1. Have an Interesting Snippet to Share : Click Here
    Dismiss Notice

Life's Just A Beautiful Thing!

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by beautifullife30, Sep 13, 2022.

  1. beautifullife30

    beautifullife30 Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,214
    Likes Received:
    2,439
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    Have you ever wondered how we just stumble across the most beautiful moments of life by chance? Or that at times we don’t realize that we are experiencing profound moments of our life until we are smack in the middle of it?

    My family and I were fortunate enough to come across a few of those moments recently. Living in an apartment in a cosmopolitan city during the lockdown hit us quite hard. Our only guests were the mosquitoes who we didn’t want to welcome much. To combat their entering our private space, we put out those readymade nets that were available in Amazon. All we had to do was give those perfect specifications of our windows and we received those perfectly oversized stick-on nets which were used to cover up our bathroom windows. As we were admiring our hasty, not so neat handiwork, we didn’t realize we were setting up a space for another family.

    By next morning, we saw two sparrows frequenting our bathroom window – sitting on those tiny iron grills and going chip-chip-chip or pee-pee-pee. I am sure they were having the discussion of their married life. How did we guess they were a couple? Simple, one of them was nodding its head perfectly like a guy listening intently while the other was squawking at the top of its voice in a superior know-it-all manner. We figured out the lady and guy in the couple. That done, my husband and I stood there on this side of the net and played a guess-what game as to what their discussion would be about. Maybe we needn’t have wasted out time as the next morning, we found a few randomly stacked pieces of hay poking out of the mesh. We knew at that moment that the oversized mesh was the perfect addition to our bathroom.

    Within the next 3 days, we saw a perfect 4BHK built at a speed which is humanely impossible (its nothing for birds though!) complete with a master bedroom. Soon after building, the couple stayed in their master bedroom only for a day or two and after that, we always found the guy sleeping in one of the rooms in the top floor. Have you ever seen a sparrow sleep? I didn’t see until then and trust me its one of the cutest things in the world – They sleep with one leg up in the air, balancing their whole weight on the other leg, closing their eyes, and making this cutest noise like a snore…which goes like peeeeeeeee but oh so softly you will wonder if that sound is probably your imagination.

    The lady hardly left her space while the guy was actively roaming around and that’s when we found 5 tiny eggs that she was warming. Now my husband and I were in a frenzy, oh my god, more cutie pies, more tiny tots in our house…..and day and night we were literally watching like a hawk to not miss out the chicks being born. And they were born at that perfect moment when my husband or I or my husband’s camera was not around! If you thought sparrows were tiny, then you wouldn’t have to guess how much tinier the babies would be. They were the smallest, cutest and the most perfect babies in the world. And all through the day they go chip-chip-chip without opening their eyes eagerly waiting for their parents to feed them.

    Through a course of the next few days, we saw those tiny tots, open their eyes slowly, grow tiny baby feathers, slowly learn to stand on their feet, hop around in that small space, grow tiny baby wings, learn to practice flapping in their room and finally fly away to face the world and live their life. It was and is a miracle to see and experience all that from so near a space. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can see those tiny tots doing one of their cute things. My most favorite part of their growing up was watching them learn to use their wings and trying to learn to fly.

    The master bedroom which they live in quite spacious. So, they go like this. All 5 of them hope from left to right and pause for few seconds and then flap their wings so fast its like seeing a ceiling fan rotate in speed 8 (I know there isn’t a speed 8 but imagine being one, that’s how fast they moved their wings). They each flap one after another and then slowly hope from right to left now and do the same thing. Cute right. I mean nothing they did wasn’t cuteness. After those 5 cutie-pies flew away to live their lives, I don’t know how much their mom and dad worried about them, but my husband and I sure did. We wondered where they would be, what they would do. We also discussed about how our kids would soon leave our house to live their lives and maybe out life would also be like this then – silent.

    Maybe we felt too soon. We should have waited for a week or 2 more to see that more eggs were laid, and we then welcomed 3 tiny new tots into our house (I know I know its their house, but they felt like mine too!). It was in this second set of kids that we came across another tiny, beautiful moment that we didn’t even want to capture in our camera coz we knew even if we tried, we could never forget or erase that memory since its etched so permanently and perfectly in our brains.

    In this second batch, out of 3 babies, unfortunately only 2 could survive. But those two did thrive beautifully. I know that’s life right! Surviving! Anyway, out of the two babies, we found that 1 of it was a born leader. It just dived into doing stuff right away and nothing could scare it. While the second bird was probably a little brother or sister. It followed its sibling in everything slowly taking its time to learn and do stuff. When the time came for them to learn to hop and fly, the first bird as usual did everything at 2X speed and within one morning it learnt to hop, flap its wings and just dived and flew away. Usually when the babies first flew, most of them knew how to maintain that balance and were just able to hop out and fly away. But this one probably flew a little too soon, it dived down like it was about to crash. My H ran outside to check if it was fine. It was. It dived down till the bottom and picked up height from there.

    And all through that the second one was quietly sitting in its room and doing the slow hop. The mom and dad came back in the evening and fed the bird but beyond that they baby was all alone and lonely the entire day next day. My sons did give it company but that camaraderie and companionship it was looking for could only be given by its brother/ sister. The day flew by and soon it was evening and the mom, and the baby hurdled together and slept. Next morning both the mom and the dad went away for hunting but this time, they didn’t return to their nest as often as they did when two kids were there and this poor little tiny thing was chirping its heart away for them. As outsiders, my husband and I were all in for adopting, petting it, feeding it, and taking care of it. But they say parents know best right. Well, nothing beats that saying. Early that evening, the mom came home early and went into a loud pee-pee-pee thing. As we stood there, we watched the mommy giving out the instructions and telling its baby to try and fly. Soon the mom’s voice grew louder but the baby bird just wouldn’t budge from its place to hop or fly. Giving up, the mother bird, just went to a corner of the room and sat down.

    All this while, we didn’t notice the dad taking his usual place in another room. But as soon as the mom was done talking, the dad came and sat beside the baby and in an ethereal voice of his, he probably gave life lessons to the baby. It was unlike anything we heard in our life so far and if you closed your eyes, you might probably think, you were in heaven. It was that calming and that soothing. The father spoke for a good half hour and this time, through the night, he stayed right beside his child and in the morning, we saw an empty nest.

    And since then, there have been so many babies who were born and grew up and went on with their lives. Through all those we saw the mother and father doing their duty by their kids. Never over-doing anything, just doing the right thing, at the right time for their kids.

    Through all this, they showed us that life was just that simple and that beautiful.
     
    Mistt, messedup, nuss and 10 others like this.
    Loading...

  2. iyerviji

    iyerviji Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    34,587
    Likes Received:
    28,749
    Trophy Points:
    640
    Gender:
    Female
    Interesting. Well written. In times when people don't like birds in their house nice to see you and your husband so much concern
     
    Thyagarajan and beautifullife30 like this.
  3. Yumna

    Yumna Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,212
    Likes Received:
    1,629
    Trophy Points:
    283
    Gender:
    Female
    Enjoyed reading your beautiful narration as if i too was watching all this through your words.

    Empty nest is called empty for a reason.It undoubtedly gives that empty feeling!
     
    Thyagarajan and beautifullife30 like this.
  4. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    12,626
    Likes Received:
    16,902
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    A great blog! If Salim Ali had been a poet, he would have written about all his encounters with exotic birds in your lingo!
    Enjoyed every moment of your bird-watching! :blush:
     
  5. Srama

    Srama Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    10,075
    Likes Received:
    11,569
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Female
    Dear @beautifullife30 ,

    very beautifully written snippet. You are so fortunate to see the nest and the babies and we are so fortunate to see all that you saw through your beautiful words! The birds must have felt comfortable and safe in your environment and have gone around their business of life giving you a peek! I am sure your boys will remember it forever! Birds are so much fun and joy - just cruising up there like nothing mattered, giving that feeling of lightness! Seasonal birds here make a ton of noise and one of my dogs, the moment she hears the birds starts a barking journey with it and the bird only gets louder! Our little pond only invites birds for a sip or a dip and the way my dogs dash out to get them and the flurry of activity - thank fully they don't hurt any bird and these beings they seem to have an understanding!

    Enjoyed reading every bit of your writing!
     
    Afresh, Cheeniya and beautifullife30 like this.
  6. beautifullife30

    beautifullife30 Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,214
    Likes Received:
    2,439
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    :) I am glad you enjoyed the write-up Vijima. I enjoyed recounting and writing about it.

    Who can not fall in love with them! I am sure you would too had you been here.
     
    Thyagarajan and iyerviji like this.
  7. beautifullife30

    beautifullife30 Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,214
    Likes Received:
    2,439
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    Thank you Yumna. I am glad you enjoyed reading it.

    Ah...the empty nest makes me sad but the good thing is they are never empty for long. Even now, there are 3 new chicks chirping their heart away for food. The chirping starts at 5.30 AM and goes on till 6.30 PM and we feel one with nature when listening to it.
     
    Thyagarajan likes this.
  8. beautifullife30

    beautifullife30 Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,214
    Likes Received:
    2,439
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    Aw....thank you for your comments Chenniya sir. I have immense respect for Dr. Salim Ali having once drawn his portrait in my college days, he fetched me the first prize for shading.

    I envy him for having watched so many birds in his lifetime. Imagine if your work was to watch such cuteness everyday day and night. Ah...that would be heaven.
     
    Thyagarajan, Afresh and Cheeniya like this.
  9. iyerviji

    iyerviji Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    34,587
    Likes Received:
    28,749
    Trophy Points:
    640
    Gender:
    Female
    Ya I would have loved as we had cats in the house, in the balcony outside covered from inside kabuthar used to.come and conceive
    Though my daughter's and dil could not conceive the cats ate kabuthar had many children
     
    Thyagarajan and beautifullife30 like this.
  10. beautifullife30

    beautifullife30 Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,214
    Likes Received:
    2,439
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    Dear @Srama thankyou for your kind words. I am glad you enjoyed the write-up! Yes, the birds are now accustomed to our craziness. The mommy bird specially is attuned to all the nasty tricks my husband plays on them that she has completely boarded up our side of the mesh with feathers. She does this every night without fail and every morning my husband removes those feathers to peek inside to have a look or take a picture.

    And those tiny ones are not any less. There was one tiny baby which used to poop every time on my husband. Literally. I mean, if he was brushing, the poop would land on his brush, or if he was taking a picture, the lens would be smeared with poop. We had a wonderful time watching that little one do its nasty tricks.
     
    Afresh likes this.

Share This Page