Miss Birdy and Aggie
It's ages since we blogged. That happens in two cases: your life's completely uneventful and there's nothing to write about; or there's too much happening and you haven't the time to write.
From a couple of weeks of the former, life rapidly swung to the latter.
Ever since Jai and I got involved in Manju's case, it's taken over our lives. We set up The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust and have been saddened by the apathy of the priviliged, happy with the warm hearted response of some.
Of course, work also got crazy at the same time. Had to happen. The pace has just slowed down in the last few days, though we've still forgotten what a 2-day weekend feels like.
And now, Miss Birdy! Jai called me when I was in Bangalore end Feb and told me that a nest has been built on the potted plant ON our door-step! It is a perfect, bowl-shaped little nest, about 4 cm across, in the fork of Aggie, our 3 ft high potted Christmas tree!A total thrill. We still hadn't seen the bird.
On March 2nd, we opened the door and peered into the nest - it's about a foot from our door - to see, with a clutch of excitement, an egg!! Pale pinkish background, splotched all over with maroon spots, perfectly egg shaped. Then we saw her - this amazingly cute red-whiskered bulbul, sitting on the nest. We are very careful to tiptoe past her, though the doorbell is right above her head, she doesn't seem to mind. For no reason, she's christened Miss Birdy.
On March 3rd, she'd gone off for a while and we saw - TWO eggs. And on the 4th - three!! A typical clutch is 2-3 eggs, apparently. What fun.
She sits on the eggs all night, we think, and goes off for short stretches during the day, especially afternoons. First thing every morning, peer out, smile, before sitting down to newspapers and coffee. And we still can't get over a feeling of -wonder, that this bird has chosen to build her nest in front of our door, lays her eggs and is incubating them - and letting us see all this from so close. We feel privileged.
We first thought she's really dumb, how could she know we wouldn't damage her nest or eggs? We like to think, maybe she did know we wouldn't. And last night, boy, what a storm. it poured with unnerving ferocity for over 2 hours, complete with huge cracks of lightning and thunder. If she'd been in a tree out in the open, the eggs and nest would not have survived. Here, they are protected by the porch roof - they were totally dry.
Today we saw her with another bulbul, probably her mate. We'd read that the male shares in the feeding of the fledgelings, and we hadn't seen him around, but clearly they do stay together after mating and Miss (Ms?) Birdy goes off with him on short jaunts through the day. Nice.
Typical incubation period is 10-12 days..so watch this space next week!
From a couple of weeks of the former, life rapidly swung to the latter.
Ever since Jai and I got involved in Manju's case, it's taken over our lives. We set up The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust and have been saddened by the apathy of the priviliged, happy with the warm hearted response of some.
Of course, work also got crazy at the same time. Had to happen. The pace has just slowed down in the last few days, though we've still forgotten what a 2-day weekend feels like.
And now, Miss Birdy! Jai called me when I was in Bangalore end Feb and told me that a nest has been built on the potted plant ON our door-step! It is a perfect, bowl-shaped little nest, about 4 cm across, in the fork of Aggie, our 3 ft high potted Christmas tree!A total thrill. We still hadn't seen the bird.
On March 2nd, we opened the door and peered into the nest - it's about a foot from our door - to see, with a clutch of excitement, an egg!! Pale pinkish background, splotched all over with maroon spots, perfectly egg shaped. Then we saw her - this amazingly cute red-whiskered bulbul, sitting on the nest. We are very careful to tiptoe past her, though the doorbell is right above her head, she doesn't seem to mind. For no reason, she's christened Miss Birdy.
On March 3rd, she'd gone off for a while and we saw - TWO eggs. And on the 4th - three!! A typical clutch is 2-3 eggs, apparently. What fun.
She sits on the eggs all night, we think, and goes off for short stretches during the day, especially afternoons. First thing every morning, peer out, smile, before sitting down to newspapers and coffee. And we still can't get over a feeling of -wonder, that this bird has chosen to build her nest in front of our door, lays her eggs and is incubating them - and letting us see all this from so close. We feel privileged. 
We first thought she's really dumb, how could she know we wouldn't damage her nest or eggs? We like to think, maybe she did know we wouldn't. And last night, boy, what a storm. it poured with unnerving ferocity for over 2 hours, complete with huge cracks of lightning and thunder. If she'd been in a tree out in the open, the eggs and nest would not have survived. Here, they are protected by the porch roof - they were totally dry.
Today we saw her with another bulbul, probably her mate. We'd read that the male shares in the feeding of the fledgelings, and we hadn't seen him around, but clearly they do stay together after mating and Miss (Ms?) Birdy goes off with him on short jaunts through the day. Nice.
Typical incubation period is 10-12 days..so watch this space next week!
posted by AnJ at 5:19 PM
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