I have come a long way from being woken early in the mornings by the twittering sparrows on the Bouganvilla to the sharp twits of the Tailorbird. While I miss the sparrows (a whole lot that has disappeared from the Gurgaon I once knew) the twitterings of the Tailorbirds makes up for their absence. I wonder, how long it will be before the Tailorbirds are driven away too!
A lot has happened to Gurgaon since the early eighties, the renaming of the city to Gurgram being one, the most important however has been the virtual disappearance of greenery, water bodies, rivers and fields of mustard that once dotted this rather quaint and sleepy town. The advent of the twenty-first century and the tag of the Millennium city of Haryana have perhaps forced Gurgaon to shift gears perhaps beyond the capability of the town to bear!
But then, I return to the Tailorbirds that have reminded me of times gone by. Strangely enough, the birds simply wouldn't sit or rather perch still. I tried so hard to take a snap of one of them feeding on the blossoms of the Curry-Leaf tree, Alas! Each moment I picked up my camera, the bird would hop, flit and fly to another branch. This Hide and seek game would go on for a good fifteen minutes before either one of us would concede defeat.
Finally one fine day I was able to take a few snaps of this rather restless bird while it was perched on top of one the power lines passing by. I admit never having seen this bird during the eighties, I guess the sparrows would have driven it away! But then equally intriguing is the spotting of Kingfishers in the middle of the town, far, far, away from the nearest water body called the Basai Wetland. One can't help wondering if the Kingfishers might no have learned to adapt to a meal of insects if not fish!
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