An Ordinary Morning Beneath a Banyan
A quiet stop beside an old tree in Kelshi revealed a world that had always been there, hidden in plain sight.
I had finished my morning walk and was returning home through Bapu Aali, the narrow route that leads from the beach towards Kelshi village. Just after the suru forest, I stopped beneath an old banyan tree.
When the cyclone swept through Kelshi in June 2020, many familiar trees were uprooted and much of the suru forest near the beach disappeared. This banyan also lost several of its great branches, but it remained standing.
Looking at it again, I began wondering what the storm must have meant for all the lives that depended on the tree. How many nests, insects and small shelters had been lost with those branches? How much life had survived, and how much had returned?
That thought made me stay and look more carefully.
The banyan was still broad and imposing. Its branches stretched over the path, aerial roots hung from the canopy and several thick roots had already reached the ground and become supporting columns.
At first, I saw only the whole tree.
Then I began noticing what was happening within it.
The First Signs of Movement
Movement first caught my attention near the trunk.
Ants were travelling across the uneven bark. Some followed narrow trails along the folds of the trunk, while others disappeared into cracks and emerged again farther above.
From where I stood, the bark appeared rough but motionless. At their scale, however, it was an enormous landscape of ridges, hollows, passages and sheltered spaces.
A trail divided around an obstruction and joined again beyond it. Individual ants briefly touched one another before continuing in opposite directions. Some moved upwards towards the branches; others returned towards the base of the tree.
The trunk was not merely holding the banyan upright. It had become a route through which many smaller lives moved.
Once I had noticed the ants, other details became easier to see: tiny insects crossing leaves, a small spider waiting against the bark and occasional movement within crevices that looked empty from a distance.
Nothing was happening dramatically. Almost everything was small, quiet and easily overlooked.
Looking into the Canopy
A bird call shifted my attention upwards.
Somewhere inside the canopy, a barbet was calling. The voice carried clearly, although the bird remained hidden among the leaves.
A Brown-headed Barbet appeared briefly before moving deeper into the foliage. A Coppersmith Barbet called from another part of the tree, its repeated notes much easier to locate than the bird itself.
Yellow-footed Green Pigeons moved quietly through the upper branches. Their green plumage blended so closely with the leaves that they seemed to appear only when they shifted position.
Red-whiskered Bulbuls were more restless. They moved between branches, pausing briefly before crossing to another part of the canopy. Small groups of sparrows stayed nearer the open edges of the tree.
An iora searched through leaves and fine twigs, inspecting one small area before moving to the next. Minivets passed through the canopy, adding flashes of colour whenever sunlight reached them through an opening.
Sunbirds also moved through the outer foliage. They did not remain for long. One appeared between the leaves, changed its perch several times and then vanished beyond the tree.
The banyan did not look crowded. The birds occupied different heights, different branches and different kinds of space. Some stayed concealed among dense leaves. Others used exposed perches. A few moved constantly, while others remained almost invisible.
What looked like one canopy from below was, to the birds, a complex landscape of pathways, resting places and sheltered corners.
The Same Tree, Seen Differently
Every animal seemed to be using the banyan in its own way.
The barbets moved within the thicker canopy. Green pigeons remained quiet among the leaves. Ioras searched the smaller branches. Bulbuls moved quickly between open and concealed spaces.
A drongo used a more exposed perch.
From there, it could watch the air around the tree. While many birds searched among leaves and branches, the drongo appeared to be watching for insects moving through the open space.
Jungle Crows arrived with an entirely different presence. Their size, voices and confidence made them difficult to ignore. Smaller birds continued moving through the tree, but the crows seemed to occupy whatever branch they chose.
It occurred to me that every visitor was looking at the same tree, yet none of them was experiencing the same place.
Roads Above the Ground
Palm squirrels moved through the larger branches.
They travelled quickly when crossing open sections, then stopped suddenly and remained still. One disappeared behind the trunk and reappeared on a branch farther above.
A branch that seemed isolated from the ground was connected to several others. To the squirrels, the canopy formed a continuous network.
The thick horizontal limbs were roads. Smaller branches provided access to leaves and the outer crown. The trunk connected different levels of the tree, while aerial roots offered additional routes towards the ground.
Even after a squirrel vanished into the foliage, trembling leaves continued to reveal its progress.
At times I could see movement without seeing the animal responsible for it. A leaf shook. A twig bent. Something crossed behind a branch. The banyan repeatedly announced lives that remained hidden from view.
Life in the Air Around the Tree
Not all activity was taking place on the banyan itself.
Honey bees and wasps moved through the air around the leaves and branches. Some remained visible only for a moment before disappearing into the canopy. Others circled a small area repeatedly, landed briefly and took off again.
There appeared to be more than one kind of bee and wasp using the space around the tree. Their sizes, flight patterns and behaviour were different, although many passed too quickly for close identification.
The air surrounding the canopy was therefore another habitat.
For a drongo, it was a hunting area. For bees and wasps, it contained routes between leaves, branches and other nearby plants. For smaller insects, it was a space that had to be crossed while avoiding birds, spiders and other predators.
A tree occupies more than the ground beneath its branches. Its influence extends into the volume of air around it.
Connections That Are Easy to Miss
At first, the birds, squirrels, ants, bees and wasps appeared to be separate observations.
But their activities were connected by the tree.
Leaves supported small insects. Those insects attracted birds and spiders. Cracks in the bark provided shelter and pathways for ants and other invertebrates. Broad branches allowed squirrels to move above the ground. Dense foliage gave birds places to hide and rest.
Where branches had aged or broken, cavities and rough surfaces created additional shelter. Dry fragments falling from above became part of the material collecting beneath the tree.
No animal needed the whole banyan.
A spider might spend its day within a tiny patch of bark. An ant trail might occupy one narrow route. A drongo might need only a single exposed perch. A squirrel might use the tree mainly as a bridge between two areas.
Together, however, these separate lives filled almost every part of the banyan.
A Tree That Continues to Build Itself
The most striking part of the banyan was the way its branches and roots seemed to merge into one another.
Some aerial roots still hung freely from above. Others had already reached the earth. Over time, these had thickened and become additional supports for the spreading branches.
It was no longer easy to decide where the original trunk ended and the newer columns began.
The banyan was slowly creating its own architecture.
Every additional root introduced another vertical surface. Gaps formed between roots. Cavities appeared where trunks and branches joined. Leaves and dry material collected around their bases.
These structures gave animals more routes, more shelter and more places in which to remain unseen.
What appeared from the path to be one massive tree was actually a collection of connected spaces—some open to sunlight, others shaded and hidden deep within the roots.
Nothing Unusual Happened
There was no rare sighting that morning.
No predator rushed through the canopy. No dramatic struggle took place on the trunk. The birds were species commonly seen around the Konkan, and the palm squirrels were going about an ordinary morning.
Yet the longer I remained there, the less ordinary the tree appeared.
Every time I followed one movement, I became aware of another. While watching a barbet, I missed a squirrel crossing a branch. While following the squirrel, I heard an iora elsewhere in the canopy. When I looked back towards the trunk, the ants were still travelling along their route.
It was impossible to watch everything at once.
The banyan contained many simultaneous stories, most of them continuing beyond the limits of my attention.
It had probably been just as active before I stopped. It would remain active after I left.
Seeing the Tree Again
When I had first paused beside it, I was thinking about the branches it had lost and the lives the cyclone might have displaced.
By the time I continued towards the village, I was thinking instead about everything that was still there.
The banyan was a place of shade, but it was also a network of roads for squirrels and ants. Its canopy offered concealment, resting places and feeding opportunities for birds. Its bark held crevices for smaller creatures. The air around its branches was crossed by bees, wasps and hunting birds.
Each inhabitant occupied only a small part of the tree, but together they transformed it into a living landscape.
The storm had altered the banyan, but it had not emptied it of life. Birds had returned to its branches. Squirrels still used its limbs as pathways. Ants continued across its bark, and insects moved through the air around its leaves.
Life had not returned as a dramatic event. It had continued quietly, through countless small movements taking place at the same time.
We often notice a tree by its size, its age or the shade it gives us. We rarely notice all the lives sharing it at the same moment.
The banyan had been carrying those lives before I stopped beside it.
What changed that morning was the way I looked at it.
About Parag Kokane
Parag Kokane is an observer of nature whose work combines field observation, natural history, wildlife photography and writing. Through Wildscapes, he explores the forests, freshwater ecosystems and everyday wildlife of the Western Ghats, sharing stories that encourage readers to look more closely at the natural world around them.
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