Birds

Birds, Nesting & Eggs

One of the many hobbies I had was collecting eggs, nests. The variety of colors, odd shapes and sizes just amazed me. During our time when we went out for walks twice a week this was the most important time we use to look forward during the months April to July. Although rarely I went out of bounce, but I did sometimes when necessary. There was a wide species of birds eggs that I collected namely King Fisher nested in mud walls their eggs were like table tennis balls white and round, Lapwings - nested on stones on the ground, Brahminy Starling nested in tree barks, Tailor bird nested between two large leaves sown together, Swallows and House martin nested in caves, under bridges and their nests were built of wet mud. These were just a few common birds. Of course there were vulture's who nested on high and dangerous places on the mountain tops I remember Brother Gail from Australia once getting hold of one of the eggs. He too had a collection of eggs and use to show us slide shows of birds and their eggs. More amazing was the Emu's egg and an Ostrich's egg which he had among his collection. There was a cage made at the Brother's quarters near the Mulberry tree which had a large number of birds some white Pigeon's which were stolen one night, a few green parrots, love birds. Over the years this place has been demolished. I remember clearly burying a dead parrot right outside this cage.

Egg Collection - Don Dias (Batch 1982)

I started my egg collection with a few Bulbul's eggs. Reddish Pink eggs with dark tiny to large red spots all over the eggs about half an inch in size. Bulbuls always built their nests close to human inhabitant area's and on low bushes. We would identify the bird by the look of the egg. If there were four eggs in the nest I would leave just one behind the rest were distribute among the guys who helped get them down. You would hear first Egg, Second Egg and Third Egg as soon a nest was spotted. The eggs were then kept in the middle of our palm until we made it back to school very carefully. We would then take a basin of water and drop the egg in it. If it was fresh it would sink, if had a growing embryo within, it would float. The next step was to carefully make a hole on both sides of the egg the pointed as well as the rounded area. Carefully holding the egg we use to blow the contents out in order to preserve the shell. Very often the egg would explode in our hands. The nuns would always complain of stink in the washer room. It was always the eggs. Over the years my hands were pretty steady. Once emptied out the egg shells were keep in a steel square box with small cotton compartments and were displayed during school exhibitions. There are many of them who still have these collections. If you do please go ahead take some pictures as we would all love to see these treasures. The school has now banned egg collecting for a long time and forever as it was of course actually destructive to nature. Some of the known egg collectors during our time 1977-82 were Noel D'Sa, Bevis Alva, Earl Dennis, Sunil Noronha, Ashley Rodrigues, John Joy (Anil Joy) of course me and others I just can't recollect their names. It was Noel D'Sa now Brother Noel D'Sa who gave me a large collection of eggs before he left school. Some of the popular species seen by us are show below. Click on the thumbnail images for larger ones.