The very hard to spot Scarlet Tanager (Photo: Yashesh Chhaya)
Yashesh Chhaya looks radiant when he talks about birds. In fact he can begin to resemble the bird is talking about. I have known Yashesh for close to a quarter century during which I have found him at his happiest when he talks about wildlife in general and birds in particular.
On his Facebook timeline he posted a picture yesterday of the very hard to spot Scarlet Tanager that he spotted near his house in Villa Park. He also noted that in his 30 years of birding he saw and photographed the Scarlet Tanager for the first time. I did some quick Google search about the bird and discovered that indeed this is a very hard to find bird since it mostly stays high in forest canopy.
As you can see from Yashesh’s photograph there is good reason why birders want to spot and photograph this bird. It is a stunningly pretty bird. It is also known to sing well. There are birders who have only heard it sing but not seen it. For Yashesh, that changed after 30 years of trying to spot it.
It is always charming that in a self-absorbed world there are those like Yashesh who look away from oneself and look for the glories that nature unfolds everyday. He is a passionate wildlife proponent who also happens to have some terrific ideas about preservation. While Yashesh takes a broad global view of ecology one of his abiding passions has been his home state of Gujarat in India and within that the district of Kutch in particular. He would rattle off the threats to the ecological balance that Gujarat’s rapid industrialization is posing to its ecological balance. If I were Gujarat’s chief minister I would hand over ecology and its preservation to Yashesh.
I have seen him flap his arms in excitement at having spotted a rare bird or reclusive wildlife. Unfortunately, I was not around when he found the Scarlet Tanager yesterday. It would have been a scene of great exultation. Cheers to Yashesh for his abiding passion.