The Feathered friends of our Garden

It was an hour in the morning. An ornithologist, who is also a music lover, was listening to a performance on the radio by the yesteryear eminent Carnatic violinist Lalgudi Jayaraman. At the same time, he was also observing a pair of mina being in love with each other on a tree’s branch in his garden. He felt the match of the music with the love scene of the two birds.

“The scene I observed at a point in my life is indelible in my memory. Such a match of music with a scene in the world of nature appears very rarely to the eyes of nature lovers like me “avers K.Rathinam, an ornithologist, novelist, writer, translator, and retired Tamil professor from the 171-year-old Government Arts College, Coimbatore.

“The mina, which lives in pairs, does not build nests. They hardly perch on trees, but on walls, concrete water tanks, etc. They just live in the hollows, wherever they find them. Though the bird is popularly called mina in Hindi and English, its Tamil name is Nakanavaipul” informed Rathinam. 

An author of over twenty books that include Thenninthiya Paravaigal (Birds of South India), Thenninthiya Kulangalum Kudigalum (Tamil translation of Edgar Thurston’s Castes and Tribes of Southern India), and Kallum Mannum, a novel on Kongu society, Rathinam has been a bird watcher for decades.

His passion for observing birds made him write a comprehensive book on South Indian birds, which is over 450 pages.

“English people named it as ‘Tailor bird’ after observing its activity. In a plant behind my house, I’ve observed the bird sewing one leaf with another, using plant fiber and spider silk to build its nest. I have also seen its eggs in the garden behind my home”

Rathinam has also observed the calls of the tailor bird.

“The usual count of the tailor bird’s call is repeatedly seven or eight times. Then there is a pause for a while to continue again“

Another bird of the garden which is called Thean Chittu in Tamil (purple sunbird), lives on the nectar. Rathinam has seen it frequenting the drumstick tree in the early hours of the morning and sucking the nectar of its flowers.

“The purple-rumped sunbird, which is another species of the Thean Chittu, builds a hanging pouch nest on the plants. Though the bird is weak, its style of building its nest shows its cleverness in preventing its nestlings from hunting birds. Though the hunting birds are strong, they cannot grab the nestlings of the purple-rumped sunbird, for its nest hanging from a plant’s branch is like a pouch” added Rathinam. 

The ornithologist, who also shares the habit of other garden birds such as Silandhi Pidipan (spider hunter), Silamban(babbler), Karichan (trogon), Vellakanni (Indian white eye), Chittu Kuruvi (sparrow) and many others, has something special to point out the nesting habits of Thookanangkuruvi (Weaver bird):

“In the family of the weaver bird, the male builds the nest, while the female supervises it. In case, the male’s weaving of the nest is not up to the mark, the female does not yield to the male for mating!“