Yet another bird brained day!

Just when I thought I had all the bird related situations behind me, another funny thing happened to me this week. The incident happened two days ago, after I wrote my entrepreneurial development exam. (Improvement exam for the first year ,where I got only 55% though I was one of the three boys who even passed the subject. But I wanted a higher overall percentage so decided to take it.) Me and most of my friends walked out of the exam hall just half way into the exam. I would have got lesser mark than my first attempt for sure; the question paper would have been tough even for the guy who wrote our text book. And after the disastrous exam I was talking to the girl who sat behind me in the exam hall, telling her how she can tell the answer out loud when the professor is not in the class. Then a friend of mine ran to me took my helmet and then ran under a tree where a lot of people were gathered.

worth the risk...... but pic of the rescued baby!!!!!

                                           

                               I went over to investigate, and found that there were holding a plastic cup with a baby bird, (which fell off its nest) and they were trying to put it back in the nest. The helmet came into the story because the mother bird was sitting on a branch and pecking anything that comes close to the nest. That’s when one guy jokingly asked me, “suraj are you scared of birds?” I replied (mustering all my macho sense) “no, why do you want me to put the baby in the nest?” everyone said almost in a chorus “yes”. (On hind sight, it was not one of my "brightest" ideas.) So I put on the helmet and took the cup, I reached for the nest which was not too far off the ground. I almost reached the nest; I could have jumped a little bit and tilted the cup for the baby to fall in the nest. But before I could move a muscle the mother bird flew in a started clawing my hand. I dropped the cup and ran away, so did everyone gathered around. 

                                                

                                           We made so much noise that one teacher in a nearby class came out to see what happened. She saw what the problem was and asked us to take a chair form the class to reach the nest easily. She also left us with a bit a disheartening trivia – “once a human touches a baby bird, the mother bird will no longer take care of it” sounded like a gypsy’s superstition. But once the teacher was inside the guys started making snide comment about how some "brave" people ran away screaming like a girl. My pride was hurt, and it hurt badly. To make matters worse, the first year girls where laughing. So I took a friend’s bag and in a new effort we put the baby bird on the bag and offered it to the mother bird (hoping it will take the baby back, despite the gypsy teacher’s warning)

this is not the actual mother, this one made a nest in our house.... but the mother bird is of the same kind.

                             And we suddenly realized why people say we must listen to the teachers, when the mother bird started pecking the baby, trying to kill it. So I lost all hope, I tried pushing the mother bird away with a small stick. The stick broke but it wouldn’t budge. Then one really mean guy threw a stone, it missed the bird but still scared it off for a while. (But the stone did cause a dent in my friend’s bike.) (Oh and the guy who threw the stone came really prepared for the exam and he was writing well, but he heard the commotion outside and left the exam hall, without writing a twenty mark question he knew. Crazy, I know!) And in the small window I got I lifted the baby bird in my hand and put it in the nest, the nest was still wobbly so I was adjusting it when something hit my helmet. The bird was attacking me, I ran away from there, it chased me for a few seconds (seemed like hours) and finally gave up attacking the intruder. And as for the poor intruder, I was a little out of breath but okay. Finally knowing the baby bird was safe we all left in peace, my ego still intact.