The World Outside My Window Read online

  Each of the forelegs is equipped with sharp spiky teeth or spines, set backwards like a saw. The position in which these legs are held is one of prayer (hence its name), but peaceful prayer is the last thing the mantis has in mind. He tears his victims to pieces, and feeds upon them while they are still struggling.

  The mantis uses his camouflage to deceive his prey, and also to protect himself from dangerous enemies. There is also a type of camouflage known as warning colouration. The banded krait affords a good example of this type of colouration. It is a fairly large snake, sometimes reaching a length of six feet, and marked all along the length of its body with alternate rings of black and pale yellow. Another species, the red-headed krait, has a black body and bright scarlet head and tail. Both snakes are dangerously poisonous, but the primary purpose of their venom is to paralyse their prey. It is of little use as a weapon of defence, because its action is slow. A man bitten by a krait may die some hours afterwards, but at the time he is bitten he has plenty of time in which to kill the snake before the venom starts having an effect on him. The same is true of any fairly large animal that attacks a krait. It is therefore to the snake’s advantage to proclaim its dangerous nature and so discourage larger animals from attacking.

  Many kinds of wasps are striped with yellow and black, a pattern that advertises their ability to sting. And there are striking examples of warning colouration among certain tropical frogs, which have glands secreting a poison likely to cause the death of any animal that tries to eat them. Some of these frogs are brightly patterned with black and red, or black and yellow. One of them, a South American variety, is in fact used by the aborigines to make poison.

  Section 2

  Birdsong in the Mountains

  At the Bird Bath

  A whistling thrush comes to bathe in the rainwater puddle beneath the window. He loves this spot. So now, when there is no rain, I fill the puddle with water, so that my favourite bird keeps coming.

  His bath finished, he perches on a branch of the walnut tree. His glossy blue-back wings glitter in the sunshine. At any moment he will start singing.

  Here he goes! He tries out the tune, whistling to himself, and then, confident of the notes, sends his trilling, full-throated voice far over the forest. The song dies down, trembling, lingering in the air; starts again, joyfully, and then suddenly stops, as though the singer had forgotten the words or the tune.

  A little distance from my home, a number of small birds bathe and drink in the little pool beneath the cherry tree: hunting parties of tits—grey tits, red-headed tits and green-backed tits, and two delicate little willow-warblers. They take turns in the pool. While the green-backs are taking a plunge, the red-heads wait patiently on the moss-covered rocks, coming down later to sip daintily at the edge of the pool; they don’t like getting their feet wet! Finally, when they have all gone away, the whistling thrush arrives and indulges in an orgy of bathing, as he now has the entire pool to himself.

  The babblers are adept at snapping up the little garden skinks that scuttle about in the leaves and the grass. The skinks are quite brittle and are easily broken to pieces with a few hard raps of the beak. Then down they go! Babblers are also good at sifting through dead leaves and seizing upon various insects.

  A Wilderness in New Delhi

  If you are determined, you can find a wilderness close to you, no matter where you live. In 1959, I was living on the outskirts of a greater, further New Delhi. The influx of refugees from the Punjab after Partition had led to many new colonies springing up on the outskirts of the capital, and at the time, the furthest of these was Rajouri Garden. Needless to say, there were no gardens. The treeless colony was buffeted by hot, dusty winds from Haryana and Rajasthan. The houses were built on one side of Najafgarh Road. On the other side, as yet uncolonized, were extensive fields of wheat and other crops still belonging to the original inhabitants. In an attempt to escape the city life that constantly oppressed me, I would walk across the main road and into the fields, finding old wells, irrigation channels, camels and buffaloes, and sighting birds and small creatures that no longer dwelt in the city life, which led to my taking a greater interest in the natural world. Up to that time, I had taken it all for granted. The notebook I kept at the time lies before me now, and my first entry describes the blue jays or rollers that were much a feature of those remaining open spaces. At rest, the bird is fairly nondescript, but when it takes flight it reveals the glorious bright blue wings and the tail, banded with a lighter blue. It sits motionless, but the large dark eyes are constantly watching the ground in every direction. A grasshopper or cricket has only to make a brief appearance, and the blue jay will launch itself straight at its prey. In spring and early summer the ‘roller’ lives up to its other name. It indulges in love flights, in which it rises and falls in the air with harsh grating screams—a real rock ’n’ roller!

  Some way down the Najafgarh Road was a large village pond and beside it a magnificent banyan tree. We have no place for banyan trees today, they need so much space in which to spread their limbs and live comfortably. Cut away its aerial roots and the great tree topples over—usually to make way for a spacious apartment building. That was the first banyan tree I got to know well. It had about a hundred pillars supporting the boughs, and above them there was a great leafy crown like a pillared hall. It has been said that whole armies could shelter in the shade of an old banyan. And probably at one time they did. I saw another sort of army visit the banyan by the village pond when it was in fruit. Parakeets, mynas, rosy pastors, crested bulbuls without crests, barbets and many other birds crowded the tree in order to feast noisily on big scarlet figs. Even further down the Najafgarh Road was a large jheel, famous for its fishing. I wonder if any part of the jheel still exists, or if it got filled in and became a part of greater Delhi. One could rest in the shade of a small babul or keekar tree and watch the kingfisher skim over the water, making just a slight splash as it dived and came up with small glistening fish. Our common Indian kingfisher is a beautiful little bird with a brilliant blue back, a white throat and orange underparts. I would spot one perched on an overhanging bush or rock, and wait to see it plunge like an arrow into the water and return to its perch to devour the catch. It came over the water in a flash of gleaming blue, shrilling its loud ‘tit-tit-tit’. The kingfisher is the subject of a number of legends, and the one I remember best, recounted by Romain Rolland, tells us that it was originally a plain grey bird that acquired its resplendent colours by flying straight towards the sun when Noah let it out of the ark. Its upper plumage took the colour of the sky above, while the lower was scorched a deep russet by the rays of the setting sun. Summer and winter, I scorned the dust and the traffic, and walked all over Delhi, in search of quiet spots with some shade, a few birds, flower and fruit. I spent many afternoons lying on the grass near India Gate and eating jamuns. I liked the sour tang of the jamun fruit, which was best eaten with a little salt. And I liked the deep purple colour of the fruit. Jamuns were one of the nicer things about Delhi.

  A Bush at Hand Is Good for Many a Bird

  The thing I like most about shrubs and small bushes is that they are about my size or thereabouts. I can meet them on equal terms. Most trees grow tall, they overtake us after a few years, and we find ourselves looking up to them with a certain amount of awe and deference. And so we should.

  A bush, on the other hand, may have been in the ground a long time—thirty or forty years or more—while continuing to remain a bush, man-sized and approachable. A bush may spread sideways or gain in substance, but it seldom towers over you. This means that I can be on intimate terms with it, know its qualities—of leaf, bud, flower, birds, small mammals or reptiles. Of course, we know that bushes are ideal for binding the earth together and preventing erosion. In this respect they are just as important as trees. Every monsoon I witness landslides all about me, but I know the hillside just above my cottage is well-knit, knotted and netted, by the bilberry and raspberry, wild ja
smine, dog rose and bramble, and other shrubs, vines and creepers. I have made a small bench in the middle of this civilized wilderness. And sitting here, I can look down on my own roof, as well as sideways and upwards, into a number of bushes, teeming with life throughout the year. This is my favourite place. No one can find me here, unless I call out and make my presence known. The buntings and sparrows, ‘grown accustomed to my face’ and welcoming the grain I scatter for them, flit about near my feet. One of them, bolder than the rest, alights on my shoes and proceeds to polish his beak on the leather. The sparrows are here all year round. So are the whistling thrushes, who live in the shadows between house and hill, sheltered by a waterwood bush, so cared because it likes cool, damp places.

  Summer brings the fruit-eating birds, for now that the berries are ripe, a pair of green pigeons, rare in these parts, scramble over the branches of a hawthorn bush, delicately picking off the fruit. The raspberry bush is raided by bands of finches and greedy yellow-bottomed bulbuls. A flock of bright green parrots comes swooping down on a medlar tree, but they do not stay for long. Taking flight at my approach, they wheel above, green and gold in the sunlight, and make for the plum trees further down the road. The kingora, a native Himalyan shrub similar to the bilberry, attracts small boys as well as birds. On their way to and from school, the boys scramble up the hillside and help themselves to the small sweet-and-sour berries. Then, lips stained purple, they go their merry way. The birds return.

  Roosting in the Semul

  The semul is as remarkable for the colour and profusion of its flowers as for the large number of birds that visit it when it is in flower. Some birds come for nectar that is found in the big, red flowers; some come in search of the thousands of drowned insects that lie at the bottom of the flower cups; some come because the soft wood of the tree can easily be hollowed out for a nesting site. Whatever the reason, from morning till night the tree is full of visitors.

  Among those who visit the semul are a large number of crows, who come to have a few sips of the nectar before setting out on the day’s mischief. There are mynas of various kinds, squabbling for the best seats. Barbets and bulbuls, king crows and koels, all join in the feasting. In addition to the birds, palm squirrels dart about from place to place, tossing their fluffy tails from side to side, and chattering noisily as they jostle each other on the branches. And all the time flowers are being constantly broken off, falling to the ground with soft thuds.

  The rosy pastors or rose-coloured starlings are probably the most noticeable visitors to the semul tree. They come in flocks, not singly; their colour vies with that of the flowers; they make such a racket that one thinks that a terrible riot is going on. But the pastors are not fighting, they are simply enjoying themselves.

  Another inhabitant of the semul tree is the big Indian bee. This bee lives in huge nests, or combs, which are usually attached to the branches of the semul tree. The straight horizontal branches of the semul are just right for supporting the huge combs, which can be as much as five feet in width. The residents of the comb are of three kinds—the males or drones who do no work, the females who lay the eggs, and the workers who build the giant combs. These are permanent colonies, filled with honey or wax or pollen.

  The sting of the big bee is painful and poisonous, especially in hot weather; but jungle tribes, such as the Kols and the Santals, have developed immunity to the poison. They don’t mind being stung. But strangers to the forests have been badly stung, and it is wise not to disturb these bees, for they will attack both man and beast with great ferocity.

  There is the story of two shikaris who were resting between beats one hot May morning in a central Indian jungle. Overhead spread the crown of a tall semul tree with a dozen great combs of the big bee hanging from the branches. One of the shikaris unwisely lit a pipe. Up went the pipe smoke, and down came the bees! They were soon buzzing around the two shikaris, who beat an undignified retreat, running for over a mile across open country until they reached the safety of a river. They were so badly stung that they had to remain in the river for hours, up to their chins in water.

  Birdlife in the City

  Having divided the last ten years of my life between Delhi and Mussoorie, I have come to the heretical conclusion that there is more birdlife in the cities than in the hills and forests around our hill stations.

  For birds to survive, they must learn to live with, and off, humans; and those birds, like crows, sparrows and mynas, who do this to perfection, continue to thrive as our cities grow; whereas the purely wild birds, those who depend upon the forests for life, are rapidly disappearing, simply because the forests are disappearing.

  Recently, I saw more birds in one week in a New Delhi colony than I had seen during a month in the hills. Here, one must be patient and alert if one is to spot just a few of the birds so beautifully described in Salim Ali’s Indian Hill Birds. The babblers and thrushes are still around, but the flycatchers and warblers are seldom seen or heard.

  But in Delhi, if you have just a bit of garden and perhaps a guava tree, you will be visited by innumerable bulbuls, tailorbirds, mynas, hoopoes, parrots and tree pies. Or, if you own an old house, you will have to share it with pigeons and sparrows, perhaps swallows and swifts. And if you have neither garden nor rooftop, you will be visited by the crows.

  Where man goes, the crow follows. He has learnt to perfection the art of living off humans. He will, I am sure, be the first bird on the moon, scavenging among the paper bags and cartons left behind by untidy astronauts.

  Crows favour the densest areas of human population, and there must be at least one for every human. Many crows seem to have been humans in their previous lives: they possess all the cunning and sense of self-preservation of man. At the same time, there are many humans who have obviously been crows; we haven’t lost their thieving instincts.

  Watch a crow sidling along the garden wall with a shabby genteel air, cocking a speculative eye at the kitchen door and any attendant humans. He reminds one of a newspaper reporter hovering in the background until his chance comes—and then pouncing! I have even known a crow to make off with an off from the breakfast table. No other bird, except perhaps the sparrow, has been so successful in exploiting human beings.

  The myna, although he too is quite at home in the city, is more of a gentleman. He prefers fruit on the tree to scraps from the kitchen, and visits the garden as much out of a sense of sociability as in expectation of hand-outs. He is quite handsome, too, with his bright orange bill and the mask around his eyes. He is equally at home on a railway platform as on the ear of a grazing buffalo, and being omnivorous, has no trouble in coexisting with man.

  The sparrow, on the other hand, is not a gentleman. Uninvited, he enters your home, followed by his friends, relatives and political hangers-on, and proceeds to quarrel, make love and leave his droppings on the sofa-cushions, with a complete disregard for the presence of humans. The party will then proceed into the garden and destroy all the flower-buds. No birds have succeeded so well in making fools of humans.

  Although the blue jay, or roller, is quite capable of making his living in the forest, he seems to show a preference for the haunts of men, would rather perch on a telegraph wire than in a tree. Probably he finds the wire a better launching-pad for his sudden rocket-flights and aerial acrobatics.

  In repose he is rather shabby; but in flight, when his outspread wings reveal his brilliant blues, he takes one’s breath away. As his food consists of beetles and other insect pests, he can be considered man’s friend and ally.

  Parrots make little or no distinction between town and country life. They are the freelancers of the bird world—study, independent and noisy. With flashes of blue and green, they swoop across the road, settle for a while in a mango tree, and then, with shrill delighted cries, move on to some other field or orchard.

  They will sample all the fruit they can, without finishing any. They are destructive birds, but because of their bright plumage, graceful flight
and charming ways, they are popular favourites and can get away with anything. No one who has enjoyed watching a flock of parrots in swift and carefree flight would want to cage one of these virile birds. Yet so many people do cage them.

  After the peacock, perhaps the most popular bird in rural India is the sarus crane—a familiar sight around the jheels and river banks of northern India and Gujarat. The sarus pairs for life and is seldom seen without his mate. When one bird dies, the other often pines away and seemingly dies of grief. It is this near-human quality of devotion that has earned the birds their popularity with the villagers of the plains.

  As a result, they are well-protected.

  In the long run, it is the ‘common man’, and not the scientist or conservationist, who can best give protection to the birds and animals living around him. Religious sentiment has helped preserve the peacock and few other birds. It is a pity that so many other equally beautiful birds do not enjoy the same protection.

  But the wily crow, the cheeky sparrow and the sensible myna, will always be with us. Quite possibly they will survive the human species.

  Owls in the Family

  One winter morning, my grandfather and I found a baby spotted owlet by the veranda steps of our home in Dehradun. When Grandfather picked it up the owlet hissed and clacked its bill but then, after a meal of, raw meat and water, settled down under my bed.