Kookaburra

and the psycho woman

Most of my friends here in Queensland, seem to have atleast one kookaburra visiting them. A daily one, landing in the backyard like it pays rent there, taking minced lamb straight off a friend’s palm and tuna from another, like that’s just a normal thing to do.

I have never had this. And it’s not for lack of trying, or lack of announcing my love for birds, trees and animals, still, nothing. Bread for the noisy miners, bread for the crows, who show up like they’ve got daily stand ups, while the one bird I actually want to meet, acts like my offering is beneath its notice.

Very rarely though they’d turn up at the pool for a bath, but I can’t tell if they are the same ones. And every time, I’d get so genuinely thrilled watching it happen, so unable to play it cool, that they’d take one look at me hovering near the deck and just go. Poooof... Gone. Because who wants to bathe in peace with a psycho woman staring at you like you’re the last miracle on earth.

But one day I was woken up from my nap by a strange frantic splashing noise in the pool and something in me just clicked. I can sense things before they happen, apparently; my husband calls me “Iyer the Great” for a reason, and if you know the movie, you know exactly what kind of unearned confidence that implies.

As I ran to the pool, I saw something thrashing, fighting the water, fighting for its life, which, I realised as I got closer was a kookaburra! My heart left my body. And the worst part is that I’m a shallow-water swimmer (I just came up with this phrase because I was too ashamed to admit I can’t swim). I could not do what they do in the movies, dive in, scoop the poor thing up, hero BGM playing. That option simply wasn’t available to me.

So, I went looking for the pool net instead. The one my husband uses most Saturday mornings to pretend he needs quiet time away from me, standing at the pool’s edge looking deeply, creatively occupied, scooping dried leaves like it’s a lost art.

Kookaburra: Image courtesy- Psycho woman

I scooped the poor bird in, slowly, bravely, and set him down on the deck. He was shivering, and clearly still scared of the net and of me. I couldn’t calm myself down, honestly. I wanted so badly to help but had no idea what “helping” even looked like.

I got some towels and gently tried to lift him out of the net into my palms. He fought it, of course, no surprise there. The psycho woman and a human hand. Who can be trusted, really? But I prayed, asked the Gods to tell him he was safe. I talked to him in baby voice just so that I’m less threatening. He protested a bit more, with his beak, but his shivering won in the end, and he let himself come into my hands.

That moment of trust undid me a little. I felt the guilt of it as a human, the collective failure, all the ways we fail these little lives without even noticing. But I didn’t let the thought stay long. I pushed it gently aside and chose, instead, to just feel grateful. Grateful to be trusted. Grateful to be, for one small hour, someone a little vulnerable bird could trust.

When his shivering eased, I placed him somewhere with a lot of sunlight in my backyard and left him to it. I called a friend, then the wild life rescue folks, and both said the same thing that he’d be fine once his wings dried out.

Later, I noticed he’d moved himself into the shade. I went to check, he looked calmer, steadier like he knew I’m harmless and that we were in this together. An hour after that, he was up on the fence, a little plumper, a little more himself. An hour after that, he flew away.

Next day, I waited and he came around mid-day. I’d like to think it’s him.

He didn’t give me the cackling laugh he’s famous for, the dramatic entrance I’d hoped for, thanks to my mom’s theatric genes. Instead, he simply sat near the pool, quiet, calm like he’d learned something. Or may be like he’d made a friend.

He didn’t come daily after that. He never became one of those birds, the backyard regulars’ kind. But some days, I see one, and I imagine it’s him. I’ll never really know. And each time, I think of that one strange day we shared, and I smile a little, hoping that somewhere in the bird world, word has gotten around. That I’m to be trusted. That somewhere, a kookaburra has gathered with my bread eating crows and miners, to tell the magpies to go easy on me during swooping season.