Lessons birds teach us

Nature gives us many teachers. These teachers do not speak. They lead by example. Animals and birds are these silent teachers, said Malayaman in a discourse. If a crow dies, other crows caw to express their sorrow. A crow always shares its food with other crows. Thiruvalluvar says we must be like the crows, always sharing what we have with others. Storks wait patiently for big fish to come swimming by. They let the smaller fish pass. Their patience is finally rewarded when they grab a fat, juicy fish. Thiruvalluvar says that we must wait like the stork for the best time to act, and achieve our goals. Moodurai draws attention to the patience of the stork, and of how its patience is ultimately rewarded.

Birds know when to attack another bird, and when to withdraw, to avoid getting injured. Owls see well only at night. So they attack crows when darkness falls. But owls are poor-sighted during the day. And so, the crow chooses daytime to attack an owl. A koel never builds a nest, and never raises its young. It lays its eggs in a crow’s nest, and the crow guards the eggs, and even when the eggs hatch, the crow cannot tell the difference between its young ones and baby koels, because the latter are black too. Only later, when the koels make a different sound, the crow realises they are not its offspring. Crows are intelligent birds, and yet even they are fooled by the koel. The moral of the story is that even an intelligent person can be fooled. The Tamil work Needhi Venba draws attention to this, giving the analogy of the koel and crow.

The turkey is not an Indian bird, but there is a reference to it in Moodurai. Moodurai says that when a person who is not well-read thinks of himself as a scholar, it reminds one of a turkey trying to dance like a peacock.