Of Bards and Beasts

The late Dr SR Kottegoda used, rather cruelly, to tell of an Indian colleague at Oxford, who had a thick Sub-continental accent. One day the Hindustani had spoken of a 'bard in the garden', so old 'Kotte' had expected to see a modern day Shakespeare on the lawn. However, it turned out to be an item of avi-fauna : a 'bird in the garden'.

Unfortunately, after hearing this anecdote, I have been unable to look at one of our feathered friends without thinking of it as a 'bard'. Nevertheless, this is an appropriate description of the song-bird who trills out its melifluous birdsong, and in few places have I heard it in such variety as in Pattinigodella. And of all those sounds, the most outstanding (in the sense of it drowning out everything else) is the 'call of the kirala' (incidentally the title of a book by James Goonewardene); the kirala being the lapwing.

Red-wattled lapwing (Vanellus indicus)

This call is a series of high-pitched screeches: 'Did you do it?', 'Did you do do it?' - fascinating at first, as you triy to discern what it is saying, but it tends to wear down your nerves after the fiftieth repetition of these inane questions. When a bird or beast approaches its eggs, which it lays out in the open, the lapwing and its mate (and sometimes its pals) will begin a crescendo of that infernal screeching and swoop over the head of its foe. Apparently this is part of an elaborate feint, to lure away the potential predator by making them think the lapwings are injured (and hence easy prey). Hence the collective noun for 'lapwing' is 'a deceit'.

Lapwing eggs

These were eggs one lapwing laid upon my land. They look like and are about the same size as plover eggs, and may sometimes be seen in supermarkets masquerading as such.

Rather quieter is the Maina or Gon Kavadiya (Common mynah), which goes about its omnivorous business without too much fuss. It is a singer, but like all divas, it doesn't waste its voice.

Common mynah (Acridotheres tristis melanostemus)

The mynah has become one of the worst invasive species in the world, causing ecological havoc in Australia - particularly in Canberra, where its population has outstripped even that of the civil service. Pattinigodella, however, is its natural habitat.

Another omnivore is the ubiquitous Demalichcha (Yellow-billed babbler). As its name suggests, it constantly expresses its opinion on everything in sight, babbling and chattering and chirping and squeaking. In that way it rather resembles myself, I am afraid.

Yellow-billed babbler (Turdoides affinis taprobanus)

The Sri Lankan variety (T. a. taprobanus) is a drabber grey than its Indian counterparts. Less noisy and far less common (in all senses of the word) is the kalu-polkichcha or kalukichcha, the Indian robin - an endangered species.

Indian robin (Saxicoloides fulicata leucopterus)

This chirpy chap loves earth creatures. Whenever I started digging or dumping earth, a robin would pop up and start rooting around. The male is distinguished by its black coat and red rump. The female is a drab brown. Strangely, I have yet to come across its far more common cousin, the Polkichcha or Oriental magpie robin (Copsychus saularis ceylonensis) at Pattinigodella.

Once plants and flowers started coming up on the land, it began to be visited by sunbirds, generally of the purple-rumped variety. A dainty bird, like the elephant of the poem, it certainly flits from twig to twig, and at a fantastic speed.

Purple-rumped sunbird (Leptocoma Zeylonica)

The female of the species is rather drabber:

Female purple-rumped sunbird (Leptocoma zeylonica)

Sunbirds are nectar-drinkers and were attracted to my land by both wild and cultivated flowers. My new crops also attracted foragers, out to rob me of the fruits of my labour. Especially fond of Lima beans are parakeets. A company of Layard's parakeets descended on my plantation and ate the unripe beans (leaving the pods).

Layard's Parakeet (Psittacula calthropae)

Layard's Parakeet (Alu girava) - also known as the Emerald-collared parakeet - is endemic to Sri Lanka. It is named for Edgar Leopold Layard, the naturalist and brother of Henry Austen Layard of Nineveh fame. Layard's wife's maiden name was Calthorp, hence the Latin name.

The beasts that inhabit my land are far less obvious. Amazingly, things that creep and things that crawl are far more visible than their mammallian counterparts. Hares (Lepus nigricollis singhala) left their droppings and left-overs of Kura-thampala (green amaranth) overnight, but I only saw one once - and it made off at great speed.

I found holes dug everywhere in my garden. These were dug by bandicoot rats (mus giganteus), now divided into greater (bandicota indica) and lesser (bandicota bengalensis) species.

Bandicoot rat hole

'Bandicoot' is apparently derived from the Telugu Pandi-kokku, meaning - loosely - 'pig-rat'. The Sinhala is ooru meeya ('pig rat' exactly). At some time in the 19th century, the term travelled across the ocean to Queensland, where it came to be applied to marsupials of the order paramelemorphia. This was the origin of the Victoria place name Bendigo.

Meanwhile, to avoid confusion, the original Bandicoot was renamed the 'Bandicoot Rat' - a tautology. Bandicoot rats are great excavators, not only digging over gardens, but also undermining walls.

Lizards and chameleons (katussas) use these Bandicoot-rat holes:

Lizaed near bandicoot rat-hole

I found a chameleon on the dead leaf of a coconut plant:

Chameleon on coconut plant

Note how its colour changes from its greenish head to its greyish-brown tail, blending in well with its surroundings. When I was in primary school, my colleagues used to slap my face so that it changed from its pasty colour to a bright red. They called me katussa because of this ability; however, I never became a true Chameleon, as I was never able truly to blend in, unlike Woody Allen's super-conformist Zelig.

Here is a scene from Zelig, to break the monotony.