Brought up in a big city, my knowledge of bird identification was limited to crows and sparrows. Of course, I could tell a pigeon from a peacock!
After Y was born, a visit to the book shop in big city meant a browse through the children's books section. During one such visit, we came across a book in Kannada called Pakshi Sankula (A collection of birds) by Mr.Suresh Kulkarni - a book with paintings by the author of commonly seen birds and a brief note on their feeding & nesting habits.
Bird watching/identifying became a favourite pastime after that. Sighting a new bird meant coming home and going through the book to identify it. Picking up a feather meant coming home and pasting it on the page that had the bird. Soon, our vocabulary had words like 'Magpie Robin', 'Scarlet minivet', 'Green bee eater', etc. These birds soon began to feature in the stories that we would invent. On rainy evenings, if indoor games & story books tired us out, we would leaf through this book/ try to sketch the birds .
When identifying birds was no longer difficult, the dependance on the book lessened. With time, the spheres of interest widened and birds have now become objects of momentory curiosity.
For a majority of the Indian birds, February - March is the nesting season. As I see and hear the frenzied activity of the birds around me, my mind takes me back to those days of active bird watching.
One routine that Y & I would always look forward to was our daily evening ramble. Chatting our way along a lot of greenery, we would come across playful dogs, grazing cows, butterflies, snakes, ants and lots and lots of birds. For Y, every bird had to have a name and it was here that I would feel thoroughly challenged. Brought up in a big city, my knowledge of bird identification was limited to crows and sparrows. Of course, I could tell a pigeon from a peacock!
After Y was born, a visit to the book shop in big city meant a browse through the children's books section. During one such visit, we came across a book in Kannada called Pakshi Sankula (A collection of birds) by Mr.Suresh Kulkarni - a book with paintings by the author of commonly seen birds and a brief note on their feeding & nesting habits.
Bird watching/identifying became a favourite pastime after that. Sighting a new bird meant coming home and going through the book to identify it. Picking up a feather meant coming home and pasting it on the page that had the bird. Soon, our vocabulary had words like 'Magpie Robin', 'Scarlet minivet', 'Green bee eater', etc. These birds soon began to feature in the stories that we would invent. On rainy evenings, if indoor games & story books tired us out, we would leaf through this book/ try to sketch the birds .
When identifying birds was no longer difficult, the dependance on the book lessened. With time, the spheres of interest widened and birds have now become objects of momentory curiosity.
For a majority of the Indian birds, February - March is the nesting season. As I see and hear the frenzied activity of the birds around me, my mind takes me back to those days of active bird watching.
Early morning, from my kitchen, I can hear so many different birds talking to each other, it is such a pleasure to listen to them. I have never been able to identify a bird which whistles so beautifully.
ReplyDeleteThe cherry tree in front of our house is a nice resting place for many big and small birds:)
Now there are cherries and some activity is always taking place:)
True, it's such a pleasure to listen to the birds.The constant chirps while eating fruits make me wonder if they are having some sort of a dinner conversation!!
ReplyDeleteOne routine I still look forward to is that daily evening ramble of ours:) After reading this, I really feel that 'Pakshi Sankula' has helped us in identifying lots of birds around us, which we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.
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