Rosefinch, like most passerines, is quite a playful creature despite the grumpy appearance that the short, stout bill gives them… like an emoji, they add a dollop of brightness to the otherwise dark font of the forest or the meadow… forever restive and timorous, yet carrying a defiant expression… for size hardly matters when it comes to the avifauna, and one regularly sees the smaller avian going for broke as it heckles predators out of their wits… mostly spurred on by parental instincts, but at times, by mischief too…
‘Twas an afternoon that was starting to clear up after the clouds were burgled on their way to the meadows by snow clad summits… by the time one settled in the camp at Ruinsara Tal, the air was abuzz with chirps and tweets, their persistence characteristic of a mating season in full frenzy… so much so that one felt overwhelmed with the choice of birds to chase after… a bad day for the bugs to be out an about, but otherwise, a field day for the avifauna and its admirers…
I spent close to three hours huffing up and down a slope adjoining the wetland, replete with boulders large and small but appropriately cushioned by soft bushes (with rather lenient thorns) that allowed one to regain balance in a hop, skip and a jump in case of the countless missteps that come as the eyes are fixated on the bird in the distance, about half a dozen species were the muse… this dark-breasted rosefinch, in particular, was an expert in teasing the stalker, perching openly atop bushes waiting for me to sneak in closer, and once within range, duly flying away to reappear a hundred metres further… to add salt to the wounds, always with a bug clasped in its beak, nonchalantly adding some fun to the forage… at my expense… I giggled silently therefore when, as dusk came creeping in, it snapped one last time at a hapless insect driven towards it by the wind and missed rather ineptly… staring back rather sheepishly, having been caught in the faux pas, it flew away to the safety of its nest as I wound my way back to the tent, still chortling over our little game woven into the tapestry of the meadows…
Musing on a dark-breasted rosefinch, Ruinsara Tal, Uttarakhand
