24 - Sparky’s ‘History & Mystery’ World

 

Hello, Sparky here.

Ø  We were in a weird situation at end of last week. The election to choose the leader of the bird had been completed but we didn’t have a result. Though it was only the counting of votes which was pending, we knew it was a matter of time before it would be accomplished but the bigger mystery was who had pelted the stone at the bee hive to disrupt the process of collection and counting of votes. So, this is how we started this week. Deep in mystery and delays, life far from normal or returning to normal.     

 

Ø  Mr. Goldback took charge of the situation; in any case, being the ‘Chief Election Commissioner’, having toiled hard for the past week he couldn’t shy away from the concluding bit. Though, I confess, I eagerly wanted to get back to my regular schedule – leisurely eaten breakfasts and long siestas; meeting friends and gathering news; my books and reading club meetings.  The meetings had stayed suspended the whole of last week due to our attention to the election activities and anyway even if the rest of the members wanted to carry on with the meetings, the cacophony of the birds was such that it would not lend itself to a reading activity.     

 

Ø  It was only on Sunday that the bees that had been disturbed by a shot at it on Friday morning settled down enough for us to approach the hollow to collect the votes that had been deposited there. There was no disruption of the proceedings this time. No one was stupid enough on the island to antagonize an already irked Mr. Goldback. At least, not in board daylight. Having collected the votes, the team took up their task of distributing, counting and tabulating. In a matter of a couple of hours we had the result.

 

Ø  Though we had the result we decided to withhold the result till such time we definitively knew who had disrupted the collection and counting process on Friday and to what end.

 

Ø  On last Friday none of us could approach the hollow or go anywhere near it but Mr. Goldback and I did get our heads together and wonder at the various possibilities – could a bird running for the election or someone at his/her behest cause the disruption? Was it an attack on the hive itself, entirely unconnected with the elections and the timing of it a mere co-incident? If it weren’t for how early in the day the attack had taken place we would not have ruled out the Oriental honey buzzard who was capable of such an attack and had attacked the same hive in the past. At any rate, we had posted ‘look-outs’ till such time we were able to collect the votes to ensure there was no tampering of either the votes or the bee hive by anyone.  I was partly hoping the honey buzzard would return to enjoy the ‘fallen’ hive so we could conclude that it was that ‘non-resident’ bird which had carried out the attack and so the mystery would solve itself. But there was no such luck, the hive on the ground lay there unclaimed and untouched.

 

Ø  On last Saturday evening sensing that the bees had calmed down quite a bit,  Mr. Goldback and I went to the broken hive on the ground and examined the hive and the ground to understand how it had been brought down.  It was quite a big chunk, a good treat for a honey-eater, but it would have taken a powerful animal like a honey badger to have taken down such a big chunk. We wondered if indeed a honey badger had come to our island but this theory did not hold good as there was no one who returned to enjoy the fallen hive – not a honey badger not even a honey buzzard.

 

Ø  Then as we moved around in ever expanding circles we found a stone with a good smearing of beeswax on it. Both of us examined the stone in detail, for its physical appearance and smell. The strong odor of the beeswax on it and the elapsed time masked any possible scent of the one who had handled that stone. This and the fact that it was unlike any other stone around led us to instantly eliminate birds as having handled it. But that did not mean a bird could not have hired someone to do the nasty thing.

 

Ø  Like I mentioned it was not like ‘any other thing’ stone on the island. The stone was smooth and round - a stone that had lain underwater for ages to have acquired that texture and shape. That narrowed down the culprits considerably.

 

Ø  Next, we examined the way the hive had been damaged to understand the direction from which it had been thrown. Again, our examination led us to the direction of the river. Following the possible line of attack to the river, we looked for places where one could hide. It was a well-aimed throw which means the attacker took a while to aim and throw which meant that the attacker stood there a while so it stands to reason that he would have sought a well-hidden spot. Though it was not yet bright when we made our way to collect the votes – we chose the time primarily so we could finish the task before we had an audience – still many of the residents, especially birds were waking up for their morn-time activity and the attack had gone unnoticed by everyone.

 

Ø  This line of thought led us to a couple of spots with grass and bushes close to the river bank that could have hidden the attacker. As we examined the spots, we immediately discerned pugmarks. It was lucky for us that we had had slight rain on midnight of Friday which made the earth around the river just right to record pugmarks. Had it rained heavily anytime since then the pugmarks would have likely run off with the water leaving no evidence whatsoever.

 

Ø  Now, every animal has distinct pugmark which can tell not only which animal but even the gender, age and health of the animal. It was instantly clear to us that it was the pugmark of a healthy male smooth coated otter. Even as this information registered what struck us was the smooth finish of the claws at the end of the 5 ‘fingers’. The claws and the pugmark thus belonged to an otter who had spent a considerable time grooming his claws. Even without any verbal communication the identity of the otter was clear to us. Nevertheless, just to eliminate the possibility of it belonging to any of the resident otters we had a quick discussion between us we headed to the otters’ den to check the state of their claws.

 

Ø  We found Udra and Samudra lazing around at their den entrance reading a book. As we got talking to them about the bees, the elections and other things we examined their claws – which as we had guessed right had never been groomed the way the pug marked-claws had been or perhaps never been groomed at all. Having eliminated the resident otters as the culprits, Mr. Goldback explained our discovery to the otters.

 

Ø  On Sunday morning as we began the process of collecting and counting of votes, Udra & Samudra carved out the pugmark from the now dry ground and quietly left for the island on which their family lived to get to the root of the matter. By the time they came back it was evening, we had long finished the counting and were waiting their return and further light on the reason for attack before declaring the winner.

 

Ø  Accompanying Udra & Samudra was their uncle, the head of the otters on the other island. Mr. Goldback and I had a lengthy chat with the 3 otters. On Udra & Samudra’s arrival on the other island and explaining the purpose of their visit, their uncle had summoned the ‘guest otter’ who had come to Banyan island a couple of weeks back for a reading session and had impressed many with his sophisticated ways who had almost caused the death of a young monkey. Mr. Goldback had then warned the otter to keep off Banyan Island. The pugmark with its groomed claws fit the otter perfectly. When the elders confronted him with the findings, after a bit of evasive ‘story-telling’ the otter had accepted his guilt. The otter wanted to get back at Mr. Goldback and the residents of Banyan Island and had come to the island in the cover of darkness on last Friday morning and had found the opportunity of hurting many of us and disrupting the election process with one shot and had dived into the river, picked a stone and had taken that shot. I had then left this otter un-named but henceforth to all of us on Banyan Island he will be the double-faced hypocrite Wickham. We have left the dealing of Wickham to the otters of the other island, after-all he is not our resident or our head-ache.  

 

Ø  To cut a long story short, on Monday morning we declared Mrs. Ulukah, the owl as the leader of birds. She won by a huge margin, no doubt she consolidated the votes due to the division in ‘water-birds’ and lack of unity amongst the ‘land-birds’. For the same reason, Mr. Open-bill won the election as the leader of storks. Mrs. Ulukah is wise and courageous. She will be a most able leader. I wish her the best of luck in her journey as a leader. Good luck to Mr. Open-bill as well in his role as the leader of storks. May he unite the storks just as Mrs. Ulukah strives to unite all the birds in pursuit of everyone’s general well-being. Let’s not forget – United we stand, divided we fall.

 

Ø  This election will go down in the history of Banyan Island (if not the history of animal world) for being the first election to be held democratically to elect a leader who will represent the interest and well-being of all the birds who will treated equally irrespective of their size, colour or species just as irrespective of all this their vote carried equal weight in choosing their leader.    

 

Here are a few activities for this week. If you still have any time, energy and interest in reserve after reading the lengthy election-related news, try the activities below:

·         Solve the riddles below, put the words together and you will find out my present feeling towards the whole election business.

	Means ‘everything’, The whole lot, not just one thing
	An auxiliary verb, Means in the present, not the past.
	Means ‘alright’ or ‘good’, Means also what Jack & Jill went in pursuit of, which on the hill, stood.
	Rhymes with ‘Hat’ Also contains the above word in it.
	Everything has to cease. This is what this word means. Everything that has a beginning, has also this.
	A repeat of the third word, And means the same as that word.

 

·         Etymology is the study of the history of words. The etymology of a word traces its origin. It is very interesting to understand how a word came to be and how the languages of old all linked to each other and goes back to a time to when the world was not as connected as today and still be able to trace the word through languages that were spoken in geographically distant places.

Here are a few words in column 1 and their ‘original meaning’ in column 2. Try and match the two.

 

Amphibian	Fast walker
Animal	Horn on nose
Dinosaur	Tribe of hairy women
Giraffe	Horse of the river
Rhinoceros	To Crawl
Hippopotamus	Both kinds of life
Gorilla	Having breath, Having soul
Snake	Fearful Lizard

 

‘Little readers’ Section’

·         Wasps are insects like Bees. Most wasps live alone and not in colonies like Bees and Ants. Here are a few photographs of a Mud-dauber wasp building its nest to lay eggs. Look at the photos closely, understand what the wasp is doing in each of the photo and re-arrange the photos so it tells a story of how the wasp is going about the nest-building work.  

·   See you all next week with more news, activities and answers to this week’s puzzles.

In the meanwhile, if you would like to write to me, email me at Sparkyatbanyan@gmail.com

Answers to last week’s puzzles:

·         Solve the riddles below, put the words together and you will find out my present feeling towards the whole election business.

Glad	Lot of work is no reason to be feel bad, As long as there is excitement to be had. This one rhymes with ‘sad’ But means just the opposite of that.
It	This is a pronoun, Not a he or a she but the other one.
Is	This is just an auxiliary verb, But don’t take me lightly, Without me the sentence will be off, slightly.
Over	Something’s are nice while doing, Some when recollecting. At any rate, everything comes to an end. And this is the meaning this word does lend.

 

·         Here are a few idioms on ‘beginnings’ and ‘progress’. Could you put the rows in order so as to have the 2 parts of the idiom in the same row so as to complete it?

 

Early bird	catches the worm
Nothing ventured	nothing gained
Blow away	the cobwebs
A new	lease of life
To break	new ground
To make	Headway
To start	with a clean slate
To turn over	a new leaf
To move	Mountains
To go back	to the drawing board

 

·         Here’s the crossword puzzle that will reveal the candidates who contested in the election:

‘Little readers’ Section’

·         There are animals that are big and animals are small, also animals that are tall and animals that are not so tall. Here are some animals, could you put them in the order of their height. Also think why the animals are what they are.