Black Baza

Black Baza! The name conjures up in one’s head a Marvel franchise super-hero in spandex black costume — kicking, chopping, breaking heads of the bad guys. In real life, the Black Baza is something more interesting. It is a beautiful raptor with a black crest, back, tail and underwings that sharply contrast with its white breast, rusty-striped belly and chequered wings.

Obsessed with the Black Baza was my birding guide, Mr. G. A typical Keralite: medium-statured, dark-complexioned and sporting a full beard; he runs a popular homestay dedicated to birding in Thattekaad. He also has a regular nine-to-five job; he’s an advocate practising criminal law.

It was 6:25am when he came to my door. He face fell when he saw me still in pyjamas. I rushed. Ten minutes later we boarded the waiting rickshaw. It phut-phutted across the Thattekaad Sanctuary. The rickshaw was flying on the empty roads. The air was crisp and cold. At 60 kmph every bump felt jarring. When we took a turn into the forest road, a sudden speed-breaker made me fly a few inches into the air. I landed with a thump back on my seat scrunched next to him. I broke out in a nervous giggle. Throughout the ride, Mr G was silent, perhaps mentally willing the rickshaw to speed up, I think. Finally the bumpy ride ended — to my great relief — at an opening into the forest. It must have taken us all of fifteen minutes to cover the twelve kilometres to the other side of the sanctuary.

Mr. G rushed into the forest. Keeping apace with him was challenging. I was lugging a sports camera, a bazooka lens and a six-foot-long-monopod. Creepers, branches, thorny bushes kept getting entangling me. A thorny overhead outgrowth grabbed my hat, and I had to stop and retrieve. Ten minutes later we reached a clearing. I was out of breath and chafed. My upper elbow on my left arm was scratched.

The clearing was a patch of rocky land with large black basalt rocks making up most of it, but peppered by small patches of reddish-brown soil with patches of dried grass. Mr. G was standing on one of the rocks with his binoculars focused on a leafless, thorny tree about two-hundred feet away. A minutes later, in the cloudy, pre-dawn sky — suddenly — a black silhouette came gliding down and perched on dry branch. “Its the Black Baza! It’s the Black Baza, quickly click.” He dragged me to a point, between two dry branches, I focused on the Black Baza and shuttered away. Then we moved to another location twenty feet further behind to get a view unencumbered by the branches. I snapped another fifteen or so pictures². Sated, I whipped out my binoculars to watch the bird at leisure, but before I could focus, the Black Baza took off. Not to be seen for the rest of the day.

I clicked it, but I missed seeing it.

Binoculars or camera? If I had to choose only one. What would I do? Live in moment or capture for posterity — a perennial question for the traveller. Another question: Who am I: A birder? A bird-lover? Or just a photographer?

Mr. G was happy. He had done his duty. He said to me, “If we were even five minutes late we would have missed it. Not even five. Two-three minutes.

That is why I was rushing. That’s why I asked rickshaw-driver to go so fast.”

We spent the next few hours birding, we saw a beautiful White-bellied Treepie, but couldn’t spot the Black Baza again.

“I have not missed the Black Baza since October.”

“You have seen the Black Baza everyday since October?” I asked with a bit of awe.

“I mean, every guest at my homestay since October, without fail, we have sighted the Baza. If not on the first day, then on the second.”

Yes, he was truly obsessed. An hour later, he chased a black silhouette, that flew down to a perch, only to be disappointed at finding a crow. He laughed and said to me, “I am so crazy about this bird, I see it everywhere.”

So, we sighted the Black Baza. Lifer¹ #466 for me. Lucky me, I thought, on our way back. But was it just Lady Luck? Chance? Good-fortune? No, not just that. It was also the hard work and knowledge of Mr G, sitting next to me, who made it happen. It — the black silhouette gliding down the pre-dawn sky, it — settling into that very branch, for that very 3-minute duration, it — showing us: out there, in the forests of Thattekaad, out there, in the fields of observation, out there, in the minefields of life, chance only favours the prepared mind.

¹ “Lifer” in birding world means a bird you have never seen before.

² My picture was taken from too far away in bad light. For a better view of the beauty of this bird. Please visit here: https://ebird.org/species/blabaz1