LET THEM FREE

My wife has been nagging me for a Hill Mynah (Tiong Emas)since she first met a talking or rather mimicking Hill Mynah in a friend's house.

It looks like I will never buy her one. I know that she knows this for a fact. She knows that if I really want something, I will somehow or someway get it.

Getting a Hill Mynah is not a big deal for me. I can get it readily from Orang Asli and getting a license from the Wildlife department is no big deal either.

It is just that I hate to see animals, be it a bird, a cat or anything that lives freely in the wild being jailed.

Birds are wonderful to see if they are free to do whatever they like. Watching a kingfisher perched on a branch ready to pounce on a surfacing perch from the swamp was more fascinating than watching the most beautiful pheasant in a hurriedly constructed aviary!

Besides that I do not want to be committed to looking after the captive animal. Who's going to look after it when we are on a holiday? I never want to see an animal being deprived of TLC just because we want to enjoy ourselves.

From religious point of view, keeping animals in captivity is one reason why our prayers has not been answered.

Let them birds fly freely, roaming the sky, the forest and the fields for their food. Let them mix with their kinds and reproduce freely.

The most depressing sight for me is to see a dove (tekukur) being tied with a string and kep in a seemingly free cage but cannot fly free.

Oops I have just seen a beautiful jewel of the forest visiting my blossoming cherry tree, perhaps looking for a ripe fruit or getting nectar out of flowers. It is the tiny but noisy crimson headed flower pecker.

It is normal at this time of the day to see birds visiting our trees. The mango tree at the corner of our house is also busy fruiting. Its foliage provides a safe haven for both the bulbuls and starlings to spend the night in.