Visiting the bird house

One afternoon last week, we took a couple-mile walk out in the direction of the Viceregal Lodge and Himachal Pradesh University. The journey was filled with the typical gorgeous views of the Shimla as the outer reaches of the city stretched out into more wooded areas. It also included, of course, the occasional macaque crossing the road and a tree full of langurs.

 

When we reached the Viceregal Lodge, we noticed that right across the way was the Himalayan Bird Park. Being that Danny is an amateur but avid bird-watcher, we definitely had to check it out.

In the front room before the aviary, there was no one to collect the entrance fee (all of Rs. 5, plus Rs. 15 for my camera) but the head of a small ungulate mounted on the wall. I cringed and, not wanting to spend more time than I had to in close quarters with a taxidermied animal head, pushed open the door into the bird park – where I found that one entire wall was dedicated to taxidermied animals.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a severe phobia of taxidermy. When I was growing up, the African safari room of my beloved California Academy of Sciences was both intriguing and terrifying to me. Provided I had my mom’s or dad’s hand to hold, I was comfortable peering through the glass at the zebras, lions, and various kinds of antelope, posed at the drinking hole or looking off into the distance. One visit, though, I went with my mom’s best friend’s family, and since I was too embarrassed to admit my fear, I hung out with a small exhibit off the African safari room and got to know really well a replica of Lucy. The animals at the Cal Academy don’t bother me so much now because I’m familiar with the pieces.

Unfamiliar taxidermy exhibits continue to freak me out. A few years ago, on a trip to Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History, I had to hold onto a friend’s arm until I felt comfortable being surrounded by the stuffed animal skins with glass eyes. And a couple months ago, when we were camping at Big Sur, we came across the nature learning center, which was, fortunately for me, closed – because it was full of taxidermied animals. Even just looking at them through the window in the front door was unnerving.

Even worse is bad taxidermy: poorly constructed, dusty, falling apart, or just simply ageing animals not only are horrible to look at, but they really scare me. That’s the kind of taxidermy they had at the bird park – according to Danny anyway. I barely took a good look at the pieces (I saw the rear end of a yak and a couple large deer on one end and a leopard on the other) before I moved away into the area where the birds were. My fear was bad enough that I refused to even walk past them with my eyes closed and Danny leading me past.  Fortunately, the bird park was built with circular path, so I just went the wrong way to look at the birds. Also, from the upper level of the aviary, I couldn’t see the taxidermy exhibit below, since it was blocked by tall foliage, which some of the birds lived in.

The bird park is home to a number of geese, red jungle fowl (from which all chickens in the world are descended from), pheasants, monals, and the occasional sparrow. We were the only ones visiting at the time, and apart from two men who were doing some work, it was just us and the birds. Which was kind of nice, actually, since normally everywhere in India is crowded. I was even able to forget about the taxidermy after watching the birds for a while.