Was it a Cobra?
Yesterday, I was coming back from city. I took a detour towards my office from the normal road. My wife was sitting in the back seat. Suddenly she told me that we have just missed overrunning a huge serpent. I could not believe because, I missed seeing it completely. May be my mind was engrossed somewhere else.
The snake was still sitting with its hood totally opened. May be when our car just missed it and for a moment it became angry. I reversed the car and reached just near it. I have never seen in life such a majestic snake. Its colour was brown. It mus have been 4-5 feet long. What was more majestic about it was that it did not even seem to care whether we are around. It sat their with absolute calm. Then after some minutes, it went away into the bushes.
Actually I was roaming few days ago on the road along the boundary wall of our colony. It is rainy season and all around on the edges of road, plants with lush green foliage are growing. There on one such cluster of plants, I noticed very very tiny beautiful green plumed bird. It was sitting at one wedge of the plant branches. On looking closely I found that it was sitting on a nest. As I tried to photograph it using my poor man’s camera that is my my mobile camera, it flew away. I became sure that most probably there are eggs in the nest. Delicately, I pulled the twig towards me and lo! there were two beautiful eggs in it. Strangely, these eggs looked quite out sized for a bird of such diminutive size. There were patches of blood smeared on the eggs. I gently released the branch of tree slowly back to original position.
I was wondering how these eggs are surviving in such open space covered by a canopy of green foliage. There were murders of crows lurking around and then Oh I remember snakes which can raid the nests for eggs. Incidentally, the term “murder of crows” means a group of crows. As the Oxford English Dictionary suggests, “murder” may “perhaps [allude] to the crow’s traditional association with violent death, or … to its harsh and raucous cry.”
Bird’s Nest
I also felt a remorse that may be I have disturbed the nest and the bird is going to abandon it. But I felt relieved when I saw the bird sitting again on the nest.
But alas! I was shocked today. I was passing through that path and my heart sank as I saw that nest was gone. There was no eggs. That was the end to the so much efforts of there poor birds. My fears about thieves and marauders proved to be true.
Eggs
I have read somewhere that species adopt different strategies for their survival and furtherance of their lineage. Lower the species is in the hierarchy of living kingdom, the survival strategy is in the sheer numbers. Perhaps, why perhaps but surely, the life will go on, and these birds will again try and succeed. My best wishes are with them.
