Nature's Best Friend

I

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved Nature. She lived in a beautiful house, with lots of plants and trees in her backyard, and a well without water. But the well was a house to the beautiful kingfisher, which the girl called blue bird, for its vibrant blue feathers. This beautiful bird’s plumes were nice deep light blue in color, the neck was brown in color, the breast was white in color, with a long and pointed red color beak and red color legs. The little girl usually sat under the almond tree and prepares for her exams. This blue bird settles down on a nice branch in front of the girl and makes the bird sound and also raises its neck and nods, and expresses itself as if it was talking to the little girl. The little girl mimics the bird’s sound and also the neck movement, it is their friendly greeting to each other. They both loved each other's company, whenever the girl comes out of the house this blue bird will be there to greet her. A beautiful blue bird friendship grew among them. Years passed by, the girl grew into a young lady and later got married and had settled in her husband’s house. The bluebird missed her. But the bird still dwelled in the well. Once in two years the bluebirds friend used to visit and still communicated with each other when they met in the garden. After few years, the well also got demolished and no more blue bird family lived there. The girl was very sad at the thought that she would miss seeing the bluebird. But when she visited her mother’s house that summer she was surprised to see the bluebird visiting her, maybe it came for one last time to say goodbye to the sweet little friend.

II


One hot summer day, a street vendor was selling on a bicycle with his bamboo twined basket full of painted little chickens, it was pathetic to see them painted in bright pink,green, blue colors they did this either to attract the customers. And our friend the little girl was pestering her mother to buy two chicks as pets to play,and her mom finally got her two cute little chicks. Our sweet little girl named them Jickey and Mickey. Everyday the little girl gave them a bath, the paint got washed away and the two chicks looked as white as snow. She used to use some gentle soap and wash them thoroughly and pat dry them with the towel and take them to the terrace to dry them in the sun and bring them down and switch on the fan and also use some nice talcum powder on them so they will smell good. Everyday when she came back from school, these two little chicks came flying to her and one will sit on her shoulder and the other on her head. This little girl had so much fun in bringing them up, but she was disappointed when both of them turned out to be a rooster. Because she really wanted them to be one male and female so they can have a family of their own and she will get lots of chicks to play with, but as they grew they started fighting and then the girl couldn’t take care of them anymore so she gave it to the person who came to tend their garden. The Gardener has seen how much she loved and how nicely she took care of these chicks so he didn’t want to eat the chicken and hence gave it to some neighbours and didn’t want to know what happened to them. Probably somebody would have had a nice feast. The little girl really missed Jickey and Mickey and wrote a small poem in memory of them.

III


God took pity on how she missed the beautiful chicks and he had a plan of action for her. One day evening when she was walking in the terrace and studying for her test, she heard some water splashing sound from time to time. In the terrace they had a over head water tank, which was covered with cement planks and only in the last second spot there was no plank because the water pipe had its way. Quickly the little girl went to see whether anything was there in the tank that made this noise. To her surprise she found that a bird in India called mynah was struggling to get out. Mynah is a beautiful brown bird with a bright white streak on its wings and lovely light yellow eyes and legs. The school girls also made up some nice meaningful list to the number of birds. If you see one of them, it means sorrow, if you see two, then it is joy, and if you see three, it means you will get a letter, four maybe double joy and five means visitors or friends will come home, and she can’t remember what was for the rest till ten. The first three usually happened, people will not believe, but it happened do not know whether it was a mere coincidence, one some kind of sorrow, two really you will be happy that day, and three you will get a letter. Anyway back to our story, our compassionate friend tried to take the bird gently out of the tank and took it downstairs and dried it with a towel and gave some rice to peck and left her under the basket with holes, because it became dark and the birds feathers were wet and she wanted to keep her at home for the night, to make sure the mynah was safe. The next day morning she released the bird. The bird was happy to fly and be free again. But since then everyday in the evening and morning this bird with its companion used to visit her, by stopping by at the terrace and say hello and then go. This was God’s secret way of gifting the nice relationship with the bird for her compassionate nature in taking care of Jickey and Mickey.

IV


Everyday and everytime when this little girl eats either, breakfast or lunch or post lunch after school. She always used to feed the crows. So the crows living in the opposite house mango tree and her backyard cawed the moment they see her coming out of the house and come to her eagerly looking for food. After she got married and went the crows didn’t eat the food fed by others in the house and missed her greatly but once in a while even now when the girl visits, the crows are happy to gather in front of the house and feed on the food served by her. The father of the girl said that when he feeds them they don’t even touch it and it remains there messing up the place. To that the girl very funnily said "you should feed them with love, dad". And maybe that is true this little girl has her own little way of communicating with the birds and is overwhelmed with joy when she interacts with the birds in nature and enjoys their company and is so happy to feed them.

V


In this garden there were variety of trees, lemon, coconut, mangoes, banana, jackfruit, cashew nut tree, almond tree, custard apple, wood apple or cricket fruit, and so many different variety of birds used to visit and some lived in the backyard. Anteater birds visited and feasted on the ants. They looked beautiful, light brown in colour with black and white spotted feathers they had long black colored beaks,a little bulkier body.


A bird called Koyil which was fully black with an upside down"V"shape cut on its long tail used to come and sit on the lemon tree and used to swing and sway in the gentle breeze and the other type the Black and white Koyil also visited. They sang very sweetly in their melodious voice, which our little Nature lover enjoyed in the afternoons, relaxing in the shade of the almond tree.


Sometimes there were really tiny birds like the finch used to visit, actually these birds were very small than a goldfinch or house finch. It was very tiny the voice was loud and clear and musical too, they were bright yellow and dull grayish green colors too.


And also a flock of birds called a Thavuttu purah or Husky Dove, they were light brown in color and always came in flocks anywhere from five to ten, or even more, they used to visit in the morning when the sun rises and evening when the sun sets. Their squawking and squabbling was fun to listen and it felt very lively to listen to their musical chirpings. Last but not the least among the birds we used see the sparrows twittering and fluttering now and then with their tiny busy bodies!

VI


Once in a while we had some special, very special visitors, one or two monkeys visited our backyard and gorged on all the fruits, we were scared if they would bring their entire clan so would try to chase it away by tapping with big sticks. Occasionally in the neighborhood temple they would bring an elephant and it would feast on some of our coconut tree leaves, well we used to be thrilled to see and sometimes annoyed by its master because he never got our permission for the elephant to chew on our coconut tree leaves!

VII
Similarly some interesting stories with the rosé plants too. When this little Princess visited her parents for the first time after getting married after two years. During her stay, one day a beautiful Victoria Rosé or Paneer Rosé,bloomed, and her mom said this to our little Princess's surprise, as she went to the garden to gather flowers for the morning prayers, "I cannot believe this that we have a Rose blossom today, after you went, the rosé plant just existed but never blossomed and now that you are here, it has blossomed, I am shockingly surprised." Our little Princess was thrilled and happy to know that, her joy knew no bounds, that's when She truly realized how much really her garden and her friends in Nature missed her.

Poetlatha

To be continued....with more stories...

 

@poovai : Thank you for reading my long write up. Yes indeed lovely childhood memories continued with my best buddies in Nature.

 

VijiMa,

Now I use a bird feeder and so many variety of birds, squirrels, chipmunks, all feast on them. That's how I got to see many different birds and took pictures. When I don't refill it I see them looking for food. But some days I let it go because I don't want them to be dependent on us and interact with nature and try to limit it in summer and spring but be prompt in feeding them in winter for they will not get any. We also keep some water for them. Now we really got a sack full of grains and hence keep filling it. I'm happy that you are enjoying feeding them too.

 

@gitasharma, thank - you for sharing about Timmy. Please I want you to write more about your experiences with our Nature friends and your Timmy. Eager to hear more interesting stories....please, please, pretty please,....