Flycatchers and their fidget…
Flycatchers often seem bound by invisible tethers… zeroing in on a branch and launching rapid sallies from there again and again to pluck food out of the air, all in a theatrical lasting a few minutes at the most… always fidgety, their restive disposition making the onlooker feel the same after a while… they are a large family, these passerines, gobbling up insects at will all over the world, sometimes blending into their surroundings rather unassumingly, sometimes lighting up the woods with their ornate plumage… despite their diversity, almost all flycatchers are busy bees, the restless ones of the avian kingdom, possessing remarkable hunting talents that hides behind a restless persona…
My encounters with grey-headed canary-flycatchers have always been in dense, dark Himalayan canopies… a flicker of light green flitting across oaks and rhododendrons and disappearing into the thicket before one can train their bins for a record… their sharp, squeaky calls buzzing through incessantly and once in a while graduating into a clear view…
Is it a solace, one wonders, to lead a relatively leisurely existence, the indispensability to seek nutriments for sustenance taken out of the depths of nature and replaced by the chore of navigating through a series of societal rubrics… or is it an encumbrance, to be patient when one can flutter through life like flycatchers, an existence seemingly momentary but full of a flurry of furious activity, steeped in the beauty and the tragedy of the elements… if decomposition is the end result, is decadence really necessary?
On a sunny morning that was bound to be paid a visit by the clouds later in the day, I was loitering at the edge of a thick montane forest patch above Bir, overlooking the large flat expanse of Kangra valley, the avifauna was vocal since four in the morning, even before the sun had made any plans to rise… ’twas partly rejuvenating, and partly exasperating, surrounded by a plethora of bird calls but little to see… a reverb of the barbets tucked deep into the woods, scratchy melodies of blackbirds flying up the slope at the slightest hint of the stalker… I was tapering for a run after a long drive the previous day so didn’t have much proclivity to scamper up and down up the mountain, and decided to linger around a brook…
Rewarding the decision came a couple of grey-headed canary-flycatchers perching on a shrub, one of them duly departing for the safety of the trees but the other deciding to remain perched awhile… I worked on the shutter furiously lest this moment too pass like countless others, but the bird was in a benevolent mood, making a few sallies here and there but always coming back in clear sight… having a fill of all the bokeh one could get, I trudged back to the magpies that were lounging near the camp…
Musing on a Grey-headed canary-flycatcher, the woods around Bir, Himachal Pradesh, India