adidab

Today, I had a dream that straddles the line between nerdiness and providence, both of the birdy kind. Dreams about birds or birding are an everyday occurrence for a birder, but I found this one interesting enough to actually write about it.

In a weird amalgamation of multiple recent events, I started out birding in some large campus in Odisha, with Ashwin, Ian Davies and a couple other foggy silhouettes. I do not recall whether it was morning or evening, but we enjoyed some decent birding in multiple patches of the campus, until towards the end we hit a forest edge that seemed to host a small stream. Here, a spectacular show suddenly started, including a mixed flock! Crazy numbers of Oriental Pied-Hornbill, a Himalayan Shrike-Babbler (which according to Ashwin was a regular winter visitor to dream-Odisha), and eventually a large-ish female-type sunbird that flew over us and into the trees. The sunbird started to make calls that to me immediately recalled the calls of Large-billed Leaf Warbler, due to the combination of an initial lower-pitched note followed by a higher-pitched note (the quality of the notes of course being sunbird-like, and not metallic like LBLW). We all waited a few seconds in silence until Ian suggested Olive-backed Sunbird, which instantly made sense to us. All this culminated in a huge rush of adrenaline in my real-world body, shoving me awake in a slightly groggy state.

Now, what about this warranted a blog post? Well, here is what I noted down after a quick check in that groggy state:

OBS does have similar 2-note sounds, but they’re not metallic and instead have the Loten’s-like quality, and they’re also produced as part of the song. Hmm, could have been.

Ignore the farfetchedness of trying to ID a bird call “heard” in a dream, I pray. What intrigued me is that a non-self character in my dream was able to correctly (though this is debatable) ID a bird call variation that also exists in real-life but I’ve never heard before. Is this birdy providence, or a forgotten memory, or just confirmation bias? I am sceptical of the latter, particularly because I cross-checked (and failed to match) the calls with those of Green-tailed Sunbird, which was the jizz I had gotten from the brief “view” of the bird flying over us.

Oh, and I also expect some (non-fortune) cookies when the first White-browed Shrike-Babbler, Himalayan or otherwise, is reported from anywhere in or near Odisha.