Darzee explains to Harini about how the tailor birds talk to one another.

Harini walked back to the great big old banyan tree and its wonderful canopy with all the flower bushes, grasses, weeds and thorny rose bushes that had gone wild by the corner of their garden. She did not want to disturb Darzee and Darzi, the tailor birds, at their nest. So, she walked carefully away from the bush that had the nest and came up to the tall rose bushes.

She called out softly, singing the nursery rhyme that was taught in school today. It went something like, 'Mary had a little lamb', or whatever. She was happy singing her own song, 'Meera had a sparrow,' a nursery rhyme that she had made up all by herself while returning on the school bus.

Darzee flew out from her flower bush and went about perching on 3-5 other bushes before coming nearer to Harini.

Darzee asked, "What is it that you are singing? I could hear it as you walked by the banyan tree. Thank you for not coming nearer to our nest."

"Oh, that's just a song that I made up," Harini replied. "But, you and your family, the other tailor birds, are always whistling and singing whenever you are flying about in the Chafa tree near my bedroom window and also in all the flower bushes. Why do you keep whistling?"

"Whistling?" Darzee smiled. "Yes. That is the way we talk to one another. There are many whistles and each one means something different. That is our language."

"Wow! You talk through whistles?" Harini exclaimed. "I would love to learn that. My father would be puzzled if I start talking to him by whistles. I could teach that to my friends in school."

Darzee laughed, in a long whistle. "It is easy to learn, if you sit quiet, observe, watch us carefully and understand why we whistle out the way we do. The short whistles are contact calls. We use that to let other tailor birds know that we are close by, though they may not easily see us inside the bushes."

"But, you have that other long musical whistle, very loud, that I love to hear," Harini said. "I know that it is the call of the tailor bird, 'towhee-towhee-tweee-tweee-towhee', or something like that. I am trying to learn that and will soon call you with that whistle from my bedroom window.

"Yes. But we have several different ones, when we call out loudly," Darzee replied, laughing. "I will not tell you about them so easily. You need to listen carefully, and watch out for what we are doing at that time."

"I did hear some different ones," Harini said. "Whenever I hear the long call, I know it is you and your family. It is only after I observe you all for some time that I hear the other calls and whistles. How do you know which one is which?"

Darzee laughed in her typical short whistle. "The calls and the whistles, these are certainly what we learnt from our parents, I think. They would call out when we flew together, and sometimes, they would call out in a short and loud whistle, one burst, and would stop. We would all stop. We do not know if there was danger about, but we knew that whistle very well."

"But, all tailor birds have the same sort of whistles, long or short, musical or not," Harini said. "How do you know that they are your parents or the tailor birds from another family? Do you all not get very confused?" 

"We make sure that we stay in eye contact, mostly," Darzee replied. "Tailor birds from other families do join us, whenever we announce that a certain tree or a branch within the banyan tree has a long line of ants or other insects moving about. We like to share with the others, you know. The other birds, those that love to eat ants and insects, they also join in. I do not know how they know but they do know that there is good feeding nearby." 

"Ok, I understand," Harini smiled. "I will keep a close watch on you and your family. Let me see if I am able to understand your calls and whistles."

Darzee continued, "Let me know if you can guess the purpose of each whistling call. I will also ask Darzi to tell the other tailor birds to call out loudly whenever they see you in the garden or at your window."

Harini smiled and was very happy. This was going to be fun, learning about the way the tailor birds talked to one another.

Bharat Bhushan
10 April 2025