I look out from the 8th floor balcony, and see the traffic go by.As I walk by the bedroom,I see a pigeon nest.
This is the 3rd nest I have seen in the past 5 months since I moved into this rented flat/apartment. One nest was in a cranny, its eggs were out of sight. The young pigeons hatched and grew and then flew away,unobserved by me.
The second nest was built on the balcony floor, and it had 2 eggs. My girls saw the hatching and the young pigeons in their downy avatar as they had come down for Diwali vacations. Within a few weeks, these pigeons grew and developed their plumage. We saw their first hesitant flight from the floor to the railing. They looked like the adults in all respect,but you could tell by their shinier necks and flight that they were not adults.The parents continued feeding them. Till one day they flew away.Soon dust gathered, and the empty nest was the only reminder of their existence.I cleaned up the nest and the droppings which had messed up the entire balcony floor by this time.
Just recently I saw one solitary egg laid at the same place as the earlier nest was.It was on the floor,without any nest. I remembered the mess created by the earlier hatchlings, so I put a wire mesh on the egg to inhibit the pigeons from hatching the egg. Soon an another pigeon pair started building a twig nest in the other corner of the same balcony. I scattered the twigs across the balcony floor, but within hours the industrious birds rebuilt the nest. One day,I saw 2 eggs in the new nest. I casually mentioned this to my wife, & she advised me to let the birds hatch, so that our girls could see them when they came here in about a months time. So I uncovered the wire mesh.Then I moved the new nest to the location of the old nest. I then put all the 3 eggs together,and patted myself on the back for the kindness I was showing the birds.
The next day, when I visited the gallery, I saw that the nest had vanished!! All that remained was a solitary egg. The birds were angry!! They simply did not want to hatch any egg they had not birthed. After 2 days the remaining egg also vanished.
Why am I writing this long & dreary tale,you may wonder? Just answer one question.Are birds really different from humans when it comes to being parents? Kids will grow and leave the nests, and the empty shells of our nests and droppings of life/memories will remain, till the maker sweeps it all away. New nests will be built in the same place…
