Jirds are the quintessential rodent… rotund and reticent… tentative and timorous… tethered to a maze of burrows whose complexity contrasts the naiveté in their demeanour… looking askance at everything above the ground… waiting to be reconciled with their fate in the food chain… the Indian desert jird, primarily found in the Thar desert and parts of Gujarat, Pakistan and Iran, embodies this stereotypical self-effacing nature… yet what impresses is its ability to eke out an existence in some of the harshest weather and geographical conditions simply by a willingness to adapt… unlike many of their brethren, desert jirds are diurnal, daring to venture out during the day despite a plethora of predators on the prowl… in peak summers, it limits exposure to the elements by venturing out only around dawn and dusk, while the milder months see it scuttling around the shrubbery all through the day… the diet is seasonal too, from munching leaves and flowers coming out to greet the monsoons to subsisting on seeds during autumn and winter… and when the summer sun beats down mercilessly upon the arid landscape, it doesn’t shirk away from pouncing on critters either…

We were spying upon a sedge of common cranes milling around some shrubbery in the otherwise barren scenery of Sambhar lake when a sudden movement nearby caught the eye, the kind that in this landscape is either a lizard or a jird… turned out to be the latter, a solitary individual peeping out to survey the surroundings as the winter sun came out of its reverie… it wasn’t long before it became wary of our presence though, and after a minute or so hastened back to its burrow… and one mused how beneath this timid exterior, one has to admire the pluckiness of jirds… for resources might be scarce, but their resolve isn’t…

Musing on an Indian desert jird, Sambhar, Rajasthan