Sorry mumma bird.

 "See I told you the eggs are yellow", said my friend. "Arey no, look carefully they are reddish and have yellow dots", other one said. "Are you colour blind guys? They are white with yellow and red dots. Jao ankhon ke number check kara lo", I said.

We, group of building-friends, were all shoving our heads literally inside the nest. The nest was made of leaves stitched together. The tree wasn't very tall, so we could easily peep into the nest. It had cotton and soft grass carefully laid inside, for cushioning the eggs. I hadn't seen such eggs before, they were beautiful. I had only seen regular white eggs of hen that we ate.

It became our routine everyday after school, to drop our bags and rush to the tree in our compound to see the development with the eggs, laid by the bird.

"I saw the bird flying from the nest today. It was a small bird, size of a sparrow. It was light green with white stomach", my friend told me. "It's the mom, as all the eggs are intact, so it can't be the baby", one said. "Ofcourse, how can the bird fly in one day?", first friend interrupted him.

We all were so excited to have this amazing guest at our place. We had decided to bring in grains, tiny insects, worms too, when the babies come out of the eggs. We had decided to name them and pet them all, including their mumma.

In few days, the eggs hatched and tiny, skinny, shivering creatures came out. They didn't look attractive at all. But one friend had done his homework, "Give them sometime, they will get feathers and will look cute", he said. We all agreed upon that.

But the next day was a shocker to us. The nest was empty and there was some rotting smell around. When we looked around we saw tiny dead bodies of the babies. One of my friends started crying, "Who killed our birds?", she was saying. Nobody knew what had happened. "Look that's their mom", one of us pointed to the bird sitting on the branch of another tree, as if watching us.

"The mother bird killed the babies", said the uncle from the 3rd floor, who was passing by. "How can a mother kill it's baby?", I asked. "Well, if the birds smell human scent around their young ones, it's natural for them to kill them", the uncle explained.

All of us felt gloomy all of a sudden. We were going to pet the birds, but never knew that our presence would actually kill them. It was us, the reason for their death. My friend carefully picked up the tiny remains of the baby birds on a leaf. She dug a small pit under the tree. She placed the leaf in the pit and covered it with mud. We all helped her cover it up. I plucked some flowers from the garden and put them on the covered pit. We all had tears in our eyes. We held our ears and said sorry to the mumma bird.

In the evening, we visited the uncle's place to know more about birds, so that the next time we could be more vigilant and not hurt the silent creatures.

PC:ebird

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This incident has left a scar in my heart and till date I am ambivalent of having a pet. 

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