Tuesday 22 December 2015

(anyone's)wealth+power+(less than required)intelligence = waste of time and energy

If you watch my multi species family for any length, benefits of being more powerful are clear. you get to eat fruits first, you can drink water whenever you want, no one challenges you (well, until you are not threat to their kids - in role of parents one can very well stand up against bigger species too). These things are true 'generally' but effective advantage of such power changes when non routine things like abundance of resources or inter-species interaction gets added. Say, even when there is no scarcity, most powerful may still spend considerable energy in protecting extra food while those in lower ranks manages to just eat and play.

Whatever said, its not easy not to hoard if you have something of value in your hand and cant spend/use it immediately. Our crows too do it regularly. They have a place in a tree trunk where they store extra food. A slight problem with that however is, everyone else too know of their hiding place. When you have a problem and an intelligent creature, you see an attempt to solve it. Few days back I saw a young crow doing exactly the same. hiding extra roti he had at an unlikely place. Very much on the ground. see the video. This one is little longer by my standards. its 1 minute 8 secs, some 11+ MB as uploaded.



I am not very hopeful of this strategy too being successful as many dogs pass by and there are lots of ants also - a big ant nest just nearby. but still, it was nice to see this crow trying out things differently. Even as his efforts to hoard, watch over and then eat those roties in future were certain to go waste and even not required given lack of scarcity, it was at least using his brain and learning new things.

Meanwhile, while I am at crows, here is a small peek into their old behaviour too. Till they realised that it simply wont work, they used to always try to take water home in summer (I used to keep water only in summer then - was quite stupid of me to think they need it only in summer, but learning curve doesn't apply only to crows, it applies to me too.). Its 10 sec. 1+ MB



Saturday 19 December 2015

Difficult rationality

I have a post that I started few days back less than half done. also in another I intend to share crow behaviour but havent overcome laziness so far and now am somewhat stuck with kind of unease and cant take my mind off the topic even after there is nothing more to 'think' about it, so why not write about it?

Yesterday, heard a sound that I couldn't recognise and it appeared to be coming from someone in either distress or an alert to some nearby danger. I walked in direction of sound. even before I locate the source, my interpretation of sound drifted more towards distress than to alert. soon I also saw the source. some small bird hanging on a tall tree (some kind of fig tree). Two crows were sitting nearby and fearing they will harm the bird caught in Plastic Kite thread, I made gestures asking them to go away. they did so but I soon realised they were actually only watching out of curiosity and I regretted my decision - could they actually be trying to find out way to help the bird?

Fortunately there was help at hand and the person were good at helping too. While I saw no way how that bird could be saved but one person climbed on roof below the tree with a long bamboo of I think some 20 feet, he attached burning incense like thing (burning not just at tip but few inches) at the front, targeted plastic thread with swiftness and precision and thread was cut. bird stuck midway and he pushed leaves/branch, bird fell to the ground. It wasn't a bird, it was a small fruit bat. I had not known they were around till then.

It took me 20-30 mins to slowly free his wing from multiple loops of that killer thread. towards the end, bat lost patience and tried to free itself from my grip, and bit my finger - only slightly though. I also managed to get a little scratch from his nail. though it slowed down remaining untangling process, finally it was done and despite one broken bone in the wing, one side of the wing damaged, it managed to fly in short bouts and climbed nearby banana tree. It covered itself in its wings and went to sleeping position - I admire its rationality. If I was him, I most probably would have stayed in panic mode and destroyed any remaining chances of recovery also.

After washing my hand, applying turmeric, also applying antiseptic from nearby dispensary, I googled if bat bite is risky. and well, I was really scarred to read about rabies, other possible infections bats can carry. - well, the scratch and bite were only slight, and most probably I was more scared than required. actually, definitely my reaction was unwarranted - by now, I have a feeling that rarely anything may apply to my innocent little fruit eating bat. plus, he appeared very healthy- both physically as well as mentally. plus GoI guildlines I found on net stated that in India there was no information on risk from bat and exposure to it can be ignored. even in my worried state, or probably more because of that, I hoped one day to make myself as calm and as rational as the bat. tough target, but worth the efforts - if I can make to it.


Meanwhile, despite the very low perceived risk and lack of information, I finally decided to err on cautious side. will take rabies vaccine starting later today- and now really worried about if that process will go on fine or not.. - I live in part of India where fake medicine are known to exist in the system, skilled and trained manpower is a nearly non existent concept at social level, and even otherwise, I dont really classify myself as very fit person and do fear allopathic medicines in general. but apart from all these, greater problem is within myself. Not able to let useless and unhelpful worrying thoughts go away is something purely I have to find solution for. and if I can take inspiration from the bat wrt to that, probably all these short-term problems will be a small cost for a bigger gain.