30-Day Writing Challenge — April with Keeley

A Hop, Skip, and a Jump!

Day 8: Your favorite animal that hops or jumps

Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles

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Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles

4 min readApr 8, 2023

**Vidya Sury © Sparrows on my window sill in Imphal, Manipur**

Okay, maybe not my best photo. But do you know how hard they are to photograph? Won't stand in one place. Kept on hopping and fluttering around. Just like my son when he was little. So yeah, house sparrows are one of my favorite creatures that hop and jump. They are so dainty!

During my childhood, they’d fly in through our open windows, to and from their nests in a corner of the ceiling that they’d marked for themselves. Nobody minded the scraps of hay and other who-knows-what on the floor, along with, of course, poop. We’d laugh and clean.

These days, sadly we see them rarely in the city. Quite a few have migrated to the airport though where they dexterously hop between the tables, on the tables, among the people, and so on. What’s up with that?

Sigh.

Let’s look at rabbits now. As The Sturg said, who does not love rabbits? Soft, cuddly, cute, and charming to watch.

We used to have a big saree shop that had rabbits in their yard. My son loved to watch them for hours when he was a toddler. Then he’d come back home and look at the photos.

And clever folks that we were, we’d gently remind him how they ate their carrots and cucumber and radish. Bwahahaha!

This one we saw during one of our travels — at the entrance to Ross Island in the Andamans.

Fun fact: 2023 is the year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac.

And so was the year I was born. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking — charming, cute, cuddly — feel free to add more adjectives. 😉 Kidding! Not!

Then, what about grasshoppers? I have spent the better part of my childhood staring at these critters! The photo below is of a pic I clicked while visiting my son’s campus. There was this chap near the wash basins where we washed our hands. I’d see him every day — on all the five days I was there. Somehow made me happy.

**Washbasin at IISER Mohali campus — Vidya Sury ©**

Did you know large grasshoppers can jump between 10 and 20 times their body length without the help of their wings? Well, they stay still and suddenly jump and scare the bejesus out of me!

Also, grasshoppers don’t have ears on their heads — they have ears on their bellies! Whaaaat? There are over 10,000 different species of grasshoppers. When picked up, grasshoppers spit a brown liquid to defend themselves. Ugh! Oh well.

I want to include roos, but I’ll leave that to Adrienne and Keeley — because I haven’t seen the dudes except on video!

Oh, by the way, thanks to all those who tag me. I’ll be by to read your posts ❤

Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles ❤ Did you smile today?

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