55
Billi spots a nesting Teetiri
Billi kept getting irritated. Those
drongos seemed to have got bolder and begun to perch inside the marsh. The lone
drongo on the high perch must have called the other drongos after having seen
Billi fail in his attempts to catch the jungle bush quail. The sparrows had
also been joined by other sparrows and had settled in the large babool tree in
the marsh. He needed to get some quiet place to hide, take rest, and wait for
other birds to catch. His stomach seemed to be growling louder and louder and
Billi could not take it anymore. He needed an easy hunt, a bird that would be
easy to catch, a bird that would not run away from the spot from where it was
seen.
What was this? Billi could not believe
his eyes. Suddenly, his luck seemed to be getting better. There, hidden across
another marsh stream and wet sand, in a patch of rocks and grass, seemed to be
a nesting lapwing. Okay, Billi thought. The jungle bush quail may disappear,
reappear and disappear, while the sparrows may fly up into the trees, but a
nest cannot get up and walk away. The eggs cannot disappear or fly away, even
if the lapwing would. He could at least get to eat one or two or three eggs of
the nesting lapwing even if he failed to catch the bird. A feast of two or
three lapwing eggs may be the right nutrition that he needed, Billi thought.
Billi crouched and crawled to get to a
good spot to quietly watch and assess the situation. Bulbul, from his perch on
the low branch, realised that something was happening again. There was Billi
crouching and crawling once again. Darzi also took a quick look and whispered
angrily to Bulbul to stay quiet. Bulbul could not see Teetiri sitting as though
she was at a nest, fulfilling her role as a leader of the birds of the
grassland. She had decided to take on the most important part of the plan on to
herself. Bulbul could only see that Billi was now looking at some unseen bird
or some other unseen prey towards the high ridge line that marked the limits of
the marsh.
Billi wanted to be very very certain
this time around. His luck certainly seemed to have changed now, he thought to
himself. The black drongos were behind him, chattering away among them. The
sparrows were as yet at the other tree, gossiping very loudly. The mynas were
away in the grassland. That irritating and smiling Bulbul continued to sit
where he was, accompanied by Darzi. Wonder what that was all about, thought
Billi once again to himself. All situations seemed to be in his favour. The
lapwing seemed to be up on an incline from where he was hiding. Again, that
would also work out to his favour. The lapwing kept lowering its head and
raising it, warily, looking around very carefully.
