~~~ Fluffy voyage ~~~

The continuous kee-kee-ing sounds from the side balcony of our house drew us towards it. It was a balcony we seldom opened…and probably one of the reasons why a surprise lay there.

A pigeon had built its nest there! This was the first time I saw a bird’s nest up close, and I was excited. I ran inside the house to grab my camera to capture the image. The pigeon was a very good subject to take a photo of…given that it eyed me suspiciously. With all the attention and camera flashes it received, the flustered pigeon finally decided to take flight.

Now that the bird had left the place, I decided to take a closer look at the intricate nest. A bird’s nest I must say is one of the wonders of nature. The wonder being in the way the bird painstakingly brings and assembles every twig to form that wonderful home. And in this twiggy home, there lay two eggs! That was surprise number 2 for me!

Then, I went ahead and did one of the most stupid things….I picked up the egg. It was stupidity because what lay inside was really fragile, and definitely not meant for human touch.

The egg was warm and I gingerly laid it back in the nest to prevent any mishap. The next few days were spent waiting for it to hatch. My morning routine before leaving for work was to check on the eggs. Boy…I sure was waiting to see the little ones. The mother bird would fly away as soon as she heard the sound of the balcony door opening. Not knowing how long a pigeon egg takes to hatch, those of us at home wondered if my handling of the egg had destroyed it.

The next day I opened the balcony waiting to see the two eggs as usual. But, today was different. The mother bird did not fly away when she heard the balcony door opening. Instead, she stood her ground on the nest and didn’t budge an inch. I wondered why. I tried shooing her away (I know that was wicked!). But, she did not move. Instead, she stared at me intently. Now was the time for the mama pigeon to show that she was a mother protecting her young ones, and fiercely at that! She would not let me see the new borns. I guess I had to wait. The whole day was spent waiting to get a glimpse of the young ones…but not for a second did the mother bird fly away. I finally had to give up and go to sleep.

The morning of the next day, armed with my camera, I went to the balcony. I was excited, knowing I would get to see the new borns. On hearing the balcony door open, the mama pigeon walked out of the nest and flew away. Seizing the opportunity, I craned my neck into the space where the nest was and saw two furry yellow balls! Ohh my! One-day-old pigeons! They had not yet opened their eyes and lay next to the cracked eggshells, sleeping peacefully. And I kept clicking away, taking photos of the new lives, wondering how pigeons were born yellow and then turned to the grey color that we see.

The next two weeks saw a transformation from two furry yellow balls to scrawny birds without feathers. They lost their yellow fur over time and were ready to grow real pigeon feathers. This was when I picked one from the nest and took it inside my home to play. I laid them on a newspaper for two minutes and put them back into the nest!

The pigeons grew at an amazingly fast rate, and even though they had grown to the size of an adult, they still hung around the nest and did not fly away for a few days. One fine day, following my daily routine, I peeped into the nest and found it empty! No one…nothing! Just an empty nest! The pigeons had flown away about one month after birth, after acquiring the ultimate animal instinct—freedom and survival of the fluffy voyage!