DREAM BIRDS

This is a short imaginative story of how there can be unity in diversity and how such a union can lead to a bounty of beauty...

One ailing cattle Egret was resting on a lake side. It was late evening, onset of monsoon .  The Egret showed beautiful breeding feathers all over her bodies …orange-buff plumes on the back and breast . Bill, legs and iris were bright red and a stroke of red on her crown added much to its glory .

She looked just like a female member of a royal  family.

Our mobbing bird, the Crow was nearby, sitting on a balcony. She became very inquisitive to know all about her.

                                                                                                 

She whizzed to her and whispered,

“You are looking incredibly beautiful . When are you going to lay your eggs, dear!”

Egrets are generally social birds living in colonies of several hundred other birds. So she was pleased to see the crow and  answered politely,  

“To-morrow.” Her answer was short .

“Why are you looking so sad? Where is your male partner? You seem to be coming from a different country. Am I correct?" The Crow asked her . 

“ Quite right ! My flocks fly vast distances. We are coming from the south ." The Egret answered.
“Last they were seen over the sea with my partner. Now I don’t find him anywhere!"

“It’s a thing to worry,”Mrs. Crow  replied and looked on every side .

“I am on the way to my nest in swamp bordering the sea", The Egret continued again with a tinkling voice. “The nest is still not fully complete --small and untidy platform of sticks in a tree . I need a larger space, need some more twigs and sticks. My male partner is supposed to collect all these staffs, but there is no trace of him .”  She murmured with a feeling of depression.

Crow is well known for its intelligence. She is a resourceful bird and able to find quick and clever ways to overcome any difficulties. She expressed her enthusiasm and said,

“ Don’t worry, I offer you my help. It will be both pleasant and beneficial for you”.

"Thank you”, Little Egret answered and departed happily in a relaxing mood.

Next day she laid her first egg    -pale bluish- whitish. 

Other four eggs were laid at intervals of two days passing in between.

The Down, the female Egret had plucked from her breast to put into her nest formed a blanket for her eggs.

Mrs. Crow came every time to see her newly arrived friend with some insects in her mouth to feed the mother Egret for her nourishment. She needed to be on a healthy diet full of calcium for laying healthy eggs which was supposed to be brought by her male partner. Mrs. crow carried twigs and sticks too parallely for enlarging her nest.

Among birds both male and female take turns incubating the eggs keeping them warm at night and cooling them during hot hours of the days by providing shades with their wings before hatching, but the male Egret had no sign of existence. He was alive or dead no body knew.

 Generally cattle Egrets have few predators.  As  some of them are migrating birds, this male Egret must have died by infection in its stomach or food poisoning, in this new country. Sometimes they have been found dead with numerous biting lice on their body.
God knows what happened to him!

Helpless mother Egret missed her helpmate very badly. What went on inside the bird, specially inside her brain it was difficult to monitor, still fear could be the factor for which she  was not feeling well and unfortunately couldn’t survive for a long time.  She breathed her last breath in few days.

Mrs. Crow grew very anxious. She gave a harsh and drawn-out caws and dived down from one place to another to spread the shocking news among other birds. Noise is a mainstay of its beheviour. Her long lasting caws were an alarm to make it known to everybody that some ominous things were happening around.

The other crows gathered atonce without any further delay and joined Mrs. Crow. They always live in large,close-knit families, defend their territories and care for the young together. They took a decisive action of dragging the body of the Egret from its nest , drop it in the shallow water in the swamp and to save the eggs from  underneath  their dead mother's breast.

The intelligent Mrs. Crow also knew that immediate incubation was needed for the eggs because temperature plays a major part in whether an egg hatches or not. She started incubating the eggs.  On average an egg needs to have a costant temperature  of hundred  degrees fahrenheit to hatch . Turning of the egg to prevent over heating needs to be done  several times daily.This is twenty-four hour work. No sleeping throughout the night.

Humidity is also important during incubation.

A mountain Swallow was watching everything engrossed from a moving branch. She came forward to give a friendly hand to help the Crow to make it easier for incubating.

                                                                              

Incubating started in turns –day and night .Our  noisy Crow  now became  very sincere and  cosiderate and made sure that the nesting site  should be totally free from any unnecessary noise…. simply quiet during incubation . The eggs were safe in her possession and control.

A flock of Parrots were passing by. They were known for their bright colours ,cheerful voices and engaging habits . Soon  some of them stopped  chattering and sat on a dead tree at the water edge to observe how the committed Crow and the mountain Swallow were taking care of those foreign eggs which were other’s and not their own. They expressed their deep empathy and  willingness to do something for those unfortunate eggs and started incubating them every -day  for some hours –day and night.

                                                                                                                         

An experienced Myna too showed her good judgement and became a part of this incubating group.

                                            

A Scarlet tanager was alighting on branches attacking its prey, increased its binocular vision to watch what was happening in that  Egret's nest nearby.

 One Purple finch, and an Oriole that were nearby, relied upon their keen vision to get informations about its environment.      

                                   

Soon they could sense the urgent need of the incubation in Egret’s nest, instinctively.

All of them gathered together to help incubating those eggs of the female Egret.  Seven foster mothers altogether.

(This type of learning which is a visual imitation though doesn’t play a part in bird’s behaviour , it is only a writer's imagination; still some sort of learning through social facilitation  is probably widespread in birds. Sometimes they have been seen in joint flocks of other species too, to derive advantages from acting together in certain circumstances).

Through their communal co-operation in two weeks of time five baby birds were hatched.

All of them looked healthy and fresh. Care and love bestowed upon them by their seven foster mothers were clear enough to witness.
In short while  they emerged as distinguised birds of various colours as if painted by some great artist and looked like "Dream Birds".

Astonishingly none of them resembled Egret.  They were born with an endless variety in colour arrangements in their body. It ranged from white to black- predominantly bright shades were red, yellow, green ,blue and purplish .

This happened due to the pigments in the feathers.  Melanins are the common pigments in most birds’ feathers ranging from yellow- brown to black and lipochromes ranging from yellow to red.  Both the things were present in them. Blue results from the presence of the underlying pigment melanin –the microscopic structure of the feather. This is mainly responsible for the scattering and reflecting of light which modifies the underlying pigmentary colour. White colour of feathers is structural -the result of the reflection of all the lights. Pure green is usually the result of the same structure that produces blue, but a yellow pigment underlies it .This type of structures show the bright colours of the birds and sometimes which seem to change when seen from different angles.

The newly hatched Chicks showed the results of this unusually large amount of separate pigments in their body due to different incubation processes by their foster mothers. Mothers controlled the temperatures and humidity to incubate them in their own different ways. Incubation keep bacteria and cells at a suitable temperature so that eggs can develop properly for growing their micro- organism.  These chicks grew up  in admirably healthy statures and were beautiful too.

 One emerged with turquoise green head, chin, brght  blue breast -darker on belly.  Black back was extended over the shoulders, greenish—yellow edging to tailpiece. Others were the combinations of  red ,blue ,yellow, green,and purple. So many colors were in display.

 

Being enriched with these beauties they grew up gradually in stages as attractive rare birds.

Bird watchers were delighted to see them  from  short distances .They started taking close range photographs. Pictures became private properties of their heart.

Though  one day what happened  these  birds  totally vanished  from their native place . They were not found any where in the vicinity.
Some bird catchers were very keen to seize them . So our beautiful rare birds wanted to get rid of those dangerous fellows.

They  flew away to the dense forest  like Rain forest, where the most other beautiful birds of the World can be seen flying through the trees.
There was no human intervention to disturb them every now and then .

Still this was not very easy for them as we think! 

They had to travel a  long considerable distance for this. Rain forest was far, far away from their native place .

The bird watchers who always love to see the beautiful  birds regreted the absence of these rare birds. They couldn't travel that far to watch them flying and swing through the branches .

What these birds eat generally are plant material directly . Besides seeds, fruite, roots, grass, leaves , the nectar of flowers ,fungi, animals living in the mud, insects, worms, spiders, flying midges etc. Their favourite foods were available in large quantities in  the Rain-forest .
The fear of predators and the unwanted parasites ( another enemies live on them) couldn’t be ruled out  there too, still  our Dream birds could easily camouflage themselves in extremely dark and deep silence of the forest    which was in complete canopy closure .
 "Dream birds" come closer to us in our dreams only and not in real life .