I had read about the birds of paradise and was mesmerized by their visual footage. I always wanted to see them although they are not found in India. But when I was in Himachal Pradesh, I was not expecting to see a bird of a different paradise, in Spiti. The birds-of-paradise are members of the family Paradisaeidae and of the order Passeriformes. This bird of a different paradise also belonged to Passeriformes. I was attending NCF’s annual outdoor experiential nature camps, which is held for local school students. It was a cold, breezy morning in Chomoling near Kibber village and the camp staff were preparing for the next batch of children to arrive. A small bird came near the stream in front of my tent; it hopped around and was looking for food. It was my first sighting of the Horned Lark or Eremophila alprestris, named so because of its pseudo ‘horns’, that seem to be protruding out from its head. The male has much more contrasting colours of black and grey, whereas the female has paler shades. It lives in the open grounds or alpine pastures and feeds mostly on seeds of grasses, weeds, grain and insects.

The next day, I was out on a walk with a couple of my colleagues with binoculars and cameras hoping to get fortunate with some wildlife sightings. I particularly wanted to capture the Horned Lark and was desperate to find it. We halted at a ridgeline and looked for some movement. One of my colleagues pointed out to a small bird moving just about thirty feet away. I hurriedly took out my camera and started capturing it. When I zoomed in, I was amazed to find that it was a Horned Lark. It turned out to be a female Horned Lark, with an insect catch tightly held between its beaks. She hopped and hopped and hopped, being alert at the same time, looking at us repeatedly, till she reached a spot near a couple of rocks and stopped. She gave a glaring look again and stood like a statue for a few seconds. We knew something good was coming. We had waited for around fifteen minutes when endearing and graceful big beaks emerged from the subterranean treasure chest and the female lark started feeding them. Yes! The mother lark had brought food for its two chicks. The scene was so immensely engrossing that I had forgotten that I had a camera in my hand. I suddenly realized that I should capture this moment and was not disappointed; the mother lark cooperated- feeding her chicks for a good five minutes and posing for us at the same time. After she flew away, our curiosity took us closer to the spot. We ensured that we maintain a safe distance from the nest and don’t disturb it. When we reached there, I was speechless- WOW! the chicks were the cutest living creatures I had even seen. We managed to take a couple of pictures of the nest and the chicks. We returned back with playback of what had just happened repeatedly playing in my mind.

We went and informed Kalzang Gurmet, who is a native of Kibber and the in-charge of the nature education program in Spiti. I showed him the photographs and he confirmed it’s a Horned Lark. Out of curiosity, I asked “What is it called in Bhoti or the local Spitian dialect?” He replied “Ribcha Kolto”. I continued the conversation further and said, “Cha means bird, but what does rib and kolto mean?” He replied with a smile, “Ribcha Kolto literally means Crazy bird“. It is known by this name here as it nests on open grounds and most of the time and loses its chicks to predators like raptors, wild canids and feral dogs; and he jokingly added, yet it hasn’t learnt a lesson. The female who chooses the nesting site tries her best to protect the chicks. What was interesting to me was that the early ecologists have named the bird as per the physical appearance of an adult male but the locals have named it by observing where and how it lives! Kalzang further added that the survival rate of such chicks is low with predators like the Red fox, who came jogging to our campsite every evening just after sunset, and the village feral dogs lurking around. The bird had already made me eager and now its astounding story had captured my imagination.

The next day, I went to the ridgeline with my binoculars and sat at the same place to see the chicks. I was unable to find them even after twenty minutes after which I stood up and started searching for the nest, with my heart-beat increasing every minute and my palms getting colder every second. After a while, I managed to calm my nerves down by spotting the set of rocks which were near the nest. I walked towards it slowly and was relieved to see the chicks. I continued the same exercise for the next 3-4 days with improved accuracy from each previous day and reduced searching duration. The chicks were healthy and fine. On the fifth day, surprisingly, I went through what I had to go through on the first day of searching. I was not able to locate the nest even after twenty minutes. My eyes went everywhere- left, right, here, there- and at last I found the nest. But, alas! The chicks were not in the nest. My search yielded only feathers, a ruptured nest and nothing else. Most probably, the everyday evening jogging visitor- the red fox, or the village feral dogs that roam around had preyed on it, said Kalzang, when I returned to the camp disappointed. Sitting sad under the foothills of the giant Mt. Kanamo, I wondered, the chicks were not lost. The crazy bird has the courage to fight all odds, be crazier in this crazy, crazy world and continue nesting on open grounds and still maintain a healthy population; perhaps it knows it has some kind of angelic, animistic entity safeguarding it, it knows it is protected by the aura of the Himalayas and under the eternal umbra of the Himalayas, it belongs to these mountains, forever.