કાળિયું કુતરુ, કાણિયું કબુતર and I

કાળિયું કુતરુ (Black dog): A Black dog that one day decided that she will spend most of its time in my front yard, actually sitting as near as main door as possible. However, as its decision didn't go well with me, after long and difficult negotiations, it now sits few feet away in a way that it doesnt come in a way or directly visible standing at the door.

કાણિયું કબુતર (One eyed Pigeon): A Collered dove baby arrived at my home some 5+ weeks back when it was some 11-12 old. It was delivered at home by kids who found him on the gound, injured, broken nest hanging in a tree nearby. It had lost its one eye, had non major looking injury on head but was a strong, solid, happy baby not showing signs of tragedy it had gone through on its behaviour. Its parents too readily fed him for next 4-5 days as I carried him back and forth to where its nest was.

I: yours truly.

First 3 - 4 days: I was really scared of કાળિયું and always tried hiding baby dove from it as I carried it to/from its parents. It was however soon became apparent how clumsy my attempts were and that the dog almost always saw it in my hands.

next 1-2 days: both of us (કાળિયું and me) knew that hiding was ineffective still both were most at ease at pretending it was hidden.

Next few days: I gave up pretending and the dog was in big trouble. it was very scared of the strange situation and would run away at sight of the baby dove - even stopped sitting at his hard negotiated place.

next few days: Now it was dog who started to compromise with the situation. soon, it accepted the baby as one of the family and would even pass by it within few inches. this situation however was still unsatisfactory. I wanted my baby dove to learn to fear dogs. after all, not all dogs will be as good to him as કાળિયું.

few days later: કાણિયું found dog running directly above its head and before it could recover, dog came back and crossed it in reverse direction. કાણિયું appeared to be scared. and I thought correct reactions are in place now.

two days ago, when I was thinking of writing above, as I momentarily dropped my guard, found another female dog and my idiot baby dove sniffing each other in an exercise to getting to know each other leaving me where I started - Absolutely scared.

A tale of three species

Last Sunday afternoon around 5 pm Comman Myna distress call fell on my ears. I was sitting outside with the reason that is keeping me offline for last few weeks. My ability to recognise and respond to the call was affected somewhat as brain was pre-engaged with current duty but even then it did not result in delay more than couple of seconds when I could not dismiss the calls as routine alert calls by Myna - even though I could not think beyond what if not routine alert calls indicating presence of some predator not of immediate danger to them, I needed to respond. go and check.

I call Mom, handover my duty to her and run towards the tree where Mynas were in problem. they have their nest in that Gulmohar tree only few meters away. I see there was an animal high up there - rather, I could not see the animal high up there. No, it was not that high, actually I was wearing my reading glasses. (Few months back, while trying to take macro shots, I ended up scratching and making one of the correct number (fiber) glasses nearly opaque, and since then instead of buying a new glass, I am trying to reduce my number to current reading glasses to save 400 rupees. so unless I need to respond to such distress calls, use reading glasses all the time.). All I could make out was, there was some animal in high up tree cavity. I could not see properly and could not decide what to do - I ran back home to change glasses. I pick up glasses and also make an error I should be ashamed of. I thought it was already too late to help Mynas if their nest cavity was within reach of the animal and picked up camera to record what animal that was. (I should have remembered something useful to threaten the raider rather than remembering camera). Mom however didnt make that mistake and asked me to get the long bamboo stick too. all these took not more than few moments and I was there again in front of the tree with correct glasses, camera and bamboo stick. 

What struck me instantly was - what level of predator I WAS. ..or at least how powerful species I belong to. So far I was looking at the episode from Myna and my perspective but as I reach there and see the animal was already on its way down from Neem tree next to where it was originally, I suddenly see things from his perspective. It was escaping the scene as fast as it could - why? because one human - who cant leave ground to reach him that high on tree- came, could not even see him properly and went back as fast as it came without doing anything. and still that being tentatively seen by human created a big risk for it from which it needed to flee asap.

I managed to capture couple of shots before it manged to reach ground and run at full speed away from me.

hope to be back soon

I had ended previous post saying there were no points in guessing theme for May archives post - what I could not guess then that the May may never come.

Variety of factors kept me offline and may continue to do so for few more days. However, now that I can be online enough to leave a note, thought should say I and this blog still exist and hope to be back soon.