Patancheru
Cheruvu
As I eased
onto the dirt road that is ICRISAT Campus’s boundary with Patancheru Cheruvu, a
Purple Heron stood transfixed mid-way upon a connecting track. Its posture was oddly
comical; one leg in front of another, halted mid-step, the beak agape, its
entire body stock-still. How odd was that! Normally, it should have taken off
at my proximity.
Looking up the road I was to drive
on, I saw three mongooses. The fur of one was all ruffled up, as though it had
had a vigorous Turkish towel rubdown, after a dipping. Two Herpestes edwardsii were on the right side of the track, and a
third emerged under the chain-link fence that marked the boundary. The couple
was intent upon something beyond the fence, on Patancheru Tank.
I followed their gaze and through
the ipomea-veined links spied a female Marsh Harrier perched gingerly on
semi-floating vegetation. She was clearly uncomfortable, shifting her position
this way and that.
The mongooses looked distinctly
unhappy, almost dying to complain about something. After hesitating for three
or four minutes, they crossed the road with much raising and lowering of heads,
taking furtive sniffs of the air; with minced, floppy footwork, strangely
reminiscent of an indecisive hyena. Their attention evidently was riveted upon
the harrier, which, momentarily, rose with an eight-inch limp fish hooked on
its talons, landed on firmer ground, and commenced breakfast.
Minutes before this drama Circus aeruginosus was seen harrying water
birds, flushing ducks and sandpipers. Clearly it had been on the hunt awhile,
as its aggression seemed to flush the birds. But he had no luck with them.
So who killed the fish? Was it the
mongoose trio that did it, creating a ruckus over the prey that attracted the
hungry bird that pirated away their prize? Or did the harrier come by the fish
first and the mongooses simply coveted it? Did the heron at all play a part?
Every moment is filled with the
drama of life in the wilderness. Luck, and chance, play their hands in
revealing the poignancy of a pageant sometimes, which has its delights.
Stealth, patience, and watchful silence are no less powerful tools in a
naturalists’ toolbox, and provide the greater satisfaction to an inquiring
mind.
The mystery of the behavior of those
four creatures remained. Perhaps with my intrusion into their landscape I had
perpetrated events that one or the other could not foresee, and a third benefitted!
* * * * *
Eucalyptus
plantation, southern perimeter
A Short-eared
Owl-sized bird of prey flew away from me on the road bordering the eucalyptus
plantation huddled at the extreme southern border of the campus. It must have
been perched on one of the trees that lined it.
Straining through the windshield for
some distinguishing features on the rapidly disappearing rear profile, all I
could register was an ochre brown wash, concentrated in the tail region. Too,
that its secondaries were held perfectly horizontal and the propulsion was from
an energetic flicking of the primaries, carpal joint outwards.
I had stalled the car in my
excitement at the thought of an Asio,
and could merely watch as it dipped into the leafy sanctuary about 100 m ahead.
My adrenalin draining as it disappeared into the trees.
Viewed upon the horizon from a
distance, the trees were impressive, even grove-like. But up close they had the
frigid regimentation of plantations. I wondered whether this stood as a
windbreak, or for timber. There was no undergrowth. The trees stood like
soldiers on parade, at arm’s length from each other. On the other side of the
road, a meadow of thigh-high grass flourished.
I drove on, beyond the point where
the bird had disappeared, switched off the car and climbed out into a partially
tamed landscape. A railway line paralleled away not far beyond ICRISAT’s
boundary, and the combustion engine roared periodically on the outer ring road.
But once I put that behind me, the land rolled away nicely without an object of
artificiality, a scarce commodity in urbania but a solace for concrete-weary
eyes!
A hen Montagu’s Harrier coasted the
eddies above the platinum blonde grass with such effortless ease that one
wondered whether that flamboyance was at all the function of heart, muscle and
feather. Entranced I watched her slide and turn and pirouette, and albatross
into the breeze to gain height, and slip and curve to catch the invisible
element repeatedly under her masterly sensitive pinions. All the time her
white-framed facial disc faced earthward focusing owlish eyes and ears on the
tiniest movement and breath that betrayed fear, in the feathered or the furred.
What a formidable combination of power and grace, of locomotion and
concentration, of economy and extravagance!
I walked back, the way I’d driven,
pausing now and then expectantly. But no owl flushed. I stood a while, taking
in the serenity, and then returned to the car. Just before opening its door I
looked along the ruler-straight tree line, and from the apex of a eucalypt,
mid-way down that line, a Butastur teesa
blazed its white eye at me. Motionless and ramrod straight it stared me down
from its height. This was the raptor I’d disturbed and its displeasure lasered
me with that lacerating eye. Were its talons kneading its frustration into its
perch? Such a soundless moment of heightened consciousness was it, in that pocket
wilderness, when I realised that despite all caution and stealth, and desire to
mingle, human presence would always remain an intrusion in the world we walked
away from.
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