I’m going to tread down memory lane to pen down an experience
and who ever reads it with any degree of sober judgment would think that this
was taken straight out of a fairy tale. The New Motibagh residential colony is
probably one of the most beautiful places one can hope to reside in Delhi.
Apart from all the luxuries provided to the urban resident, the colony seems to
serve the aesthetic needs of a nature lover too. When a person enters the gated
colony and careens himself along the periphery, life takes an unexpected turn.
Gone are the notions that one lives in the heart of Delhi, the people, the
traffic and all the sounds that are affiliated with a crowded metropolitan
city, and in comes the sweet, melodious, cacophonous, chirps and song notes
covering a wide range of genres that would instantly make one feel that he was
teleported from Earth, across the galaxy and specks of cosmic dusts and into
another planet bustling with avian life. This is what anyone will experience
and fortunately I was one of the lucky few to do so. I was not surprised when
my inquisitive chord was struck by a burgeoning urge to explore the wild within
my colony and this germinated into a two year effort of observation and
documentation and ultimately culminated with the birth of the Green Brigade.
During my escapades into the wild, I was able to identify
more than 51 species of birds within New Motibagh. A paradise for birds or so
it would seem. Over the past two years I was able to form a close relationship
with the birds and spend close to ten hours at a stretch, watching them feed,
build nests, frolic in puddles of water and be the sole spectator to their
flamboyant and grandiloquent displays with their colorful wedding suits and
their wildly amusing courtship rituals. I’m going to arrow a stab and partly
blame myself for keeping the avian paradise a secret from everyone though my
intentions were to provide the birds with an undisturbed habitat. But a series
of unfortunate events have spun a web of destruction around the birds with
several trees and shrubs being cleared off and many people illegally capturing
and caging them. As a source of recourse for the birds and their habitat, a
phalanx called the Green Brigade was put together constituting like minded
residents with the sole intent of protecting the delicate Eco-system within our
colony and ultimately providing a safe abode for the birds.
The Green Brigade soon realized that the Parakeets, the once
gregarious birds were fast disappearing from our colony. The dreaded eerie
silence which replaced their unmistakable squalling calls was our first clue
while the several undisturbed fruits, berries, nuts, blossoms and seeds were
our second. Finally working on a tip off and with the aid of the police and an
avian NGO the Green Brigade was able to rescue three Parakeet hatchlings and
this is where our story begins.
By now I was a nature aficionado within my neighborhood and
was in the process of filming my first documentary about these birds. I knew
the exact location of birds, their nests and the number of hatchlings within
each nest for a good part of my colony. A sawed off branch seemed to make a
good nesting site for two parakeets and because of its steep inclination I was
unable to film it. Nonetheless I would spend the better part of my day
observing their mating patterns, guardianship of their nest, incubation of
their eggs and finally upbringing of the hatchlings that
were tucked away deep within the hollow burrow. I was besotted with an
unexplainable feeling every time a hatchling stuck its head out and asked for
food. The Parakeets took turns feeding while one perched on a tree overlooking
the burrow, the other would venture on a food gathering expedition. The Parakeets
are rapacious defenders of their nests, always keeping an eye out for predators
such as eagles, kites, crows and cats and to add to that they had me to fend
off humans.
I soon realized that my worst fears were about to come true.
One morning I made my way to the nest site and waited for over an hour and
couldn’t locate either of the parent Parakeets. This was odd as the Parakeets
usually fed their hatchlings in intervals of ten minutes. Something seemed
wrong right from the start. After having fought a long bone-jarring battle with
my mind I was able to muster up the courage to climb the tree and peak into the
dark hollow burrow to see how the hatchlings were doing. These near hair breath
escapes of adventure fuel my life and these are words to live by. I didn't as
much as take off three feet from the ground before I nose dived into the ground
and my short run at climbing the tree seems to have run headlong into one of
those unexpected prolonged downpours and by now I was covered in slush. Not to
be outdone by a little rain and slush, I was back up on my feet and this time
managed to make it to the nest site and to my utter dismay I found no
hatchlings inside the nest. The answer was never the hard part as the lack of
blood stains suggested that the four parakeet babies were hatchling-napped and
not eaten by any predator. They couldn't have fallen off either as the burrow
was steep and deep and they were too young to wriggle out of their deep rooted
nest. Three hours into the tribulation and I still have no clue about the
parents. We’re they captured too?
It was teeth gnashingly frustrating as ten days passed and I
had no clue about the hatchlings and their parents. Then just when I was about
to give up on them, I caught a faint ray of luck when I inadvertently stumbled
upon a couple of kids burying a dead love-bird in the sand. I struck a
conversation with them and evoked the poignant truth about the Parakeet
hatchlings. They had been captured by a couple of kids living in the colony.
The kids that took them were acquaintances of mine, despite knowing my love for
birds, they crowed happily with me during these ten days without ever so much
as sparring a thought for my feelings. I now paddled into deep waters about the
truth of bird disappearances within my colony.
With the help of an avian NGO and a police force within my
colony, the Green Brigade was able to save three Parakeet hatchlings. These
hatchlings were confined to a small box with hardly any amount of breathing
space. Once confiscated the hatchlings were nestled in an open basket in the
house of a senior resident of the colony, Mrs. Poppy Kumar, who also happens to be one of the
founding members of the Green Brigade club. Mrs Poppy Kumar went through
a lot of trouble caring for these little ones as she had to hand feed them
every two hours throughout the course of the day. While questioning the boys
who captured the hatchlings, we were subjected to a kind of word salad of
criminally inaccurate excuses and because they were unaware that it was illegal
to keep parakeet hatchlings in cages, we let them go with a stern warning. The
boys have now turned their deviant ways around and are now the watchers and
protectors of birds within our colony.
Three days of tending to every need of the hatchlings took
its toll on ma'am and I. During one of the feeding sessions, we heard a
parakeet call out from the wild and the hatchlings (now sub-adults) seemed to
respond to the call. The little ones would screech, spread their wings and make
futile efforts to reach out to the source of the call. Parakeets are sociable
birds and they are often found hanging on cages of captive birds and hence we
were skeptical about their parents ever finding their babies. If the parents
themselves were not captured, we assumed that by now they might have nested
elsewhere, far away from the current nesting site. But we were not going to
stand in the way of a miracle and so we put the birds out in a cage for some
time. Two Parakeets stood on a tree facing the cage. One flew away while the
other stayed back. Within fifteen minutes, the other parakeet returned and this
time, made a bee line for the cage. She perched on it for ten minutes keeping a
lookout for danger. After which she began feeding the hatchlings through the
cage.
I could hardly believe my eyes! Was all this real or a
delusional mind playing tricks? A quick pinch confirmed the former and I began
observing the thaumaturgy that was being conjured up right before my very eyes.
The Parakeets took turns feeding the hatchlings just like their parents once
did and the feedings took place at ten minute intervals. This confirmed that by
an incredulous stroke of good luck the parents have found their hatchlings. I
was amazed to see such displays of parental love and commitment. For ten days,
the parakeet parents flew the length and breadth of the colony hoping to find
their lost hatchlings, instead of choosing the easier option of nesting
elsewhere. Spare a thought for these wonderful parents that never gave up on
their babies. The hatchlings were calling out to them as if they knew for sure
their parents would recognize their calls and find them. The parent would fly
away and feed on leaves, fruits and seeds and regurgitate the semi digested
food into the mouth of the hatchlings. During the day the hatchlings would be
kept out in the open on a chair under the shade with a constant human eye on
their safety and after 7pm when the parents would terminate the feeding
sessions for the day, the baby parakeets would be taken into the house. For
three days the hatchlings were constantly fed by their parents, and by now they
had a glow on their faces and were expressing their dismay at being caged up by
biting and pulling against it with their beaks. We realized that it was time
for them to return to the wild.
The next day two Parakeets were placed in an open pot and one
in a cage as there was no place for it in the pot. Wasting no time the mother
swooped down and positioned herself on the pot. She fed one chick and got her
up onto the rim of the pot. The chick flew into a Neem tree nearby where the
other parent was waiting. One was free and two to go. Looking at the first
chick fly away, the one in the cage began flapping its wings in an agitated
state and on opening the cage took off within a flash and made a dash for the
Neem tree, where one parent and one of his siblings were waiting for him. The
third hatchling seemed to be the runt of the clutch and was afraid of flying.
The mother sat on the pot and fed him a little. The hatchling now inside the
pot, reassured by the presence of his mother jumped onto the top of the pot.
The mother jumped onto the ground and opened her beak to feed the hatchling.
Soon the hatchling jumped onto the ground and made his way to the mother. The
mother kept feeding him and made her way towards the Neem tree. Upon reaching
it, she took flight and by a natural urge fueled by instinct the hatchling
flapped his wings and followed his mother into the tree. One final look at the
house and the wings of freedom took off into the wild, never to be seen again
and hopefully never to be caught again.
