Diotima Was Afraid Of Flying

When a crow perches on the railings of your veranda begging for food, what do you do? Do you feed it or shoo it away? As a matter of fact, crows are not song birds, and their cawing is not sweet by any stretch of the imagination. We might be coloured people, but we are hypocrites to the core, as we hate their colour: pale black, sooty-black, charcoal-black or sometimes dark gray.

There are some people among Bengalis, who are prejudiced, superstitious, going one step farther; they hate crows because they think that crows bring bad omen for a propitious journey; in short, they believe crows bring negativity. I am slightly different from those people not because I love crows, but because I tolerate them: I know that they are my tree-dwelling neighbours. I don't scare them away when they perch on my railings, and sometimes, I give them food, but most importantly, I love to watch them nesting without interfering. What I am going to write is one such observation that happened very recently.

There is a rather young crow couple, whom I have christened as Phoebus and Juno, who live in a mango tree which is not more than a couple of meters away from my third floor veranda. The branch they chose to build their nest is around five feet below the level of my veranda, which meant that I got an excellent view to see their connubial activities. The crows are not married ceremonially, but they live together, and they are very faithful, unlike many of us, to each other throughout their life.

Now, Phoebus and Juno being young and inexperienced, I was a bit apprehensive of their nest-building capabilities. Humans have educational institutions to inculcate various skills in them, but what about crows? They don't have any engineering colleges. They learn the trick merely by watching others from their species. But watching a complicated thing and replicating it in real life are not the same thing. Are they? Can you construct a house by watching masons building your neighbour's house? If you can, then I have to admit that you have got god-gifted abilities.

But, as a matter of fact, crows, too, are gifted architects. To my utmost surprise, Phoebus and Juno built a moderate nest. Well, you can always find faults. You can say your neighbour's house is too small, or you can say the interior design is too gaudy, or or you can even laugh at the size of their kitchen. I have no such interest, but if I am forced to make a critical review of their nest, then I have to tell you that the nest didn't seem have sufficient space for even three hatchlings.

So, I hoped that they didn't procreate more than two nestlings. But, birds lay as many eggs as they deem necessary for the survival of their species. To my utter discomfort, Juno laid as many as four tiny bluish eggs. I shuddered to think what would happen if all the eggs gave birth to living chicks.

However, one egg didn't hatch, and Juno gave birth to three tiny chicks, around one week apart in time. A week's time may not mean much to humans, but for birdies, it is quite a defining period of time. No wonder when the second chick was born, the first one was of one week old, and when the third was born, the two-week old made its presence felt. Naturally, the first chick had the bragging right because of its primogeniture.

We tend to call humans who are not that bright "birdbrains". In my earlier days, I often wondered about the word. But, later on, after observing the behaviour of various birds, I do understand the reason. The birdies are indeed not very bright. For example, take the case of the new proud mom Juno. Her partner, and after a week or two, she herself, would hover around the streets relentlessly searching for food. When they got it, either the dad or the mom would come immediately to the nest for feeding the chicks.

But, the feeding procedure is completely different from that of us. The chick who is more agile, the chick who can lift its tiny neck longer than others, the chick who can show its red gullet more prominently to its parents, the chick who has got the oomph, would get the lion's share, and the others would get morsels. The parents are not fair to all at all. No wonder the youngest chick, who happens to be the tiniest or the runt among them will lose out in the battle for survival.

This is exactly what had happened to Juno's youngest chick. It died prematurely for want of food. I saw it with my own eyes. It was shy, it couldn't be termed as the fittest for survival. It just perished peacefully. I don't know whether the crow parents shed tears like us, but it seemed to me that they didn't care much. Its existence was like a security for losses for its elder siblings. I, too, didn't lose my heart, because firstly when it died, it was too small for reckoning, and most importantly, there were two left.

As a matter of fact, I could watch them only on weekends, because my place of posting was too far away for daily commutation. One week, when I came back to my home after a week of tedious work, I was shattered to find only one chick in the nest, which happened to be the oldest of the lot, and whom I christened as Diotima.

I could see the motionless body of the second chick, which grew around four cm in length, in the nest. I didn't know exactly the reason for its death, but my guess was that it had died for want of food, and there was a good reason for that. Previously, the residents of Salt Lake used to throw garbage at dustbins, and the municipality workers used to pile them up in a truck and carry them to a dumping ground in the Eastern Byepass. But, that system had changed long ago, and now the municipality workers visit every household to collect garbage. This has denied the scavengers to get easy access to food. Nowadays, they have to try hard and roam a lot for collecting food.

The chicks who are agile, flap their wings hard and try to jump to the nearest branch to satiate their hunger. Diotima was no exception, she too flapped her wings, but she didn't jump. I was a bit disappointed, but I knew that not all crow chicks fledge by seventh week. I thought she would learn flying in the forthcoming weeks without further ado.

Before narrating the final part, let me tell you some observations about Diotima's development, which I observed keenly and with pleasure. I don't know how many of you have seen the development of a nestling from its birth, but I will narrate a brief description for those who haven't have the privilege to observe it either in real life or in You Tube videos.

Diotima was born like a tiny little brownish mass hardly perciptable with naked eyes. She had neither any feather nor any black color that we generally associate with crows. Not only that, her eyes were closed for almost one week.

She ate only morsels of food during her first couple of weeks, but the amount increased with her rapid growth in the ensuing weeks. She opened her eyes after a week or so, and she became more demanding of food from her parents as the days passed by. As she grew older, feathers began to appear in her tiny body. The most prominent part of her body was her deep red gullet, which she would show to her parents for food.

I know the sound of grown up crows is not very pleasing, and sometimes it can be very annoying, but have you ever heard the sound of a fledgling? I can vouch that the sound is very soft. It appeared sweet to me every time in morning, when Diotima was conveying something to her parents. If you cannot distinguish the sound of a chick from an adult crow, as you have never tried to do, I urge you to remain percipient. They are completely different, and I am sure you will be able to hear the sweet sound of chicks.

You must have wondered why I named the chick a female name, when it's impossible to ascertain the gender of a crow from outside! Honestly, I made a guess considering the activities of the chick. Diotima was not very active, and I assumed it to be a female. Pardon me if I am wrong, but let me tell you about the final part of this story.

So, the next week, or the week after that, when I came back home, I thought she would definitely be gone. But, on one Saturday morning, I was disappointed to see Diotima still in the nest, and not only that, one of her wings had developed problems.

She couldn't shut her left wing to her body, as it was stiff. I thought she might have sustained an injury during the process of learning how to fly. I hoped that it would be okay. But on Sunday morning, the next day, I was shell-shocked to note that Diotima's body was not moving. I thought that she was sleeping. But, when I visited the balcony after breakfast, a chill ran down my spine to observe that Diotima's body was lying in the same posture. Juno was perching on the rim of the nest with food in her beak. But, Diotima was not responding by raising her neck to grab it.

It didn't take too much of time to sink in in my mind that Diotima was no longer alive. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. Diotima, the chick whom I loved to watch, had perished. Her motionless body, surrounded by flies, rested in the imperfectly-built nest.

I understood that I would no longer hear her soft and sweet cawing in the morning when I would wake up from sleep; I would no longer watch her desperation to grab food from her parents; I would no longer observe her attempts to fly by flapping her wings.

As I said, crows are not humans, they don't show much emotion. Most probably, if I am mistaken, correct me, they don't have any emotion at all. All they have is the instinct to live and propagate, I am pretty sure that Phoebus and Juno understood what had happened. They waited for another fortnight keeping the carcass of Diotima in the nest before dismantling the nest, and trying to build another one at a different position in the same tree.

 

Dear Ratna,
Thank you very much for your wonderful response! Indeed, it was an emotional issue. I will tell you the update. After this abortive effort, their next attempt also resulted in tragedy. It was almost similar to the story that I narrated. But, in the next attempt one chick, whom I named Minnerva, survived, and she is doing well.

Previously, sparrows were abundant in Salt Lake, but nowadays, they have become almost extinct. Last winter, I could see only four of them. The number of Indian mynas have decreased significantly.

 

Dear Ratna,

Thanks for coming back, and thanks for asking a pertinent question. You must have realised that the names in this blog are Greek in origin. This is because when this incident happened, I was reading an english translation of Homer's Odyssey. I was simply infatuated by this epic. By now you must have known that the description of dawn as the "rosy fingered child of morning" was coined by none other than Homer.