The nature that surrounds my house, though, has a lot of things to offer, but birds catch my attention most often. They often weave a good nature story for me.
However, birds are just one of those many things in nature that captivates me. An strange allure of observing the changing hues of one’s surrounding on hourly, daily and seasonal basis is no less tempting. And, it is also very compelling to observe the radiance of shades of colors changing over the leaves right from dawn to dusk, and, right from nascence to their fall. And, so is the act of observing the appearance of earth, mud, tree skins, water bodies, and more higher – faces of clouds, and depth of night sky! These all are tiny little wonderlands of my interest, I love to just get lost in, one by one … bit by bit.
Giving words to these feelings completely isolates an author from toxicity and tangles of man made world. It is for him an exercise of great internal churning and experiencing the abstract heaven, permeating all through. And thus an unique creation oozes out that may overwhelm its discriminating readers.
A large part of my house has been rented out to a bank and an insurance office. For their better internet access and communication links, they have erected a huge tower carrying small aperture antenna. This triangle shaped tower has hundreds of metal rungs from base to top. In front of it, on the other side of road, lies a coniferous Araucaria tree of remarkable height in our neighbor’s garden.
In the transition hours of afternoon and evening when Sun has just begun to loose its intensity, activities of birds begin to grow. Like they are in hurry to wind up their day’s work and get back to their living places.
We at this time, are also in our roof top garden cum courtyard, concluding our day’s domestic works like – taking care of flower pots, weeding out grasses from them, watering them, and sometimes restoring grains and other kitchen stuffs kept here for airing and drying in the Sun, back to their place. And, of course, specially in Summers, plucking Mint leaves to prepare sweetened cold Mint drink for the evening, adds to the task. We also relish mangoes and associated beverages here, with a thanksgiving gesture in our eyes, to our garden Mango tree, which is quite visible from here.
Yes, during this time, when summer Sun is reluctantly rolling back its shine, birds start racing in the sky above. Sometimes their fleet zoom past us in spectacular formation inspiring an awe in us!
These hovering birds take a brief stay at the rungs of this huge tower which glows mild in the setting Sun’s golden shine. Birds spend their time here, before vanishing in to the branches of that tall coniferous Araucaria tree in our neighbor’s garden and other trees and bamboo forests around ! Me and my family members love to watch these birds every evening from our roof with snacks and beverages served on table.
Watching these birds sitting on tower rungs we say, “they are sitting on the benches of their aerial park, enjoying the the sunset and soon they will leave for their flats (nests) in their apartments”. Apartments ? Didn’t you wonder at this word ? I tell you why. Actually this Araucaria tree and other trees in surrounding look like their apartments.