Mountain Dweller: The Blue-capped Rock Thrush

Published on: 01/05/2024

Photo title: Blue-capped Rock Thrush

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Photo Credits: Gowri Subramanya

“If you want to be a mountain dweller...
no need to trek to India to find a mountain...
I've got a thousand peaks
to pick from, right here in this lake.
Fragrant grasses, white clouds,
to hold me here.
What holds you there,
world-dweller?”

Wrote Jiaoran, a Chinese monk and poet, a hundred years after Hieun Tsang crossed the mountains into India to find his truth.

When I read this poem first, my mind turned to the question the monk did not ask – why does one want to be a mountain dweller? Jiaoran might have been content to live by his lake, but mountain dwellers seem to be bound by a covenant to seek their truth in the mountains. And for those of us bound to social commitments of city dwelling, a taste of the mountain air on certain weekends fuels our dream of a retirement home in the hills. Some day.

In Kodagu for one such weekend, I had carried work with me, so the prospect of walking up and down forest trails with binoculars looked bleak. So there I was, tending to emails, on a lush open terrace, face to the breeze, ears alert to rare whistles and songs, taking short breaks to pace up and down, eyes peeled for unusual sights. A pair of orioles, some drongos – hard to say who was mimicking who – a lone barbet, cheery sunbirds, familiar faces all. A woodpecker cackled away to the distance, preferring to be heard than seen.
A nuthatch crept up the nearest tree and its quick upward glide caught my eye. It was this tiny bird that led me to the quiet, reclusive mountain-dweller.

Sitting on that tree, a couple of feet away from the nuthatch now, was a stocky little bird, blue and orange in equal measure, stunning once you spotted it, but masked and cloaked up to invisibility, in more than one sense.

Photo title: The Blue-capped Rock Thrush

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Photo Credits: Gowri Subramanya

The Blue-capped Rock Thrush carries the scientific name Monticola (mountain-dweller) and lives by it. Whether it’s the hills of Kashmir, Kalimpong or Kodagu, this Jiaoran-defying bird prefers the mountains of India over any other paradise on earth. More flycatcher than thrush, mistaken to be so by the stocky build and stout beak, the Blue-capped Rock Thrush moves stealthily, hides in mixed flocks and watches warily from the shadows. Like it was doing now.

I had this sense that I was being watched for longer than I knew. And our eyes had met.

The bird hopped away, so quietly that I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t fixed my eyes on it, to another branch, a little higher. Nervous. But still watching. Still keeping me in its line of sight.

Would it be too rude to ask a question or two?

Would it be too awkward not to?

What drives you, oh mountain dweller, to spend your nesting summers in the lofty slopes of the Himalayas and warm yourselves in the humid Western Ghats in the winter, only stopping at scattered hills on your journeys between?

What keeps you married to the mountains?

The bird stared back with a question. “What holds you there, world-dweller?”, he seemed to ask.

I was to ask both questions to myself because this was the way to my own truth.

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Gowri Subramanya

Gowri Subramanya is an editor and learning consultant based in Bengaluru, India. Writing and photography are her chosen tools of creative expression and the wilderness is her muse. A keen observer of the interaction between nature and culture, she loves to explore the history as well as the natural history of new places during her travels. With a soft spot for bird songs and a weakness for flowers, she indulges in a healthy dose of tree gazing every morning.

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Mountain Dweller: The Blue-capped Rock Thrush

Gowri Subramanya

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