Photography | Text: Shun Yao
It lies quietly in its nest. It is a tall bamboo forest. It chooses one of the dead bamboo poles and pecks at the bottom of the bamboo pole into a small round hole, which is the door of its nest. Think of this white-browed brown woodpecker, which is the smallest of the woodpeckers. With its beak, how much effort should it take to chisel this dried bamboo. In Po Natun, Longgang, Guangxi, this white-browed brown woodpecker has repaired the nest with his partner, and the hardships of pecking the hole are like the wind blowing softly, and in the blink of an eye, there is no trace. The hard work formed into a crystal of love, and now it lies safely in the nest, incubating its offspring with its own body temperature. It is a female bird. It and the lover change shifts on duty. They look almost the same. If not carefully compared, the brown of its forehead and the golden yellow of its lover are hardly different.
Perhaps such an incubation process is the test of its life. The unbearable lightness of life, yes, that seemingly idle demeanor, due to the constraints of responsibility, it can only turn its love and time into body temperature, warming four lives that cannot communicate with it yet. Until they break out of their shells. The nest was warm, but it was barely seen in the sky, and its light wings were idle. Every day, it is spent in such a boring form. Hungry, thirsty, it wants to be in the wild, it can do whatever it wants. But not now, it has to wait patiently for its lover to come back and change it. At such a time, what it can do is to close its eyes and recuperate, and wander the emerald green bamboo forest and mountains. Spring blossoms, that's the season when they fall in love. This nest was chosen by the two of them together on an early spring day, that sunny morning. Bamboo poles are hard, but they are not afraid. They spent about a week with humans, repeatedly chiseling on bamboo poles rain or shine, and the sound of their nests echoed throughout the bamboo forest. The sound spread far with the spring breeze and the soft chant of the bamboo forest, as if announcing the coming of several new lives. Later, also on a sunny morning, the bamboo poles were pecked through, and they carefully rounded the irregular hole, and after it and its lover drilled into the hole for the first time, determined the space and orientation in it, they began to pad the soft grass or feathers from the four fields into the bottom of the hole. Everything is ready, in fact, it is the arrival of its production date. Almost before it could take a good rest, it lay on the soft bed and laid its first egg.
Someone's coming. It heard footsteps. It panicked a little, sticking its head out of the hole, its eyes full of vigilant light. In fact, passers-by did not find it. But it was really scared and rushed out of the hole...
The lens zooms in on the world. The details of our usual coarse brushing around life are re-perceived by us. The white-browed brown woodpecker I saw in the camouflage shed through the Canon 800 head, when it rushed out of the hole, brought out a soft grass in the nest. Like a shadow, it disappeared into the bamboo forest. But it didn't go far. Just silently hiding in the bamboo forest not far away, its small and dexterous, it is difficult to find. At this time, it seems to be indifferent, but its heart is anxious and anxious. It is worried about the life that is about to come out of its shell. If there is no warmth, the transformation of life will end. Soon, it flew back and re-burrowed into the hole.
This kind of bird watching seems to be a reliving of the grace of nurturing. An extension of the race, chained with selfless love. The new birth of every life is always premised on the effort and consumption of other lives. Therefore, we should pay tribute to those who sacrifice themselves in exchange for another life and a new life!