The Sunbird

It was fifteen days since I had locked my little ground floor apartment, which was in the lightly wooded campus of a University, and had gone on vacation. On my return I found that the small balcony at the back of my apartment had been encroached upon by a most unsuspecting visitor. A small-time architect had decided to build himself a house and had most indiscreetly taken possession of my balcony. To my great surprise, not only had he completed the construction in so short a period of time, but had also started living in it along with his family.


Despite the fact that he was an intruder, I could not help but enjoy his rather elusive company. He seemed to me a rather handsome and smart fellow, dressed in his shiny black coat which frequently caught the rays of the sun and broke into shades of purple, green and blue; almost every time he popped in and out of his house.

I started leaving my balcony door open so I could have the pleasure of watching him come and go. After all, it is not so often that one gets the pleasure of having a Sunbird build its nest on one’s balcony. Sparrows, pigeons and squirrels… well yes…! But not Sunbirds.

My trespassing companion was, what they call, the Purple Sunbird.

As I watched him, day in and day out, I had absolutely no doubt about his talents. For not only had he designed his house like an architect but also worked out the dynamics of construction like an engineer and, most interestingly, he had himself constructed it, piece by piece, just like a construction worker. He was, all in all, the architect, engineer as well as the construction worker of his house. It was a small pear-shaped nest, hanging like a fruit from a wire clothes line, meticulously constructed out of select material such as soft grass, small paper bits, wood shavings and feathers, and with a tiny entrance in the centre.


All the while I had wondered why he had chosen my balcony to build his nest, especially when there were a good number of trees available to him in the surrounding. And then, there were other apartments in the block too, so why had he chosen mine?

Soon I learned that not only was this tiny craftsman talented, but also extremely intelligent. Mine happened to be the only balcony, in the entire block, with a mesh wiring around it. The mesh being large enough for sparrows, bulbuls and other tiny birds like him to enter, but too small for other bigger birds, that might be a threat to him and his family. Also very cleverly he had built the nest facing outwards, so as to avoid my interventions as well as to keep his house well-lit and ventilated. It also made it easier for him to fly in and out, straight through the entrance. Moreover, of the three clothes lines on the balcony, he had chosen to build his nest on the one that was right on top and never in use. While the other two lines that I had tied were plastic ropes, the one he had selected was a sturdy iron wire that the previous owners of my apartment had fixed so high up that I could not reach it and that had rusted due to lack of use.

My respect for my little friend grew more, when I figured out the many things he had taken into consideration before having settled for my balcony. Who could have imagined that this tiny brain could have such a capacity for planning. I was amazed to see before my very eyes what this tiny little bird with a seemingly tinier brain had conceptualized and built. It was a masterpiece, created without any kind of training, using mere intuition and instinct. I marveled at the genius and intelligence of this untutored brain which is (by our so called advanced/developed brains) termed as “bird brain”.