Valuable lessons from the life of Birds- Part I

Birds are a group of vertebrates like human beings. Their body is covered by feathers. They have a characteristic beak. They have no teeth. They have four chambered, powerful heart. They lay hard shelled eggs. They have high metabolic rate. They have a muscular body, light in weight but have a strong skeleton.

 

Birds lead an active life. They play an important part in the life of man. They are helpful to humanity in the propagation of plants, pollination of flowers and in communication. Man utilizes them in breeding them in poultry farms to create wealth. Their eggs are rich in nutrients and upon including them in our diet, our functional health improves. Their excreta become soil manure. They feed on insects that spoil crops. They feed on dead animals to keep the air clean. They add beauty to Nature. Thus birds are useful to both Man and Nature.

If we observe the life of birds, they have certain unique characteristics and some special features. From their characteristics and features we can learn several lessons to improve our lives. These are the lessons that help us to organize our lives, mend our ways and live harmoniously with every other human being we come across.

Birds are adapted for aerial mode of life. They fly high up in the sky. When they fly high indicates their self-confidence and great amount of faith in their abilities. When we undertake tasks single handedly, we have to handle our tasks like a bird flying high in the sky.

The flying bird also indicates that they are free from worries. They enjoy high degree of freedom. We should learn the spirit of independence from the life of birds. We should keep worries away from our lives so that we also have a strong heart like birds.

Birds are able to keep their balance in strong winds when they fly very high. From this we have to learn that we should balance our emotions at crucial times. We should learn to keep ourselves physically and emotionally fit at all times.

Birds like to eat grains, nuts and fruits. They eat in very small quantities. Eating small quantities of food keeps them lighter so that they can fly high. What we learn from birds is that we have to eat less food in many intervals to keep ourselves fit and healthy. 

Birds are social animals. They live in group and fly in group. When they fly in a group, if any predator attacks a member of the group, the attacked member of the group give out sound signals about the enemy to all the other members so that the other birds can fly to safety places. That means, their networking system is very much advanced. This important lesson should be learnt from the birds in the present day context.

We have observed that no bird is similar. They come in different sizes and in different colors. Each one of the bird shine their color. But still we see different colored birds perch on the same tree and sing different songs. From this we have to learn that we have to accept people of all types. Each one of us must exhibit a unique talent and color to sustain in this competitive world. We learn that we have to work in a team with different types of people.

 

Often when we lift our head and look at the sky we observe that birds fly in flocks and in the shape of “V”. Their movements in groups help them to elude predators. When they are flying in group, they don’t disturb the other members of the group. All the members of the group fly in harmony in a disciplined manner. From this we learn that we have to lead a disciplined life and we should live in harmony. We have to work in collaboration in a team without disturbing the other members of the team. We have to always move in a group so that we are not attacked and this ensures safety. Each member of the group will be taken care of by other members of the group.

Many a time we see a single bird perching on the hill top or in the branch of a tree. The single bird is not at all disturbed by the other birds of the same species. Birds give personal space to all the members of the group. From this we understand that everyone needs time on their own. We should not disturb others when they require privacy.

Birds fly high in the sky alone also. They do not have the fear of falling from great heights when they fly high. From this we learn that we should not limit our potential. We should learn to achieve success in our endeavors single handedly. We should not be afraid to undertake any task single handedly. Very soon we become the master. When we go to great heights of achievement we should not fear but we should develop self-confidence.

(Second Part will be continued in my next post)