Silverbill Munia- Tiny Teacher

Silverbill Munia- smaller than your folded palm- teaches us a lesson or two. We have been observing the birds closely in our front yard for nearly a decade now. We have done many stories on the Munias also called the Indian Silverbill. But they continue to teach us a thing or two.

We had posted another picture last week showing a dozen birds together, half of them on the bird feeder and the other half waiting for their turn. Patiently. No squabble, no fight. Every one gets a share in an orderly manner. Although the bird feeder is at a height, but the agile stray cat manages to pounce on a bird on the ground occasionally. Part of food chain I guess. The picture was posted for KBG-58 Captions Contest (KBG stands for Kaun Banega Ghumakkad) and is reproduced below.

Before we share the captions given by the participants, let us see what do these tiny birds teach us? Perhaps many things, some of which are:

• Community Living: So amply demonstrated by the birds which nest in trees nearby, fly together for food, perch together, feed together and fly back together.
• Self-discipline: As you can see in the picture above, the birds await their turn while others are feeding. No fights.
• Patience: Every one gets a share of the feed. From the first perch on the electric wire to the waiting line on water pot to the feeder- all three stages are done patiently.
• Resolve: Whenever the Munias lose a compatriot to a hungry cat, they reassemble on the electric wires above. They become silent for a while. And with resolve, continue feeding.
• Punctuality: The birds synchronise their feeding time with the sunrise and sunset. They fly back to their nests with an hour to go before the sunset.
• Food Intake: The Munias control their food intake, unlike many of us humans. The bird feeder may still have the feed, but they limit their intake in a controlled manner.

The Contest

We received more than two dozen captions for KBG-58 Contest, which are listed below:

Sl.	Name	Caption for KBG-58 Contest
1	GR Sreenivasan	Early birds are enjoying their feast, late comers are waiting their turn patiently 👌
2	Rohini Tiwari	Nature teaches us discipline by example!
3	Pradeep Siwach	Jiyenge saath, marenge saath.
4	KV Ramachandran	Small but large hearted
5	Amandeep Kaur	Azaad parindey 😁
6	Rashmi Bhargava	Become like a bird Expand your wings Learn new things
7	SR Murari	These munias do look so happy, contented and make a beautiful picture
8	Neelima Paroolkar	‘हम पंछी इक डाल के’
9	Ritu Bhargava	Feeding birds is also a form of prayer.
10	Parag Sharma	Its only the fine feathers which make the fine flock !
11	Poonam Bhargava	No Covid for us😉😆
12	Ranajit Sen	Breaking bread together
13	Vinod Dhanuka	Wait for your turn
14	Yogesh Verma	Togetherness
15	Fire Gaming	Do small things with great love.
16	Veeky Baths	Open your wings and fly high!
17	Vicky Bhardwaj	We never break physical distancing protocols in the flock to be Social.
18	Narendra Soni	कितना भी हो दाना, मिल बांट कर खाना
19	Rajendra Singh	Sharing is caring !
20	Manju Khetan	One too many but never fighting for space, moral for human being also live with each other amicably.
21	Shereen Sultana	We are all in this together!
22	Avinash Tiwari	Hum panchi ek daal ke
23	Bharat Ladha	Kab aayegi meri baari
24	Seema jain	Hum saath saath hain!
25	Vaibhav	Together we live,we grow & we survive !!
26	Manik Srivastava	Apna time aayega!
27	Neeta Bhargava	Patience pays.

The Winners

Our Jury has selected the following as winners of KBG-58. Congratulations to all the winners.

Ranajit Sen an alumnus of BITS Pilani is an accomplished veteran of Indian pharmaceutical industry. As an advisor on various Govt forums on Bio-technology and Healthcare, he encourages young entrepreneurs. Ranajit has won several KBG Contests earlier. His simple caption had instantaneous appeal to the Jury.

Narendra Soni studied at Birla School Pilani and specialised in life sciences thereafter. He has won the KBG Contests on several occasions. His caption in Hindi is simple and catchy.

Poonam Bhargava is an alumnus of Lady Irwin College, Delhi. Full of compassion, she loves Nature. Her caption related the Munias with the Covid pandemic in a humorous way!

Bharat Ladha lives in Vidisha, MP and enjoys farming and Nature. An alumnus of BITS Pilani, Bharat cares for the environment. His caption highlighted the disciplined  feeding by the Munias.

Once again we congratulate all the winners and thank both the Jury members namely Manik Srivastava and Neeta Bhargava. The captions given by Jury members were excluded from the Contest.

Why the Name

Why is the bird called Silverbill Munia? Because its beak shines like silver! See the picture below.

Munias- More Picture Stories

You may like to browse our earlier stories on Silver Munias listed below. These stories also include short video clips. For those who haven't yet seen the Silverbills from close quarters, enjoy the pictures as well as the video footage.

Feeding the Silver Bills - We installed the first bird feeder gifted by our grandson. But no bird came for the next three months! Then what happened? Read on.

Friendly Munias - includes video clips on how munias feel safe with the neighbour's dog. How we had to shift the bird feeder to the roof? However, the cat continued stalking the birds. Could we save them? Read on.

What is Munia's Feed? Munias feed on Foxtail Millet. They split open each seed and discard the shell. Read more details about the seed, its names in many languages and see the pictures of the seed and its outer shell in the story.

Here is another picture of a pair of Munias. Guess what are they conversing?

We hope we have lessened your anxiety due to the second wave of the pandemic. It is definitely on the decline. However, all of us need to maintain the self-discipline of wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance and washing hands frequently. We thank the Munias for providing us a pleasant diversion from Covid.

Stay connected, stay safe.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 19th June 2021

#nature #homebirding #secunderabad #telangana #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #powerofobservation #lockdownfunathome #beatthecorona #lockdown #stayhomestaysafe  #captions #munias #life #craetivecaptions #naturetheteacher #silverbillmunia #learningthroughpictures #birdsdining #scrambleforfood #indiansilverbill

Munias Social Distancing

Covid and birds? Does it impact them? Do they maintain social distancing?

Do the birds dine together? Is there a scramble for food?

See the picture of Silverbill Munias on our bird feeder below. Suggest a caption. Your creative caption could get you the Winner's tag of KBG-58, the 58th edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad. It is an online captions contest. 

How to Submit a Caption

For the first-timers on KBG, you can respond using any of the six channels below:

1. Leave a comment on this post
2. Send email to hbindia@gmail.com   
3. Respond on the FB post
4. Comment on Instagram @ghumakkadhb 
5. Comment on Twitter @HarshBh21184761
6. Send a WA message. If you want your WA number to be added to Ghumakkad's list, send an email.

Now get going and give your caption pronto! If you feel like, you may suggest more than one caption.

Hope we have helped you in overcoming the Covid boredom to some extent.

Previous Contest

KBG-57 showed a picture of a snail climbing a cemented staircase. Just a single picture generated 34 creative captions. For complete list of the captions and the winning entries, click the story 'Reimagine, Recreate, Restore'. Two of the winning captions are reproduced below:

Be your creative best and shoot your response. Most catchy captions will be the Winners of KBG-58! All the best.

Stay connected, stay safe.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 14th June 2021

#nature #homebirding #secunderabad #telangana #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #powerofobservation #lockdownfunathome #beatthecorona #lockdown #stayhomestaysafe  #captions #munias #life #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #silverbillmunia #learningthroughpictures #birdsdining #scrambleforfood

Reimagine Recreate Restore

Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.

Slogans and tag lines like these are fine.

But what can an individual do?

Can institutions like a university help?

What can corporates do?

Restore what? Restore the environment. Restore the forests, lakes, ponds, parks, rivers, wastelands, habitat for wildlife and birds. In short, restore the life for future generations!

Another World Environment Day has come and gone. Above three words constituted the theme of this year's World Environment Day 2021.  It marks the beginning of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Let us look at each of the three theme words.

Reimagine: How can we restore the environment around us which we as mankind have polluted and degraded? We have to imagine newer ways of doing it. Few suggestions are listed below:

• Solar charging of devices in parked cars and two wheelers
• Wind driven pencil sharpeners for school children. More than just fun. Perhaps they can construct it as part of their science lab!
• Tree plantation in a remote site by a visitor. The company nurtures the plant on behalf of the visitor. Being done by an L&T group company in India.
• 'One child one tree' program. Recognise best nurtured saplings after a year at a global level.
• Solar powered school bags and juicers are already a reality. See the pictures from India and Africa.

Recreate: Large part of the environment has been lost or degraded. Examples include encroached wetlands for birds, denuded forests for wildlife, dying rivers, oceans and beaches for fragile marine life etc. We can't recreate the oceans. But we can certainly keep it clean and pollution free. So that marine life can continue to thrive. Am citing an example of recreating the lost nesting sites of Spot-billed Pelicans in Kolleru Lake in Andhra Pradesh. Kolleru lake has shrunk by more than 50% due to encroachment by Fish Tanks. See the maps below. 

As a result of the encroachment, the Pelicans lost their natural nesting sites on Keekar trees. But thanks to the efforts of the Wildlife Department, metal mesh nests were erected in the lake. The Pelicans have adopted these nesting platforms. See the pictures below.

You may browse the full picture story titled 'Kolleru- The Pelican Paradise'. Likewise, we can attempt to recreate the lost environment elsewhere too.

Restore: As we said in the beginning, we have to restore the forests, lakes, ponds, parks, rivers, wastelands, habitat for wildlife and birds. Our collective effort will then restore the life for future generations! Am giving an example of ecosystem restoration and preservation through government-university partnership. The Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve in California is an environmentalists delight. Thanks are due to University of California, Davis for this unique initiative. The government-university partnership model is worth emulating by other countries/ regions. See few pictures of the Reserve and the restoration being undertaken by the university.

Reimagine, Recreate, Restore. It can not be done overnight. It has to be the collective effort of mankind over a period of time. And that is why the United Nations has called the decade 2021-2030 as the Decade for Ecosystem Restoration. 

The Nature teaches us patience and the ways to deal with change. By observing a snail, we can learn many lessons for restoring the environment.

KBG-57, the 57th edition of our online caption contest had featured the above picture of a snail. Despite the ongoing pandemic and the devastating second wave, the  contest evoked good response. All the creative captions received are listed below.

Sl.	Name	Caption for KBG-57 Contest
1	Alka Siwach	Aparajit
2	Aarja Kohli	Embrace your own pace
3	Amandeep Kaur	He snailed it!
4	Pradeep Siwach	Raahgir
5	Yella Prakash Rao	Asli Ghummakkad to yehi hai. Baaki saare part time actors hain!
6	Vicky Baths	Slow and steady wins the race!
7	GR Sreenivasan	VIP visitor getting Red Carpet welcome 😀
8	Shereen Sultana	Fabi-ayyi Ala-i rabbikuma tukadziban {Roman transliteration of an arabic verse} Meaning: So which of the favours of your lord would you deny?
9	Peter de Padua	Homecoming with own home!
10	Vicky Bhardwaj	Persons who give Happiness, don't go to Heaven.  Instead, Wherever they Go. That becomes  Paradise.
11	Peter de Padua	Going...going..going home!
12	Jyoti Dixit	My antennae  are up- food aroma.
13	Rashmi Bhargava	Sometimes this life seems moving like a snail
14	Sujata Das	I will make it!
15	Rakesh Sharma	Snail is frail but does not fail to assail every nail on its trail.
16	Surendra Bhargava	Slow and steady wins the race
17	Parag Sharma	We are not in slow motion; we are in complete devotion.
18	C Raghuram	A winner always moves, despite all odds.
19	Shivnath	The Salary
20	Shivnath	The Indian Economy!
21	NN Pashupathy	Carrying its own residence to your residence!
22	Rajendra Singh	What Lockdown! Never ever left my home!
23	Vinod Dhanuka	I Climbed I Conquered
24	GB Sethi	I am hard outside, very soft inside, have no wings no legs but assure you come monsoon I will be with you.
25	Manju Khetan	Even a snail will eventually reach its destination.
26	Ritu Bhargava	We shell overcome
27	Avinash Tiwari	Aarahi barsaat (monsoon) meri raftar se!
28	Sunil Sud	True representation of how life is moving these days (in the pandemic) :-)
29	Vinay Prasad	Never mind your speed!  Keep going!
30	JVR Moorty	Losing micro calories one step at a time. Snails lead by example.
31	Anon	I walk with cool head. I draw my direction
32	Param Bhatia	Come out of your shell to explore the world!
33	Radhika Sareen	घोंघा नहीं लम्बी race का घोड़ा हूँ मेँ ....
34	Kausalya Govindan	Just out of quarantine!

Winners

The Jury comprising of Manik Srivastava and Neeta Bhargava has selected seven captions as winners of KBG-57. Congratulations to all the winners who are profiled below along with their winning captions.

Kausalya Govindan is a Naval spouse and a teacher now settled in Bengaluru. She loves travelling and being with Nature. She related the snail's picture with the prevailing pandemic through her caption.

Amandeep Kaur holds an MBA(Fin) and works with a US company in India. She loves to interact with people. She has won the KBG contest several times. Her caption with a pun nailed it!

Pradeep Siwach holds a PhD in Management and has been the Vice Chancellor of two private universities in India. A keen photographer, he loves to travel. He called the snail a राहगीर in Hindi, meaning a traveller. Pradeep has won the KBG contests earlier too.

Rakesh Sharma is an alumnus of BITS Pilani who went on to do his PhD. A retired Colonel, he headed many institutions and universities in India. Rakesh's rhyming caption caught the Jury's attention.

Parag Sharma is a former combat pilot who retired as an Air Commodore from Indian Air Force. Keen traveller and Nature lover, he has won many KBG contests in the past. His caption gave another perspective of a snail!

Shiv Nath is our first time winner. We have not been able to get his profile. His caption is so apt. Our salaries rise so slowly, just like the snail's pace!

Rajendra Singh is a former Maj General of Indian Army. Fond of gardening and golf, he loves all animals and birds. He has captured the lockdown blues in his caption so well!

Are we all not like the snail? We want to be left alone to work at our own pace! Think.

 Once again, congratulations to all the winners.

 

Snail Climbing A Staircase

Here is a short video clip showing how the snail climbs a cemented staircase at the entrance of our house in Secunderabad India.

Seeing the snail's clip, our daughter Akanksha has penned the following lines.

The climb may be tough

But it will all be worth it

When you give it your best

With true grit

Thanks much Ashi.

We thank both the Jury members and all the contestants for their participation.

We hope we have lessened your anxiety due to the second wave of the pandemic. It is definitely on the decline. However, all of us need to maintain the self-discipline of wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance and washing hands frequently.

Stay safe and stay connected.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 9th June 2021

#worldenvironmentday #reimagine #recreate #restore ##nature #monsoonishere #secunderabad #telangana #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #powerofobservation #lockdownfunathome #beatthecorona #lockdown #stayhomestaysafe  #captions #snail #life #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #overcomingchallenges #learningthroughpictures #lessonsfromasnail