That pair of crows ( Part 5th, the concluding part ) —

(Recap — In the previous part I mentioned about our small group of like minded people of “bird watching lover.”  At this time, this circle of friends had decided to embark on a mission to study about the Eagle behaviour in the surrounding Himalayan hills…..)

We chose to climb a medium height hill. When we approached its top, there we scarcely found the presence of big trees. In a manner of speaking, it was a like a meadow with uneven surface, often found in hill side. On the descending flank of this hill, where this slope ended deep down, a wide basin of a rainy river was visible. It was summer season and merely some thin streaks of water seemed engaged in its flow. Otherwise a dried up  span of river span stretched before the eyes. Across the river, again after a plain stretch, it rose to another hilly ascendance fraught with dense forest stood before us.

The river on its  both flanks contained a range of some thick, medium sized brushy stocks of trees in a shape of scattered dwarf forest. In fact, this brushy stock covered the space on that side of the bank,  the location between hill frontier and the river basin. On that side of the plain we noticed the presence of  of a tall, old, dry dead tree, perhaps of Saku (Sal tree.) It was ghastly taller in height and looked, as if, withered due to scorch of  Sun rays or some infectious disease. But still it held back its original form in skeleton form. The main trunk with its scions and spread was still firm, no doubt dry and leaf less, as though, challenging the surroundings with rest of its prongs. In presence, it akined to a man, who was stripped off his clothing.

On the top of the tree, amid the dry branches we at once noticed the presence of an eyrie and some eaglets in that nest. Eyrie of an eagle we always found roughly woven and made of thick dry twigs of different size. Never we found it cozy to bird-lings it held. Might be due to some natural causes. The main reason seemed, this type of prey bird devoured only the flesh of other birds, snakes, reptiles or some left over parts of dead animals. This type of construction could be helpful to hook in the pieces of in the spokes of dry twigs.

By the help of our fantastic binocular, every thing was quite closer to our sight. Even the the wide range of hill in front  of us along with its lush green forest seemed, as if, we were not stationed on this side of hill top but amid that side’s scenario. The tiny fledglings in the nest were hardly two weeks older in age, yet feathers had not grown properly over their body. With their beak wide open in the sky, they were waiting eagerly for parent to come back to nest and fetch some delicious food  to them. After  a short while our judgement proved correct.. One of the parent alone was visible high up in the sky, heading towards the nest, holding a considerably big chunk of some dead animal body’s part in its talons.

The parent eagle made a soft landing in the nest and got busied  in mangling the loaf of dead flesh into tiny pieces and putting those pieces in the mouth of eaglets. After a while, it left the loaf of the dead part in the nest and again took the flight  to catch another installment. No sooner the eagle vanished from the sight, an incidence occurred, we hardly could anticipate of that. From no where, probably from the nearest thick shrubs, a pair of crows appeared on the scene. It was unexpected to us, to watch the crows there. In our spree of bird watching in past, we hardly had noticed the presence of crows in our past trips in such a deserted place. The one of the crows of the pair stationed herself on a distant located tall tree.

The partner crow who still hovered in the air flapped his wings with full might  and assailed the eyrie and took hold of the left over loaf of flesh in her feet and took an escaping flight with might  and main and an agility. That was the moment, when the partner crow who rested on the distant tree gave him an alert call by cawing, of returning of parent eagle. In the hill side’s serene ambiance, the transmission of all kinds of sound is easily communicable to one and all.We too were hearing the alert mode cawing of the crow. At the same time, we heard from above high in the sky the anger shrill of the parent eagle. Who afar high up in the sky, too had noticed the perpetration of theft committed by the crow.

The parent eagle constricted his wings close to his main body and made a sharp swoop downward the thieving crow to catch. But, as it was visible, crow too was aware of his attacking swoop. Crow dodged the eagle by taking  a waving dip. No sooner eagle was just to hurt the crow fatally, mean while partner crow appeared just behind the eagle and assailed on his backside. This assault was enough to distract the eagle. The eagle at once turned back to respond in fury, but attacking crow dug deep down in wavy pattern and took her flight towards the dense forest. Up til now, eagle too had judged this distraction tactic, he again turned back to the perpetrator crow. But this gap of time had provided the opportunity to the perpetrator crow to reach near the safe shelter of the brushy trees.

Till that time, perpetrator crow was taking a safe entry amid the dense brushy branches of tree, where its smaller body could easily make a passage but not the parent eagle. In between this, partner crow too had vanished from the scene.The furious eagle in anger kept on balancing himself on the top of the brushy tree, emitting shrilling, intimidating sounds in desperation. For some times, he remained engaged there on the top of the brushy tree, trying to balance his body. Finally he gave up and retreated to his eyrie. After his retreat, the partner crow too reached inside the bush from somewhere.

We all friends enjoyed this “dog fight” type ambush of two different species of birds. This all hardly lasted for a few minutes and after that every thing was calm and serene. This small occurrence of series of its own kind made me recall at once about the same pair of crows, whom I ever found flying towards the East side hills from my village fields. My present location made me assure that that pair of crows used to return daily towards this side of hilly range, just about ten years ago when I intently used to watch that pair of crows. A far as my knowledge about crows were concerned, crow happened to live  an average life of about twenty years.

At the time of my teen age, I supposed the pair of crows were hardly three to four year old of age, ( I was convincing myself in this manner.) In my fancy, this pair was the same pair of crows of my teen age!  Although, I didn’t have any lucid answer to this puzzling question. But I was relating this pair of crows to that pair of crows whom I had witnessed in my teen age.  Their intimacy, trust and well formed coordination and symbiosis was helping me to reach this conclusion. It was a phenomenal conviction to deduct some out put by counting two plus two equal to four, when you are traversing through your fantasy. Some where I too was skeptical about my conclusion, there was no doubt about that. But when your fancy embraced you to admit one thing and in return gifted you an ecstasy, you too begun concede to the same conclusion.

The same phenomenon was occurring with me. Along with this conclusion about this pair of crows, side by side I also recalled the love story of Nanku and Ramiya back in my village. Inside my heart, I prayed to God, might this pair of crows be the same one, whom I watched intently in pea fields back in my village. I also wished for the long life of this pair of crows. After that, our group moved forward to our next tracking route. ( End of the story. ) Penned by — Vinay Pharasi —–