Woop ! A lazy weekend begins

Occasionally a lazy weekend reciprocates the warmth and enthusiasm with which I greet it in the morning.

On a cloudy breezy monsoon morning, what better way to have started the day than to have plonked myself in the balcony with a steaming mug of tea and a pile of newspapers ? What bliss to have a balcony in Bombay, even a tiny shoe-box sized one like mine !

With all the time in the world to go through the papers, every few sentences I took a break to gaze at the trees and bushes around and savour the shades of clean fresh green. While doing so, I kept an eye out for activity on the peepul tree nearby which plays host to a wide variety of birds apart from the omnipresent crows and pigeons that I am heartily sick of. I nodded a polite neighbourly hello to the regulars I spotted – male and female Asian koel, oriental magpie robin, red-vented bulbuls, coppersmith barbets, and some tiny brown thing with a yellow chest; but once their continued patronage of the tree was confirmed and I had greeted them, I didn’t pay much attention to them. ‘Ghar ki murgi daal baraabar’ as the saying goes, I see this bunch quite often.

The coppersmith barbet probably disapproved

of being ignored in this manner ; it’s cute in an awkwardly put-together-in-a-hurry sort of way, with a plump green body, yellow eye-ring, red beret, red bar on the chest and straggly whiskers sprouting on the sides of its beak; I guess it thought to itself, “what’s all the colour for if not to be admired, eh ?” So it perched on a branch quite close to where I was sitting and emitted this funny ‘woop’ sound just as I looked up from the paper. It’s cunning ploy succeeded in getting my attention, I’d never heard the coppersmith barbet’s call before, never thought it would sound like this either, it looks more like a cheep-er or chirrup-er than a woop-er.

Newspaper forgotten, I watched and listened carefully as the little thing hopped from branch to branch, emitting woops every few seconds. It’s quite a deep call; imagine stepping lightly on the tail of a bird with hiccups, that’s how I imagine its yelp of distress would sound. Or think of a puppy - a really tiny one, only a few days old – trying out its voice, those tiny yips and yelps they emit before they learn how to bark. Then marry that sound with the gurgle of the last bit of water as it rushes down the drain after you pull out the plug. That’s the coppersmith barbet’s woop.

It totally made my day. Like I said, sometimes you welcome a lazy day, sometimes a lazy day welcomes you.

p.s. If you’re interested, you can hear the call here. Though the bird in this link emits a more continuous call than the one I heard, maybe I heard a juvenile calling.

The link above also mentions that the ‘Coppersmith barbet’s metronomic call has been likened to a coppersmith striking metal with a hammer, I guess that’s where the bird gets its name from. This article from the Guardian confirms my hypothesis. One more mystery solved.

p.p.s None of the pics in this post were taken by me, I got them off various blogs thanks to google search.

Enjoy the weekend, folks !

:-)

Zen