An Uninvited Guest

During these COVID days, early morning, I wake up to the chirping of birds. I open my window and just observe what they are doing. Some flit about here and there, moving from plant to plant in search of food, some birds sit simply (just like me). He he, just joking.

My curiosity increased when I started observing a bird, coming every day at around 12.00 pm and even at 4.00 pm. It's rather brownish with red eyes. It searches around the dead leaves and dig in. It does its job and at the same time is vigilant of everything happening around him.

I told my mother about this. She said it comes here often, spends time under the mango tree and it goes away. It’s an uninvited guest and eventually it has become an integral part of me.

I badly wanted to take a photograph of our uninvited guest, so I went out, and you know what happened, it flew away. Again, next day, I slowly opened the door, without making any noise, still it flew away. Funniest thing is that, if my mother goes out, it wouldn’t move. But if I go, it flies away.

After struggling a lot, I managed to take a pic in my phone.

I just googled about this bird. In our native language it’s called ‘chempothe’ or ‘uppan’. It's called ‘Crow pheasant’ or ‘Greater coucal’. It’s crow like kind of a bird with a long tail. It seems they are weak fliers. So, it walks on ground and searches for insects. (So, that’s what it does under the mango tree). And I also found one thing, these birds are shy. May be that’s why it flies off on seeing me and not from my mother (might be his/her best friend).

Also, sighting this bird is a good omen, it seems. Anyway, this uninvited guest is literally my mother’s best buddy and soon, will be mine too.