DIFFERENT STROKES: Such mixed families even look pleasant and cute. Sights like this- of a mother hen looking after a brood of ducklings, is not rare in rural Sikkim even though they might draw attention in the more urban setting like Gangtok where the above photograph was taken. This kind of duck, it appears, is not a very caring parent, so while it lays eggs, it does not have the patience to hatch them. Now, duck eggs take around 29 days to hatch, so people with such ducks need to have a mother hen around to take care of the roost and then slip in these eggs slightly in advance into the mother hen’s roost. Hens hatch eggs in 21 to 22 days. She will hatch the duck eggs along with her own. Sometimes, she is left to hatch only duck eggs. They make an interesting family for a while, the ducklings with their webbed feet instinctively running to water, slush and earthworms, even as the mother digs up feed and scrapes and scratches around.

CUTE? Gangtokians are not used to simians among them. There was a period more than a decade back when a solitary langoor had stumbled into town and would ride on jeep bonnets and sometimes even pillion on two-wheelers. But that was solitary animal and even he passed away within months of being here. The HRD office at Tashiling always had a few monkeys prancing about, but the troop has grown substantially now and its beat extends to Hurhurey Dara down at Namnang. The HRD office already has grills and nets installed on its windows to keep the monkeys at bay but the troop turns mischievous often. No ‘serious incident’ has been reported yet, hence now would be the right time for whatever is the responsible agency to take some proactive initiative and work out an arrangement by which the presence of the troop of monkeys does not create a human-wildlife conflict. Once a conflict occurs, inhuman solutions can be expected. It will be in everyone’s interest if the issue is handled before it becomes a problem…