Scarlet Minivet

This Scarlet Minivet, frustration clearly written on its face, rested on the palm tree just outside my window to get its breath back after making more than a dozen attempts to fly through the window pane into the house. Must be new to the locality. Otherwise it would have gained knowledge of the futility of such an attempt from the bird community around the house. But these birds do believe in the adage ‘try and try again and you will succeed at last’. The sun bird and the sparrow have been trying to fly through the glass since we shifted here, that is, for more than five years and they have not given up yet!

Photo courtesy :  Our friend Manjit, who happens to be a sort of ‘odd jobs boy’ for our house. He comes now and then to help my wife in her attempt to maintain it in a presentable condition. Manjit is difficult to catch hold off but when he is here he attends to whatever she asks him to. She managed to cage him after persisting at it for three weeks. He cleaned the windows last week and that is how I could make out the identity of the bird outside and even get a photograph through the glass. Since the glass is tinted the bird probably did not see me and remained in place even though I was just about three feet away.

The palm leaf is at the level of the top of our window and to reach that height I had to climb onto the headboard of the cot placed next to the window, on which my son was enjoying his siesta (just to make things clear, he was enjoying the siesta on the cot. Not on the window). The sound of the bird repeatedly hitting the window pane with its beaks had woken him up but he insists that I did and accuses me of stepping over his head on my way to the head board of the cot.

If that is true, 

Photo courtesy : 1. Manjit - for cleaning the window and making light pass through and 2. Ashwin - for providing his head as a step to reach the required height for photography.