Paradise World

On Holi day's afternoon :

watched a beautiful program on national geographic about the bird of paradise. This bird is so colorful & beautiful...its like watching some human-made graphic animation! The commentator talked about the females going over the board while choosing the male for mating. Darwin had expressed anxiety over this trend in these birds. The male bird of paradise does not take any "family responsibility". all he does is copulating for eggs & then flying away. No wonder the females are choosy as they are the ones who have to bring up the little ones.

a male bird was being watched over by the NG photographer. to attract the female, the male bird cleared his dance area. He cleared it so spic and span that there was not a single little leaf lying around. He also went to the lengths of cutting away the leaves of the surrounding plants if they obstructed the light shining down on his dance area. The male bird supposedly takes care of his dance area for about 5 months or so. He had a colorful, many layered body. His feathers were beautiful & exotic to look at. His tail was like two little curved threads.

i tried searching for the exact image the way the bird was. I did not get it on net, not even on national geographic. However, I got to see many colorful variations of the same species. The male bird shown on the program was something like this, though more colorful:



It was all very fascinating to watch. For long, no female responded to the male bird's calling. After long, his luck answered & a female flew down. The male performed beautiful dance in the form of artistically spreading his wings & mane hair.

The photographer thanked the tribals for introducing him to their sacred rain forests. He also expressed a fear of commercialization as a threat to the now existing beauty of the jungles.

Later in the afternoon, i was again browsing channels idly. I happened to watch a thrilling scene again on National Geographic. There was this NG fella bungee jumping from threatening heights. an eagle was released from the plane along with him. The eagle soared downwards alongside the guy. This fella had a small pouch containing meat that the eagle managed to swoop down on at the last minute. it was a breathtaking scene to see the fine balance & speed of the eagle. The shot was then shown in multiple angels & in slow speed.

The program also showed glimpses of these speed performances in various other animals such as the snake, the cheetah, chameleon etc. the host concluded the show by rightly saying "these animals use speed for their survival!"

Only if we venture a little ahead to these nature channels, ahead of the regular soaps & Hindi movies...we get to watch a completely new world that exists on the same planet as ours but miles away.

These are the times when you know television is a boom!!!