When it comes to shared domestic responsibilities, certain bird species can put humans to shame. The black-winged stilt is among the avian paragons of this virtue, the male and the female functioning in tandem, taking the cue and slipping into a nesting role without any prodding.
These images from the Perumbakkam wetland, clicked on May 23, 2023, shows how a black-winged stilt pair take turns to fulfil incubation duties. In the sequence, a spot-billed duck standing nearby briefly pauses from its preening to take in this duty handover ritual.
Undeterred by setbacks
Besides this, the black-winged stilts were demonstrating another commendable quality. Black-winged stilts use platforms rising out of water to build their nests.
At the Perumbakkam wetland, when April was well spent, a nesting colony of black-winged stilts came up, with such platforms being used for nesting. When unusual rains lashed the city in the fag end of April and early part of May, the platforms submerged, along with the eggs and the efforts of a clutch of black-winged stilt pairs to raise families. Now, with the platforms emerging once again out of the waters, there is a glimmer of restoration and “rebuilding”. The afore-mentioned black-winged stilt pair is nesting on one of these emerging platforms. It speaks of a quality that comes naturally to animals — one humans have to learn with great difficulty — and it is the quality of not brooding over the past, and being handicapped by setbacks.
