‘The robin is the one…’

They started singing from February  and have never stopped ever since!
Am talking about the oriental magpie robins. They make my days, days of joy..singing incessantly. I have never come across such a musical treat from birds. They keep changing their tunes.They sit on the roof tops, my neighbour’s TV antenna, among the mango tree foliage, rose apple tree, on the compound wall, the frangipani boughs.  After coming to Cambodia often I wonder if  Emily Dickinson would have ever visited this place!! Many of her lines on Nature and the flora and fauna melt so well with the sights and sounds around me!

                                                                                                                                                                        The Robin is the One                                                                                                                                    That interrupt the Morn                                                                                                                                                  With hurried—few—express Reports                                                                                                   When March is scarcely on—

The Robin is the One
That overflow the Noon
With her cherubic quantity—
An April but begun—

Emily Dickinson

Oriental Magpie Robin singing

 

                      ”write me how many notes there be in the new robin’s ecstasy                                      Among the astonished boughs”

It’s interesting see their gimmicks during courting time. The male stoops and hops and moves fast towards his lady love to woo her. There’s always a rival in the background. This drama usually takes place on the roof tops of the houses across our lane.

He stoops to conquer 🙂

 Roof top singing!

Shelley’s and Keats’ Skylark and Nightingale come alive when I hear these small birds singing sweetly.
It’s a full throated singing at times and at times  a mix of cooing-cajoling-coaxing..sometimes they whisper without knowing that their too musical voice is carried by the  jealous winds to the nearby eaves droppers. These happy souls fill my dull and dreary afternoons  with sound of music.

Bless you my feathered friends! May your tribe increase!