I live in a leafy suburb which though touched by urbanity still retains a few lingering vestiges of the tropical monsoon forest it once might have been,though now those are just shadows of a bygone era.
Yet,when the mauve of the setting sun turns the outsides of dark monsoon clouds into a gilded edge and one looks up at the sky to see the flock of snow white egrets flying towards their roosts or the black necked cranes gliding high in concentric circles,the common kite which patrols so high the whole day that its a mere speck,even the kite shows its impressive wingspan as it reaches towards the tops of the palm trees where the nest is.
In a tree close to me a brave mother tailor bird has raised two small chicks(the bird is about two inches in length) and they still haven't learnt to fear humans so they sit about a foot from my face!In a few minutes I have counted everything from a sparrow,shrike,wagtail,cuckoo,crows,robin,magpies,sunbird,woodpecker,dove,sparrowhawk,drongo and offcourse in summers the mango tree has two golden orioles that migrate from the Himalayan foothills....I like to think that they come to greet me and are the spirits of some of the people with whom I have trekked across the great Himalayan range!
Surprisingly,a decade ago,there was much less wildlife.Maybe there were a lot of open spaces where they could live and breed without having to come into urban settlements.There was a time when langurs would make ocassional forays into my neighbourhood.
Yet it is now that I have seen a family of mongoose in my backyard.Palm civets stealing fruits from the room,velvety irredescent purple sunbirds flitting over the flowers in my frontyard and a rush of birds that with their their myriad calls make the morning and evening nothing less than a Mahler symphony.
Is it a last hurrah????Before they get wiped out by the concrete and dust?India will be much the poorer when its bio heritage is gone and all you can show your children are pictures in the books or on Animal Planet.I am sure the WWF is doing a lot with their conferences in posh hotels across the country!!
