Kuoo..kuoo..Cuckoo..cuckoo..???
It was Friday.
The day started as usual.
My elder daughter went to fetch the milk sachets and daily news paper. She loves passing through the kids supplement in the courtyard itself.
As she started to read the children’s page, we heard a feeble moaning sound.
Initially we thought it’s our younger fellow sobbing for being late or for having missed her chance to fetch the kids’ magazines afresh.
We went to her. But it was not her!
By then, lots of crows were making a gala show above our roof!
My kids rushed outside. They saw that all these crows together were violently scaring a poor bird.
As my kids yelled, I went out. The crows gradually tuned into silence and finally left.
As we looked on, the poor frightened bird fell down the roof.
My elder girly ran quickly and sat near the bird observing it. She felt very sorry for the bird.
As I took some water she ran and got a dropper and gave it with so much of care and passion, into its beak.
Now the bird crawled and groaned. Slowly, it vomited something. She gave water for a second time. Once more the bird vomited. It repeated until the bird became comfortable.
Now all were relieved.
School time got already over. Another day of absence!
I said it’s a koel and it would have tried to harm eggs in a crow’s nest. Else it would have tried to replace crow eggs with its own. The crows might have observed the act and hence the hungama.
She already knew all that!
She said it’s a female koel and that the males who visit our homestead sing sweet. Grandma had told her many stories long back!
As the koel remained in silence, she left us to care for the bird and went in to check the shelves for books on birds. She wanted to identify the bird with the images in it and know its nature and feed!
Now into the details gathered.
H&C Books has a small compilation (Rs.10.00) in Malayalam, on Birds- winged servants,(pakshikal chirakula sevakar) collected by Satheesan. It says about Cuckoo of family Cuculidae on page 21.Spotted cuckoos are females. Apart from sweet singers, they are brood parasites, eat lot of fruits and are good pest control agents. The Wonderful world of birds (Pakshikalude Adbuda prapanjam) is an excellent handbook for children, a preface for bird watchers. It is priced at Rs.90 and published by KSSP.
A popular bird watcher and writer with the pen name Induchoodan, Prof. K.K.Neelankandan was former Principal of Brunnen Collge, Talassery. He is also founder member of the Kerala Natural History Society.
From page 32 of this book, we understand that Cuckoo is known as Indian koel. Scientifically it is named Eudynamys scolopacea. These birds cannot built nests by themselves nor take care of their young ones without help of crows. So these birds are seen wherever crows are popular.
Further the page facilitates kids into watching birds for the difference in appearance due to gender, and continues the effort through many questions like why they became parasitic? Can’t crows identify koel eggs? And so on.
Common Birds, a book in the series India- the land and the people; by Salim Ali and Laeeq Futehally, from National Book Trust sketches the life habits of Cuckoos on page 72. (Plate 10.51)
It says Cuckoos are world wide in distribution. Males are glistening metallic black all over with a striking yellowish green bill and blood red eyes. The female is brown, spotted and barred with white. Only males can sing!
They are basically arboreal and feed on figs, berries, insects and hairy caterpillars. These birds are called Kokilas in Hindi and Kuyil or Pullikuyil in Malayalam.
Ornithology is the study of birds. This was popularized by Dr. Salim Ali (1896-1987); who is accredited as an authority on Indian birds, internationally.
Those who are further interested can peep into his compilation entitled “The Book of Indian Birds”, published by Bombay Natural History Society. (ISBN 0195637313). It’s like an encyclopedia on Indian birds and an excellent field guide for bird watchers.
Plate 33, narrates the habitat of these birds as lightly wooded country sides, gardens, groves and cultivated areas. On page 179-180 of the Centenary edition, field characters are described vividly. We understand that koels are silent during winter and become noisy with onset of summer. They represent indicators for change of season.
Our Pullikuyil was silently lying down on the ground.
We were trying to search for the biography of this great scientist and ornithologist, when our fellowmen came in to gather donations for the upcoming temple festival.
One of them asked for the bird.
My kids were reluctant to part with the bird then. They didn’t want to cage the bird either. When asked why, they surprised me by reciting a verse taught by Grandma:
ബന്ധൂര കാഞ്ചന കൂട്ടില് ആണെങ്കിലും
ബന്ധനം ബന്ധനം തന്നെ പാരില്...
They സൈദ്: "Let the bird totally revive and fly off".
But the visitor promised to take care of the bird and tried to catch it.
The bird that lay for more than an hour now struggled and managed to fly onto a nearby branch. From there it flew still higher after sometime. It remained silently there for two days and then went off.
We thanked God for the fortuitous instance to save a life and the opportunity to learn from nature…
