Life and Spirituality

Sparrow by   Laitche My home is more than two and a half decades old. I built it in bits as and when I got time off from work in other cities but right from the start I began planting trees around the boundary. Some became too large with the years and had to be removed. They were put to good use. Seasoned and converted into furniture around the home as it expanded. However, the most delightful aspect of the trees was that neighbors too loved the idea and planted more and a variety of birds moved in to nest in them. Their tweets delight the soul all day, beginning well before dawn. A few like crows were irritating but thankfully, they are not visiting the area now and there was that naughty kingfisher that ate all my lovely little fish in a tiny cemented pond in the garden. I stopped keeping ornamental fish since and keep the pond dry most of the year. In monsoons its is used to collect rain water. Unfortunately, a few years ago I had to remove a large bougainvillea bush that h

Birds sing all day around my home, day after day, year after year in ever changing compositions. Here is a brief recording I made of them yesterday morning The birds begin their chirping very early in the morning while it is still dark, here is another one recorded at that time yesterday

S oon after building a home some twenty five years ago, I planted a lot of trees around it. I began putting out some bird seed and bread etc. to attract the birds. Along with the birds came the squirrels and I discovered they like precisely the same food as the birds. A few of the squirrels became friends and I gave them silly sounding names which to the squirrels must have sounded quite proper and dignified. The squirrels would take bread pieces from my hands. Then around twelve years ago a brood of cats moved into the area. They were great for finishing up rats that inhabited the area from before the homes were built but unfortunately they wiped out the squirrels too. The birds have continued to live because most are much too smart for the cats; a black bird even teases them by hopping around in front of them. As a result the home is surrounded by bird songs all day, every day during daylight hours. I have not seen a squirrel here for about ten years now but today

http://www.pd4pic.com/bird-sparrow-nature-animal-digital-art.html S everal birds live and visit the small garden around my home. It has many trees, dense bushes and a lawn. They just love that aside from the fact that I put water, bird seed, left over rice, bread crumbs etc. out for them quite regularly. Most times the visits are from about half a dozen types of birds common in the area with the sparrows and the red tailed Bulbul being the friendliest. However, every now and then a special or different bird also makes a visit. Once in a while, a visit may be so special that it is a special message from Nature or as some say, an omen. I do not understand a lot of the language in which nature communicates with us but most definitely a lot more than my friends and most other humans simply because I have lived a more reclusive life in close companionship with nature over the last decade or more. So today, when a special sky blue love bird came to visit while I was waterin

A Red- tailed Bulbul feeding in the garden P utting out some bird food for the birds in one’s garden or terrace is a wonderful way to give something back to nature and also to fill surroundings with sweet song of birds all day. Occasionally they do make a racket but then which sweet creature including little children do not. Premixed bird seed is not available in Indian market to my knowledge but a variety of other foods that humans too use are available and one can prepare one’s own mix easily. millets are the most popular grain people use here to feed birds and there is also a special grass seed just for birds called kangani that is much tinier than millets and a favorite of bird lovers. My own practice is to prepare a five kg mix of millets, kangani, white and black sesame seeds, yellow and brown mustard, crushed peanuts, crushed wheat and some washed split lentils. I have added sun flower seeds to the mix too but usually avoid it because it is expensive here. This is

  Sparrow by  Laitche T he house that I live in presently was built in stages  beginning in 1991 during  vacations and sabbaticals in my career. By 1995, the ground floor of the house was more or less complete except for some finishing that continued later. In the center of the roof of the living room was a hole meant for a center light. To hide the protruding wires a small round plastic sheet covered it with another circular hole in the center of it for the light. A similar one existed in the front porch of the house. I lived in the house through most of 1995 with frequent visits of three or four days to Delhi. At this time a pair of house sparrows occupied the porch roof cavity and made it their home. There were no complaints about that since it was not intended to fix a light there in a hurry. Sparrows are cute little birds anyway and I often leave seeds out for them in the garden. Sometime later the female of the pair moved into the living room cavity and began