The Rescued Babbler -Champa Jaiprakash

The young babbler in our garden

Our house is in a new locality in the outskirts of the bustling city of Coimbatore. The urban malice of construction and expansion is yet to catch up here and hence the locality is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. There are trees lining the new roads with a variety of bird species making them their home. Peacocks, the earlier inhabitants of this land before we took over and made it into a “locality”, still share their home with us, the humans. The locality is home to a few animals as well with snakes, scorpions, chameleons and frogs being commonly sighted in the bushes and burrows of the empty sites. A plethora of insects complete the fauna population here.

It was a hot summer evening earlier this week when we found a bird sitting on the steps of our portico. We knew it was in trouble when it didn’t fly even when we walked towards it. Upon closer observation we found it be very weak. We had no clue how to treat the bird and all we did was to keep a bowl of water near the tired bird. It was a situation that called for professional help and we knew just the man to ask for help, my Naturalist brother Manu. We took a photo of the bird and sent it to Manu for identification and the next course of action to heal it.

It’s a young Babbler, not totally independent of its mother’s care said Manu and it must be suffering from a sun stroke! Babblers are “non-vegetarian” birds and eat insects only, they don’t eat grains. Babblers, or any bird for that matter, try and avoid human contact and hence we didn’t want to scare it by touching or moving it. We kept a watch from a safe distance hoping that it would recover and fly away. But, the Babbler stayed on making itself comfortable in one of my grandson’s shoes! We got busy with our household chores but the children peered in occasionally to check on the ailing bird and to keep an eye on the naughty cat in the house. We replenished the water in the bowl on last time at night and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up to the squealing of many birds. We went out and saw five Babblers along with our ailing babbler, which was not in the shoe anymore but was with two other bigger babblers at the edge of the compound. The bigger ones were feeding grasshoppers to our Babbler. Three other Babblers were perched on the compound wall and looked fiercely at us. We presumed that they were on security duty!

The feeding went for a considerable time. Whenever we came out to look, the Babblers on security duty were alert and kept the fierce gaze on us! What team work of these noisy birds?  Dr. Salim Ali rightly called them the ‘Seven sisters’.

A file picture of a babbler.

Finally, after an hour of replenishment and coaxing our young Babbler spread its wings and flapped it a few times and tried to take off. All it could manage was to reach the lower branch of a potted plant in our compound! It had still not recovered completely. The feeding resumed in the right earnest and went on for another two hours! Our Babbler stayed on the branch. The two bigger Babblers tirelessly fed our young fellow and the Babblers on the security duty did their job with utmost concentration, their fierce gaze never wavered! We were awestruck by the social behavior of these birds.

By evening, our young Babbler looked visibly healthy. It flapped its wings again and this time it was able to fly. In the next few seconds the Babblers on feeding and security duty also flew away.

Nature’s handiwork is everywhere and the social behaviour of the Babblers is a great example of it. All we need is an eye for observing it.

We did learn a lesson from this Babbler incident, we now place water in earthen pots around the house, so that birds can quench their thirsts in these scorching summer months.