The Beautiful Mr What Woo Hoo and his Sound of Music

i think i have mentioned somewhere in my blog that i love sounds. i am not much of a pin drop silence person. Rather that kind of dead silence freaks me out although i know rationally there is nothing called dead silence because our planet has eternal sound vibrations and silence or noise is much within the own self that one has to come to terms with.

Bob Dylan had said once, " The radio makes hideous sounds." but as a kid i loved those hideous sounds that the big radio made when i used to play with those carom board striker- sized- round -tuning dials of the big Philips Radio. The Whoo whoo frequency tuning happening in between i loved and enjoyed the sound of it and sometimes would continue to play until i was caught and stopped from doing so by one of my parents when they would chide me rather discipline me, '' not to mess with the RADIO !! ".

For quite sometime i had been hearing occasional chords of the same Whoo hoo. Not exactly like the big Radio but a similar sound spaced out. i was hearing it everyday, definitely knowing it to be of a bird of some kind but as each day progressed and it became routine i continued with what i was doing without much fuss over this Whoo hoo. But i guess Mr Whoo hoo whoever it was until not known to me maybe was not too pleased with my complacency and decided to reveal himself one fine morn as i went to the terrace as usual to be with my favorites. To enjoy the dawn along with my green babies and also before the heat got unbearable to feed them their daily sufficient drops of some cool fresh water which should see them replenished enough to beat the heat during the day. So as i started out on my job i heard a distinct whooo hoo, ambient and clear. Felt like it was coming from somewhere near. And when i looked up i saw a green bird. No not a parrot but something which is rarely seen on the ground or even on low branches of trees.

My green bird...my elusive Yellow Footed Green Pigeon. The last time i had seen it was a single. That was three years back when i had just arrived in Delhi. But of course at that time i was seeing a green pigeon for the first time in my life and just like anybody who doesn't know i thought that it cooed liked normal pigeons do. Gutra...goo...gutra...goo. Moreover at that moment i was just admiring a rarity and the contrast that the scenario was offering me free of cost and just like that. Some effortless entertainment as i sipped my tea sitting comfortably in my balcony.

That time too Mr Green Pigeon sure did seem interested in me as much as i was in him because he did turn his gaze to face me and acknowledge my admiration for him. For earlier it was surveying in silence another one of his own species. Must admit though had not noticed his foot or anything then...but just his henna powder color green.

This time i am more than just thrilled to see him again, maybe not the same bird but the same of the species called Teron phoenicopterus. Teron is a Latin word which stands for male and it actually means smooth. Phoenicopterus is a Greek word which actually means purple wing. All this information gathering happening now just because i happened to see this difficult to be seen bird again although it is most widespread in India. And since it never seems to roam around the free grounds how would i know that the sound like the spaced out radio tuning was coming out from him. Had it not been for this routine Whoo hoo that i was hearing and then this particular morning when Mr Pigeon in his virile courting gusto decided first to attract me with his call.

Whoo...hoo! whoo hoo!

This particular clip i have used is by Mr Mike Nelson who recorded it at 6.30 A.M at a hotel in Delhi where he was staying. The location being Sultanpur Estate. Sultanpur is a famous weekend getaway for it's bird sanctuary. i still have to visit this place. http://www.sultanpurbirdsanctuary.com/

He had been there everyday and trying to attract the attention of his mate and i would have seen him had it not been for his disguise. Quite a marvelous camouflage in the dense foliage of the tree. Only this particular day because of the like a radio getting tuned Whoo hoo close by i had to stop from doing what i was doing and since i had already spotted the rare one, it was obvious that one would see me from me peering here looking there, following the bird as it moved this way and that as it perched, changed positions, did his rituals which i shall explain later in this post, to know what it was destined for me to witness and learn on this eventful day.

He would be sitting there each day quietly and occasionally uttering his '' What wa hoo" or " Who who" nicely disguised and i was oblivious of the beautiful color of this plump looking bird. Other times i was missing out because it just sat there quietly perched on that favorite spot of his watching me intently perhaps or getting amused with entertainment maybe like we humans do to watch them from a distance. Surely it was there all along. i was hearing and from what i know now is that this species of sociable birds has the habit of sitting in groups on high branches especially during dawn hours because they love to bask in the early morning sun. And one should see it how brilliantly dazzling they glow...the color looking even richer as it catches the light of the early hours.

Maybe i am still missing out on the group but of late i have been seeing this arboreal couple quite a lot. Have actually been following them too. 

Small round head, long tail, plump body if and when spotted makes it easy to identify them because of certain typical and standard characteristic features.

Teron meaning the male is ashy olive green above but is all over olive yellow in color. There is a patch of grey like a thick but small band just below his neck too before he gets to be that olive yellow all over. He has a dark band almost slate colored on his tail. Sometimes when i am able to see clearly through my binoculars i also see a lilac red shoulder patch. He has yellow legs and yellow under-body. The bill is not too long and it is also yellow but pale yellow with a grey tip. His lady as is usual in avian s is slightly duller than him. And in her that lilac shoulder patch is missing. These two plump looking love birds never come down to feed and not even for their salt licks like some birds do. i learnt from my reading that they eat the fruits from the trees and are able to get what their digestive system needs from the trees itself. Thus they have their favorite feeding trees also. For my couple it is a huge Ficus religiosa called the Peepal tree. Sometimes they visit my Cluster Fig tree ( Ficus racemosa) known as Goolar tree too which i have discovered just recently. This huge tree in my garden is laden with ripe and semi ripe green and russet figs which are berry sized and the ripe ones perhaps slightly larger than cherry tomatoes .

One thing for sure although they seem to be shy of humans quickly retreating to their hiding among the dense foliage if you happen to approach them, they seem to be very sociable among others of their own kind. Avians i mean, for i see them bonding quite well with another green species, the Parrots and without much fuss they happily share the the bounties of nature and chatter with them too although their soft smooth voices are drowned in the high shrilly xeno canto of the Parrots. Their own flock is not quite large and at a time they could be anything around 40-50 but i haven't seen such a number as yet. i have seen 5-6 pairs at a time catching the morning sun...that too after the '' Whoo whoo- What Whoo whoo whoo " in close proximity which thank God made me look up.

 Interesting to note is that although the Yellow Footed Pigeons are plump birds they are brisk in flight. It is for this reason that in their fast flight it is difficult to figure them out as distinctly different from the common grey pigeons. From all you know a whole flock of say 50 of them might be flying past over your head and you would be assuming them to be the common pigeons that you see daily. While in air it is very difficult to identify one even when you would actually be close very close to not one but many. That's how these green birds are also unique in their disguise as compared to parrots for even in flight parrots are distinctly evident as a species different and maybe yes yellow pigeons apparently look like normal grey pigeons in flight yes but they are so uniquely different in reality when you see them up close and so personal.

The best part is the call...

The bird does this without opening it's bill.

 i have done enough chasing and following to see and know of the unique Tail Dance too which happens after or before the call. Naturally a typical courting scenario. It happens like this...

The male pigeon starts calling from a perch ''What whoo whoo'' or " Wooh -woo-whoo-woo" which more or less sounds like that radio frequency tuning whistle. And when another pigeon also lands in the territory the 'Tail Dance' begins. The Who whooing Pigeon performs a ' Tail Wagging' dance. 

The call can only be heard at close quarters. Sometimes one can also hear a short quiet 'cluck cluck' but generally the sound which is heard is Whoo-woo-who-woo with the bill closed.

i also found that the pattern of coloration in the feathers below form an interesting herringbone kind of design of these arboreal birds that congregate in fruit trees like Banyan, Peepal, Mulberry and Fig. Here as they foraged for food acrobatically like parakeets i had a gala time looking at those interesting patterns on the thick downs below the tails only thing i was not successful in taking a clear shot of those patterns. As a matter of fact none of my shots are clear as i am not having a zoom lens to take bird photographs. And even if i did i lack in skills. However in my next shot there is a glimpse.

It is not very strange that i have been a wide eyed spectator not only to their courting drama, the call, tail dance and all but all of their roosting in groups in trees and often nesting closely together in high in thick cover because March to July is their breeding season. The bird's favorite breeding ground being forests, orchards, city parks, cultivated village vicinity as it is the most widespread green pigeon in India, a common breeding resident which survives on berries and fruits. In my colony we have dense Chinese Bamboo where a couple are nesting. Then of course there are these flocks on the fig and the ficus trees like i have mentioned before.

And since none of my own pictures are clear enough i am borrowing one which again is taken from the internet...

                                            http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:J.M.Garg

Also this one which someone had posted on Facebook and because i had loved it i had downloaded and saved it.  i want to use it here now today... 

i am guessing if this picture was taken in a place where these birds were being bred or kept as pets because normally they don't come down to drink water like this. But i can only guess. Love to see all their characteristic features here...especially that lilac shoulder patch...meaning these are all males...

There are so many theories as to why birds sing.

Why do birds sing in the morning? It's the triumphant shout: "We got through another night!"

Enid Bagnold  

Birds are taken with pipes that imitate their own voices, and men with those sayings that are most agreeable to their own opinions.

                                                                      Samuel Butler

Each bird must sing with his own throat.
Henrik Ibsen

But of course these are thoughts to be pondered and mulled over when noises inside need silence. We know for a fact thanks to National Geographic Channel , Animal Planet and Nat Geo that mostly birds sing during courting or nesting or feeding. Sometimes even for socializing among their own kind and other times uttering signals to warn of dangers lurking around the vicinity.

And i have been wondering how dawn would feel if there was one where these sounds were not there. Sometimes i just rush outside in the dark maybe not for the dawn or my green babies even but for these sounds. The doors and windows are all shut tight as the air conditioner that is supposed to give us a good night's sleep keeps all the sounds out except that of it's own functioning and perhaps our own breathing and the occasional creaks of the bed as we toss and turn in sleep. Each year the temperature soars and we can't help but rely more and more on these machines. i have a nice terrace now which gives me all the privacy that i need.

i can sleep there and wake up to the cooing of this bird and for that matter all the other birds the sounds of which i am happily recording in my smartphone but unfortunately i can't because the outside heat is much too much for my comfort level and just too dry.  It singes the skin and makes the mattress feel like a naan out of the tandoor. The concrete roof radiates it's own heat...Sigh !!

But whether i sleep on the terrace on not the bird will continue to sing...and thank God it sings.

The Chinese have something very wonderful to say about it's singing and they say, A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.

i have not been able to record one of my own of this particular bird for every time i get ready with my smartphone Murphy law starts operating. This tease Mr Whoo What Whoo would be smoothly whoo whooing really being a lusty in heat male pushing his female this way and that sometimes trying to mate with her at the topmost branch of the tree. i tried to take a picture of that too. Then he sure was who whooing before he tried to mate with her. Such was his energy that his companion Mr Parrot sitting on the nearby branch got dislodged from his perch and had to make a quick exit.

Just when i get ready with my recorder he turns mute. i have tried and tried and finally gave up so i am borrowing both from the net. Had to make a movie as Blogger was unable to process the video that i had uploaded from a very informative and helpful site. The sound clip is from this site http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Treron-phoenicopterus and this particular clip i am using now was recorded by Mr Frank Lambert at 07. 31 at Melghat Tiger Reserve Maharshtra. This recording has the call of the Yellow Footed Pigeon and a few other group of birds singing from a Strangling Ficus tree ( Strangler Fig) . However i decided to bring even Mr Mike Nelson's recording here again. It is the same one at the beginning of the post. Here it is the second recording. The first one is by Mr Frank Lambert.

i am extremely thankful to Mr Mike Nelson  and Mr Frank Lambert for uploading the valuable sound clip on the site for i can understand very well having tried it myself what a great task they have accomplished. Definitely the site www.Xeno-canto.org/species/ Teron -phonicopterus which  NOW has me hooked because i know where to go with all my bird queries especially the one related to the nature of their calls or physical characteristics or breeding/nesting or habitat... . i am very grateful and much obliged with all that has neatly been stocked for curious forever but a late bloomer like me. 

i know my photos are not clear...they are not as good  or as beautiful as the bird i am talking about. But when did i say i was Sean O' Connell. Besides all that bla bla i did about the bird trying to catch my attention is all gas. As the Chinese have said it rightly, a bird sings because it has a song. And i would like to quote these three since i was influenced by this movie ' The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'. 

1. Sean O'Connell: Beautiful things don't ask for attention.

2. Walter Mitty: When are you going to take it?

Sean O'Connell: Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.

Walter Mitty: Stay in it?

Sean O'Connell: Yeah. Right there. Right here.

... and last but not the very least this one because this dialogue sounds so similar to how my pigeons also are...

3. Sean O'Connell: They call the snow leopard the ghost cat. Never lets itself be seen.

Walter Mitty: Ghost cat.

Sean O'Connell: Beautiful things don't ask for attention.

i guess that sums it up...

Jacquinia Justifiably so Aurantiaca

i have been frequenting my special tree much too often than anybody could ever imagine mainly because of the transitory nature of it's blossoms and the heat of Delhi which has already sapped life out of my two precious plants much to my chagrin. Despite my best efforts to keep them alive and shifting them to a hastily made greenhouse with a garden green cover supported on strong poles. Sometimes i walk to the terrace even when dawn is yet to break and it is still a bit dark, just to check on this bush. Fear coupled with hope i climb the steps leading to the terrace. To see if the foliage is standing erect or has that ready- to- succumb- to- the- bad- weather droop. Thanks Heaven Almighty till today it was okay...the blossoms glowing with the light of life and the leaves shining with the spark of brilliance even when it was still dark and dawn had yet to break in. Because the air still felt hopelessly warm and dry i had to do it...and in that dark i tried to give some moisture to it...cursing the dryness which was making even the corners of my lips ask for Vaseline petroleum jelly. i gave my precious glowing- with- it's- jewels- in- the- dark bush a pre dawn shower.

Then took a stool and sat in front of her looking at her admiring her as in a manner one can say 'mooning' over her name Jaquinia as more light filtered through...dawn was slowly but steadily breaking in... and with each streak of that diffusing soft light her loveliness grew. She looked beautiful and solid in the dark but as she was catching the light she started looking fairy like and more ethereal. So i just looked and  looked at my Jaquinia aurantiaca.  Mooning over her and more on her name trying to say it again and again so that it becomes etched into my memory like the ubiquitous Rose or any other that i never have to struggle to address it as. How i arrived at the name of the 'Unknown'  is an aftermath of wrong name/ IDs given by those who are supposed to have all the names that they charge hefty sums for from their choicest section in their display. The Plant Nurseries' guys.

The one where i had purchased the plant, me thinking it to be something else had charged me handsomely and called it- Jacobinia. Later Mr Google gave the falsehood away and i went to another nursery with the image of the leaves/berry looking tiny buds, big buds, flowers and all and this gentleman told me another J name only thing this time it was Jacomentia. i came back happy only to be disappointed just a few easy hours later when i searched and Jacomentia was not it, rather Jacomentia turned out to be a totally different red Japanese hat creeper plant the flower of which was blue resembling our very own Aparajita flower. Since this my Plant Nursery hopping was proving to be an exercise in futility and a wild goose chase  i gave up on the nursery guys and decided to rely on own tech search. Good that i took the decision after say some twelve nursery visits or else till date i would be hanging on to the name Unknown.

My different ways of google search gave me no results for my tree but i must say my search was not futile. i was introduced to a whole wide range of orange and yellow flowers i had never seen before. Thus those nights when i was awake but having fun...enjoying every bit of it with some occasional cold milk and some diet snacks like Puffed roasted beaten rice called Chiwda/ poha if and when i got hungry.

Before i knew how the plant had got me so bewildered over it's identity as if it was some National Treasure hunt i was after that there were some nights i hadn't slept at all just typing all different ways for search, getting absorbed in newer varieties that i was seeing, jotting down names hoping to remember and thus collapsing into a fitful slumber where even in dreams i was perhaps seeing textures of flowers like wax, paper, straw, silk and velvet not to miss petals of all kinds with colored venation and some so intense and complicated   that branched and seemed like labyrinths in my dreams.

My husband tells me i was talking gibberish while i slept but yes i talked and he couldn't figure out what i was saying but i was loud enough to wake him up. He says he patted me and i am thankful for that but i was in deep slumber and realizing that he patted me with care and love sure does make me feel good.

It was during one of such nights that the Eureka moment happened. Strange but it happened when according to movies horrors are supposed to happen something around 3.15. i know the time because i heard the crows cawing and had looked up to see what time it was and  getting to feel a bit anxious actually if it was morning already and i had not reached my destination yet.  i was leafing through each of these pages given in http://www.flowersofindia.net/index.html. i was going through that section which says 'Browse by Flower Color Red-Orange'
The flower could be easily skipped over there too had it not been for this lesson in concentration that this plant was teaching me.
Actually it could be easily overlooked because " Normally we do not so much look at things as overlook them."
The picture there is so plain that it looks insignificant enough for one to move across to another vivid and more attractive one unless you are very attentive.
Yeah, page six, fifteenth row, first column. Clicked on those tiny hardly eye catching  flowers and i got a enlarged view with details. Jacquinia macrocarpa, Family Primulaceaeae ( Primrose) synonyms Jacquinia aurantiaca. i devoured the rest of the details voraciously as is obvious given my condition.
There was no common name given and generally this site specifies a common name which led me to believe about the uniqueness of my plant and also perhaps of it's rarity as it being a collectors item perhaps.

Thus as it is with most plants/flowers this name is a tribute to the Dutch born Austrian Botanist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin. He in 1760 had published plants that he had collected in the West Indies. So Carl Linnaeus the Father of binomial nomenclature in order to honor the botanist named this plant native to Central America and Carribbean as Jacquinia. There are about 86 known species enlisted in the internet of which my species mycrocarpa is one among them.

The nine spotted moth was having it's belly full of the nectar from the flower i guess which initially i thought was having ten petals. The beautiful fragrant flower of Jacquinia although only about 1cm across is more than intriguing. At first glance there appears to be 10 orange -red petals, but botanically only 5 are petals. The five smaller ones that look like petals are rather stamens called Staminodia. Staminodia is a sterile stamen that produces no pollen as in Canna. So actually the tiny flower has only five petals.

Around the short style in the center, five fertile stamens conceal a pool of nectar within the flower tube around the ovary. Almost unnoticeable are the thin roundish sepals which overlap and closely surround the ovary before it forms a marble sized fruit in some plants. In mine it forms an oval but less than marble size fruit. which nevertheless looks very attractive specially when water droplets are sticking to them...seeming like refusing to or defying the laws of gravity.

 The leaves look attractive too not only for their shape but also for their helical alternate arrangement. Being an evergreen shrub/ tree the leaves are not only tough and leathery but the tip is very fine too as fine as a needle tip.

As the dawn was breaking in and my Jacquinia had had her shower i just can't explain how beautiful and delectable she looked. i can just compare my raving of her to the rave that Raquel Welch had created in the 1960's when she had appeared first time in the first man made bikini. And i can wonder now what drives men crazy to see a woman after she has had her shower.  i can comprehend how poets compose about those droplets of water on the hair of the woman or perhaps the body of hers or how she smells fresh and fragrant after her bath because that's just how i was feeling only thing is i am not a poet nor a painter. i can only talk which i am doing and how far i can convey i don't know...but i was and am there each day even today when i gave her a shower and can't just have enough to see her sparkle with a million diamonds...my jazzy Jacquinia as i love her jovial, jocund company and i can't help but ogle at her jaunty, juiciest. juxtaposition feeling like a juvenile who is reeling under the intoxication of her first crush .

There's another very important aspect which thanks to Jacquina also happened. My restlessness in a way found rest. The ness became less and less perhaps when i was trying to look through that water droplet sticking through one of that cute oval bud. 

There was no planning but that which people might call concentration perhaps i got it finally. i guess i never felt that kind of concentration ever even when i was studying for my exams. i was hearing nothing seeing nothing but just the image of the flower inside the water droplet. Best part was that it was effortless and sheer bliss. Effortless and not forced and taking place at that instant i would say was the key. Genuine attention i guess has no motive. And like someone has rightly said, " Normally , we don't so much look at things as overlook them."

 

What is vital...
What connects-?
What makes us eager-?
Happy in my zone...that which they call concentration/ focused i was doing stuff. Clenched, curious...not waiting for society's kiss on my forehead or anything for that matter. i was just paying attention. And that i say is vital. That connects...
And just before i quit aurantiaca is a Latin adjective meaning Orange colored. Great... today is Tuesday and my color of the day...Orange Red...Aurantiacus...