Down in jungleland: Bird it Like No One’s Watching

Have you ever seen a depressed bird? I’ve seen angry, funny, funky, fierce, beautiful birds. But I’ve never seen a chronically depressed bird. (Illustration: Subrata Dhar)

Why should anyone, in this day and age, spend precious hours of their weekends and holidays, watching birds instead of playing games on the internet? This pastime (or waste time, as detractors would snort) has caught on like wildfire in recent years — even in India, despite the fact that you usually can’t become a millionaire by watching birds. I have been branded as one of the birdwatchers’ ilk, so I thought I’d do a sort of fair audit here: what are the pros and cons of birding?

Well, the most obvious “pro” is that you will get to see and meet, glamorous, beautiful and fierce dancers, singers, builders, combat flyers, hunters, fishermen, clowns and yes, ardent romantics (which will get the moral police’s knickers in hell of a twist) — who, thankfully, are not people — every time you step outdoors. It’s a bewildering world out there, crammed with the bizarre, beautiful and unexpected. You will, in pursuit of birds, walk many thousand steps (and make your Fitbit thingy happy and fit, too) in many wonderful and picturesque places — mysterious forests, hills, mountains, beaches, grasslands, parks, sanctuaries — and also rubbish dumps and industrial estates, and discover new landscapes. And, you don’t have to “power-walk” like Popeye — a gentle amble interspersed with rest-breaks is all that is needed! It gets you out of the house — and that can be so good for you and your family life. You can, of course, have as good a time watching the birds in your garden or balcony as you sip your tea and irritate the heck out of everyone at home at the same time by giving them a running commentary of what you have seen and they haven’t: “Can’t you see it? Male paradise flycatcher, over four years old, that has just had bacon and eggs for breakfast. It’s right there straight ahead, under your nose. Are you blind? Oh my God, it’s absolutely gorgeous! Oops, it’s flown away now, too bad! You really missed something! Man, it’s made my day!” (Better have a quick getaway ready!)

If you’re lucky, you may even see something rare — a bird that has not been reported from the area in the last 50 years, or ever since records were maintained. It can give you the sort of high that even the most hallucinogenic drugs can (and there’s no low — unless of course, you grossly misidentified the bird and it turned out to be a bald myna).

Then, there are interesting people that you will meet: fellow birders. They hail from every walk of life, and it’s always good to know savvy people in different professions, especially these days —lawyers, doctors, accountants, tax-inspectors, policemen, civil servants, yoga teachers, computer whizzes, charlatans et al. Because even birding can get you into trouble with the “govmant”. Which brings me to the cons:

By traipsing around in wild and desolate areas at an uncivilised early hour, armed with binoculars and telephoto lens equipped cameras, and wearing combat fatigues, you may be taken for someone who is anti-national and up to no good. (This is why it’s good to have a cop or a District Magistrate as a birding friend/companion). By the time you extricate yourself from the mess and prove your innocence, you will have lost all interest in birding. You will be forbidden by your traumatised family from setting foot outdoors again — tangling with the “govmant” has this kind of effect.

Secondly, even if this doesn’t happen, what usually does is this: there you are, sitting by a village pond, gazing raptly at a pair of majestic great-crested grebes sailing up and down with all the dignity of cruise liners; when, very silently, you are surrounded by the population of the entire village. They hunker down around you (hopefully not to do potty, which has been banned now) and just stare at you, murmuring softly: “Afsir hai par bechara pagal hoega (He looks like an officer but poor fellow must have gone mad); Tota, batak dekh raha hai (He’s looking at parakeets and ducks!)” Usually, they just stare, but some may request that you give their sons a “govmant” job.

Ah, but there’s worse that can happen. Birding can turn you into a complete maniac, and quite a creep too. In some people, it ignites this burning desire to see every recorded species in the world within the next 10 minutes, and they will spare nothing in their quest. Others will want to ensure that their bird lists get longer (certainly longer than yours) with every trip — they won’t return home until it does (good riddance, many spouses would say). “Twitchers” will ride roughshod over everything in giant SUVs if a rare sighting has been reported from some inaccessible nook or cranny. Many let their imagination go psychedelic while describing what they’ve seen, though it’s generally the uninitiated or newbies that do this. Photographers can be worse. Some have been known to destroy the nests of rare and beautiful birds after taking their pictures — just to deny other photographers the same access.

But there’s still one major “pro” that overrides all these cons: have you ever seen a depressed bird? I’ve seen angry birds, funny birds, sad-looking birds, funky birds, fierce birds, beautiful birds, upset birds, singing birds, injured birds, frightened birds, and stunt birds — pretty much the works. But I’ve never seen a seriously or chronically depressed bird. You might think that a bird sitting out a rainstorm looks depressed: it’s all huddled up, trying to take cover under the leaves, raindrops streaming off it — pretty miserable you would say. But look at its eyes: blinking patiently, they say something different: “This too shall pass!”
And when the rain stops, it shakes itself, flies off to a high perch and begins to sing.

Try it.