He peered through the binoculars. These were special night vision devices, state of the art ones. Crouched atop the urban concrete jungle, his muscles were complaining like a child in front of a candy store at the Universal studios. But he had long learned to focus on only that which was important. He could lie or sit still for hours, observing his subject of interest. His sniper lay ready next to him.
He lay on his tummy, his mass of brown curls, tumbling all over his head. A notebook lay open in front with pencil sketches and notes scribbled in hurry. He must have been all of eleven then. Since early morning he had remained immobile as he stumbled across a nest. Few birds nested on the ground. Here was one with beautiful turquoise blue eggs, gleaming like jewels. So perfectly camouflaged, he nearly missed it. He thumbed through his guide and realised it was the nest of a black bird. Quietly he moved back as he deftly took down notes, made the sketches. This was momentous in his life as a birder.
In his youth he was lucky to have spotted and watched numerous birds, their eggs, chicks and nests. Listening to bird songs he could identify the birds and rattle out all details. It was quite impressive for his friends, who were few and far between. Once he also dared to observe a nest of scorpions. It happened quite accidentally of course, but the sight of Mama Scorpion with her back laden with babies was- adorable, he thought. (Rolling my eyes emoji, of course Google was unheard of back then as were emojis.)
Coming back to the present, he watched intently again this time making notes in his mind. There were at least 5 of them. All taking turns around the roof top. Definitely something there. Unlike other colleagues, who had trained once they grew up and resorted to something to keep them company, during the long hours of monotonous observations, he didn’t need any crutches. He had a head start.
Looking to the east, he realised daybreak was a short while away. He needed to take action. He looked around at all protuberances. His night vision made him quite adept. In case he had them in his childhood… He shoved the stray thought aside.
Just as the sun rose in the east, a beauty to behold in its crimson and golden attire, bathing the firmament a baby pink, he spotted it. Ah, the tell-tale signs of a murderous nest was visible under the ledge. Now to wait when most of the 5 were up there.
His prayers were answered, he picked up his sniper, aimed and shot. Bulls eye! The chief target, Osama-bin- Baden was allergic to hornet venom, and he had the Asian giant hornet to deal with, hundreds of them.
Quite a sting operation it turned out to be!
Picture courtesy : By Lokilech – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2202338
