Untainted love: Painted Storks

71% of you
tastes like the salt
in me too.

When I first spotted Painted Storks, they were way up in the sky, like militant inkblots on a mission. As they were descending, unstitched from the horizon, I could see their impressive down-curved beaks.

They found an open marsh below, about half a kilometer away, and noisily settled down. Their heads resembled summer peaches with scooter helmets on. I noticed just how large their wings were too. So I sauntered, whistling out of tune in excitement, towards the cackling flock. I wasn’t cautious about frightening them away because I didn’t know better. And so – away they flew.

It was about a month before I saw another Painted Stork. I did so while birding near the Pulicat lighthouse. She in close proximity to me. I was smitten by their dangling reddish-orange legs and the black-and-white streaked bands running across their breasts. They took off after a while. The rays of the sun tickled into translucence – the undersides of their wings.

Towards the end of 2013, I saw one in the clear light of day at the Sholinganallur lake. She was about 20 feet away from me. There were Asian Openbills, Glossy and Black Headed Ibises, Spot-Billed Pelicans and Red-Wattled Lapwings. But my eyes belonged to her. It felt like lust at third sight as I drooled over the colours in her plumage. 

She was a painter’s dream that stopped itself, halfway through. And spilled forth its prettiest contents onto the pillow.

It took all the strength I had to remain cool and collected. I wanted to relieve myself of a prominent clothing item and cavort without grace. A mad man in the middle of an amateur Swan Lake performance.

Better sense, thankfully, prevailed. I managed to take a satisfying photograph of her without frightening the children or inviting the ire of local dogs.

 

(Photographs: Sholinganallur, Pulicat, Vedanthangal)