My Husband & Other Animals by Lenin Janaki

Author:Lenin, Janaki [Lenin, Janaki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Westland Publishing
Published: 2012-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

Creatures at Play

Every morning white-capped babblers swoop into the veranda to clean up the remains of the dogs’ dinner. Then they alight on the roof and pick nocturnal moths and insects that had gone to sleep around the lights. The next foraging site is the garden where they flip over dry leaves looking for insects. When about 40 birds are so engaged, the dead leaves dance, fly and shuffle around. By mid-morning, they have swept through the garden without leaving a single leaf unturned, and they are sated. This is followed by a game – three or four run round and round a tree, chasing the one ahead. Sometimes the game gets very charged as they run up a tree trunk flapping their wings, crest the fork and then swoop down again on the other side. At this stage, the twittering gets so excited and loud that we forget about work to watch them.

I asked a bird expert if he knew of other birds that enjoy a game. He replied birds don’t play, and they might be doing something else that appears like play to us. The more I watched the babblers’ antics, the more convinced I became that they were indeed playing. What else could they be doing?

How do they all decide when to start playing? Among dogs it is easy. They bow low with their rump in the air, wag their tails and grin from ear to ear. How can anyone resist such an invitation? There’s a popular online video of a polar bear being similarly invited to a game by a husky. For a tense moment, it appears as if the bear is going to snack on the dog, but amazingly he recognizes the ‘play bow’ signal and the disparately sized animals play. The bear returned everyday for a week just to play with the husky. As for the babblers, I’ve yet to discover what cue gets them all going.

Dogs will do anything for a game. Specially-trained canines help biologists find scats of wildlife in Washington State. For instance, Gator sniffs out grizzly bear droppings, Ally specializes in wolves, and Tucker focuses on killer whale poop. They cheerfully set speed records for finding the most scats in the shortest time, not for an edible treat but for a 90-second game of fetch.

Zoo animals such as young female rhinos romp with barrels while lions, cougars, hippos and even turtles push, swat and kick balls. Belugas and dolphins blow bubbles from blowholes or mouths and frolic with them. I have no doubt that the drive to play is very strong in animals.

Villagers brought an orphaned rusty-spotted kitten, the world’s smallest wild cat, to a Sri Lankan friend of ours, whose pet cat nursed it along with her offspring. During our visit, the wild cat was half-grown and bursting with energy. She chased a string with which I was teasing her through a hot summer afternoon until I was out of breath. She could effortlessly race up the seven-foot-high smooth front of a wooden cupboard after the twine.

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