Excerpt: The Living Air by Aasheesh Pittie
This extract from a book of essays on birds and the pleasures of birdwatching celebrates the teeming wildlife around us even in crowded urban settlements
Mini Doses of Life for Harried Souls
Areas of wilderness are at a premium in urban agglomerations, for nature is rarely allowed to exist unhampered here. It makes one accept any patch with the semblance of being a wild habitat with gratitude. Some among us harried urbanites resonate with Wordsworth’s prescience, when he observed that “the world is too much with us; late and soon, / getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: / Little we see in nature that is ours.” Deep within us, we feel a primal tug that draws us to the solace that nature offers.
The exigencies of our lifestyles have taught us to celebrate wildness at the drop of a hat, in minuscule doses if need be, and in the most unconventional places!
Old walls are a favourite of mine. Layers of piled uncut stones make the best habitats. But anything that is not cemented, or plastered with mud or lime, will also do for a home to many life forms. It’s hard to believe the number of creatures that dwell in them. The sun warms up these walls, making them a favourite of the cold-blooded reptiles. Garden Lizards display their fiery red to adversaries, signalling their hold over a territory, straddled on the highest stone in the pile. And if threatened by a Shikra or a schoolboy, they scuttle into one of the innumerable little crevices between the stones.
Skinks might play among the pile of hand-hewn granite along an unused part of a compound, their smooth, dry, shiny skin creating an optical illusion of glistening moisture. Snakes and scorpions, with their fearsome and toxic armoury, live the lives of hounded recluses within deeper, darker fissures.
Spiders abound in almost every recess and cranny, safe from the winds and sweeping broom. An Indian Robin will definitely nest here if left undisturbed. Alert to intrusion, the parents carrying food to their young are duty-bound and cautious. Squirrels scamper along playing tag and other squirrel games close to trees so they can jump away to safety when a Shikra is on the prowl.
Electric poles attract Common Mynas. Those that are made of hollow pipes serve as ready-made nesting holes. Perched on top, the myna does its hilarious head-bobbing, feather-ruffling act, uttering the rusty-hinged creaking of a wind-buffeted window. Such sights are common in many parts of the city. A cousin, the Pied Myna, even dares construct large globular nests on electric poles, not only getting away with unauthorized construction but also managing to raise a family under the municipality’s very nose!
Black Kites use the new tower lights that illuminate major traffic intersections in the city to build their nests. What an ideal location for them! Height, a commanding field of view, and protection from disturbance!
The gridwork of lights that illuminates the Lal Bahadur Stadium becomes inadvertent picture frames as pre-roosting kites fill them in the evening before they disperse in swirling, slow-motion tornado spirals to roost in large canopy trees.
Borrow-pits form, when chunks of earth are scooped out (burrowed) and used for construction or landfills. Invariably, these craters fill with water during the rains and become ponds or small jheels. Life creeps in and sets up a home. Cattails crowd the margins providing vital cover for timorous wildlings. Other aquatic vegetation springs up and adds its own charm. A family of Dabchicks may usurp this little soup bowl of a habitat. But its true and rightful residents are the toads and frogs. They are the visible and audible souls of such pocket marshes. The monsoon is their season, when males woo females with a lusty song. Peeps, trills, honks, and croaks resound around marshes in deep Earth-music.
A borrow-pit is a human mistake, for it helps water stagnate and breeds mosquitoes. But nature steps in with a cure – the frogs that are voracious guzzlers of mosquito larvae.
Large, open areas like the parade grounds in Hyderabad attract ground-dwelling birds. Red-wattled Lapwings strut about in undisturbed parts, rising in alarm, quizzing the guilty with their calls. Wagtails run about after small insects including mosquitoes. The population of our resident race, the Large Pied Wagtail, is bolstered tenfold or more by migrants in various hues of grey, blue, white, and black during the winter. An open space in Sanjivayya Park seems to be a favourite pad of hundreds of these visitors.
In such locations, innumerable rodents might huddle in subterranean burrows, awaiting the dark and prospects of snacking at the edible spread of human detritus. Spotted Owlets arrive with the blanketing night to keep their population in check. A late walker would hear the mouse hunter’s screeches and chuckles.
Avenue trees mainly act as corridors for commuting birds. Many species visit the various parks in the city and while flying from one to another, they may stop in a tree along a road. Sometimes, these trees are able to grow undisturbed for twenty-odd years – before development catches up with them – becoming important for local fauna. Birds might begin to use them as roosts, flocking to them in vast numbers, creating a terrific din before darkness descends and they fall asleep.
The charm of natural history is that in its barest form it does not require any ‘investment’. It exists. And if we create a little time and observe our surroundings, we benefit. Our lives are enriched.
As Whitman said, “You must not know too much, or be too precise or scientific, about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft: a certain free margin, and even vagueness – perhaps ignorance, credulity – helps your enjoyment of these things …”
Mini Doses of Life for Harried Souls
Areas of wilderness are at a premium in urban agglomerations, for nature is rarely allowed to exist unhampered here. It makes one accept any patch with the semblance of being a wild habitat with gratitude. Some among us harried urbanites resonate with Wordsworth’s prescience, when he observed that “the world is too much with us; late and soon, / getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: / Little we see in nature that is ours.” Deep within us, we feel a primal tug that draws us to the solace that nature offers.
The exigencies of our lifestyles have taught us to celebrate wildness at the drop of a hat, in minuscule doses if need be, and in the most unconventional places!
Old walls are a favourite of mine. Layers of piled uncut stones make the best habitats. But anything that is not cemented, or plastered with mud or lime, will also do for a home to many life forms. It’s hard to believe the number of creatures that dwell in them. The sun warms up these walls, making them a favourite of the cold-blooded reptiles. Garden Lizards display their fiery red to adversaries, signalling their hold over a territory, straddled on the highest stone in the pile. And if threatened by a Shikra or a schoolboy, they scuttle into one of the innumerable little crevices between the stones.
Skinks might play among the pile of hand-hewn granite along an unused part of a compound, their smooth, dry, shiny skin creating an optical illusion of glistening moisture. Snakes and scorpions, with their fearsome and toxic armoury, live the lives of hounded recluses within deeper, darker fissures.
Spiders abound in almost every recess and cranny, safe from the winds and sweeping broom. An Indian Robin will definitely nest here if left undisturbed. Alert to intrusion, the parents carrying food to their young are duty-bound and cautious. Squirrels scamper along playing tag and other squirrel games close to trees so they can jump away to safety when a Shikra is on the prowl.
Electric poles attract Common Mynas. Those that are made of hollow pipes serve as ready-made nesting holes. Perched on top, the myna does its hilarious head-bobbing, feather-ruffling act, uttering the rusty-hinged creaking of a wind-buffeted window. Such sights are common in many parts of the city. A cousin, the Pied Myna, even dares construct large globular nests on electric poles, not only getting away with unauthorized construction but also managing to raise a family under the municipality’s very nose!
Black Kites use the new tower lights that illuminate major traffic intersections in the city to build their nests. What an ideal location for them! Height, a commanding field of view, and protection from disturbance!
The gridwork of lights that illuminates the Lal Bahadur Stadium becomes inadvertent picture frames as pre-roosting kites fill them in the evening before they disperse in swirling, slow-motion tornado spirals to roost in large canopy trees.
Borrow-pits form, when chunks of earth are scooped out (burrowed) and used for construction or landfills. Invariably, these craters fill with water during the rains and become ponds or small jheels. Life creeps in and sets up a home. Cattails crowd the margins providing vital cover for timorous wildlings. Other aquatic vegetation springs up and adds its own charm. A family of Dabchicks may usurp this little soup bowl of a habitat. But its true and rightful residents are the toads and frogs. They are the visible and audible souls of such pocket marshes. The monsoon is their season, when males woo females with a lusty song. Peeps, trills, honks, and croaks resound around marshes in deep Earth-music.
A borrow-pit is a human mistake, for it helps water stagnate and breeds mosquitoes. But nature steps in with a cure – the frogs that are voracious guzzlers of mosquito larvae.
Large, open areas like the parade grounds in Hyderabad attract ground-dwelling birds. Red-wattled Lapwings strut about in undisturbed parts, rising in alarm, quizzing the guilty with their calls. Wagtails run about after small insects including mosquitoes. The population of our resident race, the Large Pied Wagtail, is bolstered tenfold or more by migrants in various hues of grey, blue, white, and black during the winter. An open space in Sanjivayya Park seems to be a favourite pad of hundreds of these visitors.
In such locations, innumerable rodents might huddle in subterranean burrows, awaiting the dark and prospects of snacking at the edible spread of human detritus. Spotted Owlets arrive with the blanketing night to keep their population in check. A late walker would hear the mouse hunter’s screeches and chuckles.
Avenue trees mainly act as corridors for commuting birds. Many species visit the various parks in the city and while flying from one to another, they may stop in a tree along a road. Sometimes, these trees are able to grow undisturbed for twenty-odd years – before development catches up with them – becoming important for local fauna. Birds might begin to use them as roosts, flocking to them in vast numbers, creating a terrific din before darkness descends and they fall asleep.
The charm of natural history is that in its barest form it does not require any ‘investment’. It exists. And if we create a little time and observe our surroundings, we benefit. Our lives are enriched.
As Whitman said, “You must not know too much, or be too precise or scientific, about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft: a certain free margin, and even vagueness – perhaps ignorance, credulity – helps your enjoyment of these things …”
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