Visitor
The balcony sees many visitors through the year. Mostly birds, but also squirrels and the not so welcome rat. Wasps build nests, earthworms call the soil home and the Common Mormon is a regular, laying her eggs on all the citrus plants. The caterpillars, monstrously comical, can strip a plant of all its leaves in a matter of days but don’t do any permanent damage. The leaves grow back, the caterpillars hatch into beautiful butterflies and all that is left of this entire life cycle are paper thin cocoons, hanging like lanterns from the branches. The lives of these little ones at least have remained unchanged.
The birds have always been welcome here, even the crows and the pigeons who routinely mess the clean waterbath with ghoulish offerings. Recently, though, they have been keeping their distance from the balcony. The crows are too smart to risk an encounter and the pigeons seem to follow their lead.
The red vented bulbuls are shy but determined to get their turn at the water bath. Their song is a liquid trill of notes and very beautiful. These days, the song is often cut short as they take to the air even before they have had a dip in the cool water.
The mynahs are raucous, a bandit gleam in their eyes and not above chasing away smaller birds. They too come for the water, cocking an inquisitive head at me, and quick to fly away if I so much as twitch a muscle. Something in the air, a scent, a feeling, makes them even edgier, eager to drink and leave.
That pretty little fantail, with her ballerina twirls and splashes, hasn’t come this year. She only has a chuckle of a song but she dances like no one is watching. I don’t think she will feel as welcome on my balcony this year.
The rose ringed parakeets love the bird feeder. They never come down to the water but gather around the feeder, eating two grains for every ten they toss around with gay abandon. Their cousins, the Alexandrine parakeets prefer the fruit of the badam trees just outside the balcony. They also are careless feeders, taking a bite or two before dropping the fruit to the ground. Pollination instincts are yet to die in our cement bound city birds. This year, my noisy fellows are somewhat muted in their chatter, prefering a perch in the badam tree and the safety it offers.
The sparrows, cheery and friendly, are my favourites. They make the most of both the bird feeder and the water bath, and complain as soon as the levels drop in either. The chirping becomes firm and persistent, and I hustle to replenish the stocks, if only to hear their sweeter sounds again. They still come to feed and drink, but there is a warning note in their chirrups and they look accusingly at me for allowing the peace of the balcony to be disturbed.
The Oriental Magpie Robin, the Asian Grey Hornbill, the Golden Oriole, the Coppersmith Barbet, the Asiatic Koel – these are less common visitors on the balcony. I haven’t seen an oriole since the beginning of the lockdown…that golden flash of the wings used to be the high point of the day. The koels are going mad with the humidity, cooing passionately to the clouded skies. The Magpie Robins are back, but seem listless in the heat. When one flutters into the water, he just sits there, soaking in the coolness, instead of the usual flipping of tail and adjusting the tuxedo just so. I worry that his listlessness might prove to be his undoing. I shoo him away gently if he sits too long within reach.
The squirrel babies, and there’s a fresh lot running around just now, forage for the dropped grain amongst the plants. They are a bit clueless, as if Mum is too harassed to give them life lessons. They hang precariously over the side of the water bath, and I’m afraid one of the more enthusiastic ones will have a dousing soon. What I’m more afraid about, though, is finding an offering of a squirrelly snack laid out on the balcony one morning.
There is a new visitor on my balcony and he has his eye on the birds and the squirrels. I opened the windows this morning while talking to my son half a world away, only to find the visitor sitting amongst my plants, large grey gold eyes, unblinking and calm, staring at me. We held each other’s gaze for a few seconds, whilst my son demanded to see him too through a video call.
A few minutes later, the better half flung open the balcony doors and our guest retreated to the ground floor in a series of fluid leaps and bounds. The better half yelped, brandished a bamboo stick. The visitor turned once, insolence in every muscle, as if to say: do your best. I’m faster than your fastest move.
I have seen him before, crouched amongst the bougainvilleas, eyeing the noisy parakeets and squirrels with disdain. It hasn’t taken long for them to register his presence but perhaps not the threat he poses. It may take some blood and mayhem for the regulars to acknowledge that here, at last, is the missing piece in the balcony food chain. He is the ultimate city predator, feral and fierce, though ironically, the rats have been known to turn and hold their ground in a fight to the death.
After thirty six years, there is a cat on my balcony again. He is well behaved and sober, and there is a long way to go before he deigns to friendly overtures. I don’t mind, he can keep his distance and dignity. It just means that each morning, there is someone waiting, with unwavering gaze, to greet me on the quiet balcony. The birds will have to learn to live with him or lose one or two of their numbers.
It is a new world out there on my balcony.