All Creatures Great and Small

 Caption this photo! It was sent to me by a friend taken at a Relief Society activity. It seems to me like I'm reenacting Noah's wife's reaction to all the chaos of the Ark. "Noah, do we really have to deal with this zoo for the next 40 days and nights?! How can we sleep with this constant din? I dubs not to clean the elephant cage!" 

So although I'm not an award winning photographer with my cheap Walmart TracFone, we've had a few encounters with the animal world while here in India that I've tried to capture on film. Some I will just have to tell you about as vividly as I can without a sound recording or picture. 

Every morning, we awaken to the sound of 3 distinct species of birds, competing for air time. The loudest of the three is the WhoopWhoop birds, that in essence do the same job as roosters. They get whooping faster and faster and higher and higher in pitch. One will start and encite another until you have an intense competitive cacophony you couldn't possibly dream through. We can tune out the Moslem prayer caller by now but not these noisemakers. You would think they'd be these wild, colorful, and exotic looking bird but are in fact, a drab, colorless, black and grayish crow look-alike.

 Next, is a species that we have never actually seen but coined their sound as saying "for real, for real, for real." Incessantly! They give us a constant reality check. Yes, you really are here in a foreign country living the mission you requested and prayed for. You are not dreaming anymore. This is FOR REAL for real! 

Lastly, there is the one we call The Squeaky Wheel who drones on and on endlessly with his sweet one-note chirp that if focused on, can drive you to absolute madness. Somebody, get this bird some grease, please! We will associate these unique sounds with early India mornings for the rest of our life and perhaps someday we'll fondly miss them. As for now...it's good we don't have access to slingshots. It's all part of helping us become patient in every circumstance so it's ok. 

Other more pleasant avian encounters: 

An "ostentation" of peacocks in the local cemetery. This pride is either female or juvenile males that haven't reached the full maturity of their plumage but on closer inspection you can already see the beautiful coloring on their necks.

One slightly less ostentatious

The peacock is the Indian national bird. This is an open funeral conveyance honoring it and the deceased.

                A new breed- the dinoturkcock!

We have seen some colorful birds in the trees

                        A trunk knot for a canvas

And once we were absolutely positive we saw a dead bat in the top of a tree. Ew.

             Turned out to only be dead leaves

Little skinny mini horses we have seen on occasion.

                            Hello Mr Eddie!

  Not usually taking a dip in the lake

  but sure, why not? 

And cows are a common sight, but it's the incongruous settings that always surprise us.

                 On the side of a busy highway

Dumpster diving in our lane

                 And inside our church gate

       (We're pretty sure this is a Christian cow)

I've mentioned before that every street has dogs. Itchy and Scratchy are our local canines.

Scratchy once followed us across the busy four lane highway to the Race Course and we've not seen him since. Well did he ever return? No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned. He may roam forever on the streets of India. He's the dog that never returned. (Heheh)

Now, if bees count as an animal, look at this-

we were amazed to find this perfectly shaped beehive!

                       In their lovely Deseret

Gratefully we haven't seen a single snake yet.  But we do have some ravenous wolves we see pretty regularly, always on the prowl for their next meal:

They don't merely butter their banana bread,

they frost it! 

Any senior missionary couple will tell you part of their mission duty is to keep their hungry pack of mancubs well fed at district meeting! 

Then there are even more rare sightings of strange little creatures on social media

                                Hello Kitty?

For a rare treat, we got a 2nd-hand sighting of an elephant in the wild from our Branch President when they were in Mysore. 

Last to report, our longest and most devoted English Group friend Balu, gave us a very special gift of this book. He works for the forestry division of the government and sees wild elephants all the time in his job. He calls Elder Dunlap "Bear." 

   The title of the book is "The Elephant Doctor"

We were so touched by this gesture of friendship. To reciprocate, we felt the time was right to give him a copy of The Book of Mormon in Tamil, with the hope that his heart is prepared to receive it. 

Well, that's our zoo. I guess the only thing left to see while we're here in India would be a Bengal tiger. Or maybe a curelom or cumom! 

C'mon Noah! Let's enjoy this animal cruise while we can! 

"Having all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man. 

And also they had horses and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms, all of which were useful to man, and more, especially the elephants..."

Ether 9:18-19