SAB KI LIFE SET HAI

SAB KI LIFE SET HAI

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

09/IX/2023

It is time to bloom again. Plants are happy and so are birds and insects. Some birds are still nesting but many frolic around. They sing, dance and fight but keep the environment alive.

Often, we see Crows chasing Koels. Probably the crows have found out the Koel’s secret and caught them red handed laying eggs in their nest. They, like fools, were raising the Koel’s chicks.

Koel is a swift and agile bird. It can dodge and manoeuvre much faster than a crow in flight. The poor crow is drawn away from the nest and the Koel it was in a hot pursuit with, suddenly vanishes in thin air. She turns around a tree but the crow keeps going in the same direction. The crow gives up and sits to rest on a lamp post, while the Koel re turns to Coo on a tree close by.

There is also a ‘Drumstick’ tree in our vicinity. Fresh pods will sprout soon. White flowers have covered the tree which is attracting birds, butterflies, bees, and bumblebees in great numbers. They find nectar or insects as per their requirement and relish it. There is a flood of activity and food aplenty.

A ‘flutter’ of black butterflies got attracted by the lure of nectar and hovered around this tree. They sit on a bunch, dip their dipstick, find no juice and flutter away to another bunch of flowers. I had been requesting them to visit our garden for a photo op, but they are more interested in moringa flowers. They wander from cluster to cluster and enjoy the juices.

Probably, the nectar of this tree is more tangy, tasty, and nutritious. Moringa has many medicinal properties which these insects know better. Leaves and branches provide space for them to lay eggs. Besides, birds get entangled in its bushy branches while chasing them. This provides them natural safety or else butterflies make a good snack. Nature takes care of them.

Commotion in the trees caught my attention, as a ‘kaleidoscope’ of butterflies were moving around fanatically. A black naughty Sunbird also sat in the midst attacking these butterflies. Was it a game or was it trying to eat them? She was actually shooing them away. Sunbirds wanted exclusive rights to the nectar of those flowers. How mean!

If a butterfly sat on a particular bunch, down would one Sunbird come diving and shake that branch to unbalance them. Irritated, they would fly and squat on another bunch to be upstuck over and over again. This continued for a while but the butterflies didn’t give up. Some would move away to the adjacent garden and wait patiently to see if all was clear and return.

Then came another ‘rabble’ of orange butterflies. Now it was teamwork. If black ones were being chased the orange ones would suck nectar and vice versa. There was a twist in the tale when another male sunbird came to inspect the already busy Sunbird. Mutual ‘sunbird jealousy’ came into the play. One hurtled the other far away. Now the coast was clear for the butterflies to make hay.

I was just an observer and well wisher of all. A dove came and sat on the highest branch. Butterflies went to check her out. She got scared and flew away. A ‘colony’ of Bumblebees entered the fray all of a sudden. They too wanted all the flowers to themselves. Another ‘butterfly-bumblebee’ duel ensued.

Without waiting for the results, I returned home for my morning cup of ‘nectar’. Sab ki life set hai, isn’t it? I wonder!!!!!!!

JAI HIND