My Encounter with the Babblers and other birds.

       

       

Babblers- This species is completely new to me. Once I was enjoying the sparkling sunrise on the terrace and working on my laptop. Suddenly, I heard a shrill shriek resembling a call of palm squirrel, just a few feet behind me on the railing. I froze to the spot and turned around to spot a small bird of greyish brown with a pale head. I first assumed it as a Jungle babbler, but it had a shrill and high-pitched call.  Later I came to know it is the Yellow-Billed Babbler with the help of Google search.

These babblers are lively, gregarious, and noisy in nature, often come in groups of 6-7 and spend most of their time on our terrace, in the backyard, and around the greenery of our layout.  We refer to them as ‘jingling bells’ as their calls were constant and sound like many ‘Jingle bells’ jingling. They have less fear of humans.

       

 Also, they are the first species to wake up early every morning and await breakfast around 6am. They also make a call to remind us to serve them breakfast i.e.to lay out the fresh grains in the feed trays out in the backyard every morning. It is a treat to our eyes to watch them gobble up the grains. About 3-4 sit on the tray and gobble them making a light tap-tap sound. Within a minute or so, they are done with feeding and out foraging on the grassland. Sometimes, they are bullied by other birds in the backyard such as Common Mynas and Rose Ringed Parakeets when comes to feeding time.

From time to time they can be fierce too. Once I just happened to watch this incident from my terrace. The Babblers let out an alarm and many of them collected around the woods at the backside of the house. They seem to chase something away very determinedly, constantly making loud and shrill calls. Suddenly, I spotted a terrified-looking grey mongoose clinging onto the outer fence wall of the layout.  It was trying to escape from these birds, as they went near it.

There is so much to learn from these birds. In fact, nature is the best teacher. This is just the beginning of my birding days. There is a lot more to learn from them.

  

I have not noticed any crows around this layout in the initial year or so. Later, once a Jungle crow discovered the grains and water kept in the garden. Perhaps it used to visit the garden to feed on mangoes during the months of April, May, and June. It began to call loudly sitting on the terrace and at every nook and corner of the backyard. The call was really irritating. Sometimes we had to chase it away as it neared a window to call harshly. Two or three jungle crows joined this one in a day or so. I call these crows as Broadcasting unit members where they advertise the grains and fruits being available to all kinds of birds outside our layout and adjacent farmlands. Of Course, They were advertising this for free!

During the summer days, they had become a menace since this is the only species that feed on cooked food too. Any time we keep a garbage bag out or some food for some workers out. They come and rip open the garbage bag to spill the contents out or take some gulps of food in its beak until they are driven away. After summer is over, these birds are less seen. They come rarely to feed on the grains.

Common Mynas are also common in our layout as well in cities. They live on coconut trees that fringe our premises due to the availability of grains in our backyard. As usual, they spend pleasant days twittering and chirping a tune perched on a tree. The sound is really soothing to my ears. They are also frequent visitors to feed on the grains and forage for insects in the garden. Once I happened to notice a fledgling resting around bushes near our house. A Shikra upon seeing the fledgling darted toward it. The parents' Mynas and other neighboring ones charged at the Shikra with full fury till they drove the predator away from the layout.