Birds 05 - Water Fairy Poem by Unnikrishnan Sivasankara Menon

Pheasant Tailed Jacana known commonly
as Water Fairies for their handsome looks
found in abundance on the floating vegetation
in shallow tropical lakes, their preferred habitat.

Like other Jacanas (also called Lily Trotters)
they are shorebirds that walk and wade along
the shorelines and mudflats, foraging for food
such as worms, molluscs and aquatic insects.

Water Fairies are common birds in India seen on
the shorelines of back-waters, lakes and rivers,
use their elongated toes and toe-nails to trot
on the floating and semi-emergent water plants.

They are migratory birds, often long distances,
build no nest, have handsome breeding plumage,
lay their olive-brown eggs on floating singara leaves
trusting that their colour will save the eggs from harm.

The female bird courts males, is polyandrous,
each female laying upto ten clutches of eggs
in a single season, each raised by a different male;
a descendant of Drowpadi, who took only five husbands?

Strange as it may seem,
but the First Feminist ever was
Madame Water Fairy,
not Simon de Bouar,
though my female friends here
may nail me for the revelation.