MY LITTLE EGRET

 

I get up in the morning. With bleary eyes open the patio door of the bedroom to feel the cold and fresh air on the face and take a few lungfuls. This little routine blows away the morning cobwebs and removes the intense desire to crawl back under the duvet. It fully awakens me.

A small white bird flies in and perches on a fat branch of the big Ash tree at the bank of the river stream. As my bedroom is on the third floor the bird is at my eye level. This little bundle of white fluff only appears when the weather gets cold.

I have not seen this bird before we came to live in South East of England four years ago. When I saw it standing near the water edge of the brook, I thought it was a heron. It also looked like a common Indian bird "Bagula".

The gardener who had come to trim our front hedge saw me looking and said that it was an Egret, a migratory bird, not native to this place. The gardener was a keen bird watcher and even keener to impart his knowledge. I learnt that the egrets migrate from the continent when it become colder and goes back in summer. He showed me its characteristic luminous yellow feet and a black dagger shaped long beak. It also had two slender white feathers sticking out elegantly from the back of the head. An image of the sacred long tuft of white
hair on the head of our elderly Pandit Jee in our village in India flashed before me and made me smile. 

Since then, I eagerly wait for the Egret every winter. It usually comes around the end of September or early October and vanishes by the end of March. While here it comes to perch on this tree every morning and then forages in the shallow waters of the Wye just below the tree in the morning hours.

Currently the weather is so dreary; very cold and very wet. The trees and most of the shrubs are completely denuded pretending to be dead. Breaking this monotonous grey landscape, the arrival of this Little Egret is greatly welcome. Sometimes two of them are here. They are said to be monogamous and pair for life. Occasionally their frolics together adds a bit more drama and excitement.

When our grandchildren came to sleepover, I showed them the Egret in the morning. It also gave me a pretext to tell them the Panchtantra story of “Bagula Bhagat and the Crab”.

The bird disappears as the leaves begin to come back and Daffodils and Forsythia bloom to brighten the surroundings.

The appearance of the Egret as the winter starts, in a way makes one thankful that the weather here is not as bad as the poor Egret’s usual habitat and gives hope that it will get better everywhere, and the bird will go back home as it has happened for millennia.

There is a small fly (or a big whale!) in the ointment. With increasing global warming and degradation of our environment how can we be sure that this bird and many like it continue this cycle in future? It is not a rhetorical question anymore. 

    * Its scientific name is Egretta garzetta.