A robin feathering his nest
Has very little time to rest
While he is gathering
Bits of twig and twine
While most of us visualize a perfect Mary Poppins scene when we hear these lines, I have had a perfect opportunity to experience it first hand. Being an ardent lover of bright sunny days, it has always been my habit to open all the windows and draw the curtains immediately after waking up. So, just a few days back as I woke up and rolled up the net off my hostel window I was disgusted to see my window sill littered with white feathery things. A closer look revealed that there were a sort of feathery flowers, something like what we call "kash phool" in Bengali. Almost immediately, almost to answer my questions, two tiny birds came and sat on the grill each holding a dried piece of grass with its beak.
I have never been very fond of small delicate soft animals. They sort of give me the creeps down my spine. So as you would guess, the idea of tiny baby birds on my window sill was not a very welcome idea. Irritated with all the mess, I got all the feather and twigs removed and my window cleaned by the maid who was kind enough to do it for me even though she grumbled and cursed the birds all along. But alas, the next morning I woke up again to the exact same sight, When I told my mother about it, it was she who told me that birds only build nests in places they find safe and that I should not disturb them and let them be, By this time I had gotten used to the chirps of the two tiny birds on my window and started enjoying their company. So i decided to let them be and click photos of them instead.
After a few days, they had collected so much that we thought they were trying to make a multi-storied nest for themselves. Half of the window was curtained with grass hanging from the grills. After a point of time we started criticizing the architectural skills of they birds because they were taking too much time and making no progress. They used to assemble the grass everyday and everyday it would come loose and get deposited at the bottom of the window. We started saying that the birds were stupid and that it was not possible to build a nest balanced on a single grill. Our window was a mess and the nest was not even close to complete. Just one morning later, however, I woke up to find this.
It was miraculous. The window was a complete mess when we went to bed and just the next morning there was a perfect nest in place and literally the entire window looked as if it had been carefully cleaned up. I sat on my bed awestruck for a long time amazed at how two tiny birds could possibly do all this is just a few hours, Anyhow, the nest is still there and the birds barely come out of it. I guess the nest is as cosy inside as it looks from outside. (It looks amazing but the pictures have not come well because of the lighting. The nest is completely rested on the net so it cannot be adjusted in any way.)
Other than the fact that I am not being able to roll up the net to enjoy an unobstructed open window, I am sure that this is something which one does not experience very often and unlike all my other posts, this is one thing that I would definitely not like to change. :)
