Instructions
Read the following passage and answer the questions given after it.
Comprehension:
The excitement of bird watchers on spotting a particular species for the very first time is unparalleled. With eyes shining and pride
bursting, they exclaim, “I had a lifer today”, or “It was a lifer for me”. For the longest time, I couldn’t fathom what all the fuss was about. I
mean,
at some point in their lives, even a crow or mynah would have been a lifer — seen for the very first time. So, here, I’ve done a bit of
jugaad with the term and define it as a bird that you see maybe (but not necessarily) for the first time, but which has made a lasting, lifechanging
impact on you. Then I recalled some of my own “lifers”.
Number 1 is the little coppersmith barbet. The first bird I saw through brand new, big and powerful binoculars — and it was solely
responsible for my getting interested in birds. The fellow looked like a tubby little clown with hiccups and that just blew me away.
I will never forget the first time I saw grey hornbills aeons ago: over sullen grey skies in the Borivali National Park (now called Sanjay
Gandhi National Park) — squealing as they flew high up across the sky. They looked as if they had just left Jurassic Park. Or, for that
matter,
their larger, more glamorous, cousins — Great pied hornbills. Tramping through a streambed in Kalagarh (near Corbett), we suddenly
heard this rasping, whooshing, sound. Up there, in the clear blue, were six-seven huge black-and-white birds with colossal yellow beaks
flying in tandem across the clear blue sky, their wings making the rasping sound.
Say “paradise flycatcher” and a birder’s eyes will begin to glint: “Where? When? Will it be there now?” are questions that will be shot out
like machine-gun bullets. The first time I saw a full grown milk-white-and-glossy-black male, with its glamorous 18-inch streamer tail,
was at the Sultanpur National Park in Haryana. But I remember better the flycatchers, that made me run around in a tea garden in
Palampur, teasingly whistling at me from one end to the other.
The nesting pair in Naukuchiatal was more accommodating except that I had to stand kneedeep in the hotel’s garbage dump to get a
good view of them flitting to and fro the gully nearby. To compensate, one actually flew nearly down to my feet to snatch up a bluebottle
I had missed.
Of course, there have been rarities: the highlight of the regular Bharatpur (the Keoladeo National Park) visits was the darshan of VIP
Siberian cranes. Then they stopped coming, which was a first indication of their slow extinction — even if it was just “local” to our area.
The gloriously uppity Great Indian bustards in the Karera Sanctuary (Madhya Pradesh) were another unforgettable sighting. The sheer
disdain with which they flounced away from our howling, jolting jeep and took to their wings was a lesson in being put in your place.
Now, not only does the sanctuary not exist anymore but those magnificent muscular birds are crashing to total extinction.
Question 194