I always thought that I wanted a bird as a pet. I imagined bonding with it, feeding it, and even raising it from the time that it hatched. There’s something poetic about the image of a small life in your hands, depending on you. Something innocent. Something beautiful.
Today, in one of the empty houses we own, I found a nest. Inside were three baby nightingales.
They had no feathers. Their eyes hadn’t opened. Their bodies looked soft and bare, unfinished. They lie over each other silently in a small nest. And when I looked at them, I didn’t feel what I expected.
I felt disgusted.
They didn’t look cute. They looked strange. Raw. Like moving pieces of meat. I’m a vegetarian and an animal-lover, but this wasn’t about food. This was a discomfort that felt instinctive.
Still, the medical student in me reminded me that this is life, no matter how it looks.
I placed some food and water nearby, hoping that the mother bird would use it. After a while, I came back. The baby birds were still lie motionless. They were breathing, but barely, like their lives hung by a thread.
And then their mother came, and the nest sprang to life.
The chicks, who had been limp, barely alive, erupted into motion like someone had flipped an invisible switch. Their necks snapped upward, beaks flaring open and shut with mechanical precision. It was as if tiny engines were implanted inside them — thrumming, vibrating, and stuttering with purpose. They weren’t begging. They were demanding. This wasn’t soft, chirpy hunger; this was primal compulsion, urgency in its purest, ugliest form.
Their bodies trembled with such speed that they looked unnatural, like matter losing its shape under pressure. Their mouths opened so widely so quickly that I wondered if they even knew where the movement came from. Life didn’t just return to them; it overtook them, hijacked them. Their bodies became vessels of need.
It was unsettling.
And I realized then that maybe what disturbed me wasn’t the chicks. It was what they represented.
There was no dignity in the way that they moved. No innocence. No grace. Just hunger. Raw, loud, unembarrassed hunger. I’ve always valued restraint — a sense of quiet nobility in human behavior, something that rises above need. But this? This was need, stripped of all illusion and pretense Just pure, screaming survival.
Seeing those chicks reminded me of something that we often like to forget: We’re also animals. We tell ourselves that we’re superior to all other animals because we build cities, invent laws, wear tailored clothes, and eat gourmet meals. But deep down, beneath the scaffolding of culture, we’re still creatures of instinct.
If someone stripped us of our comforts, threw us into the wild, and removed all semblance of stability and structure, we too would thrash, jerk, and cry out for food with raw desperation.
We haven’t evolved beyond hunger. We’ve just dressed it up.
No matter how far we rise — how many skyscrapers we build, how many philosophies we quote — we remain primitive animals. Civilization isn’t immunity; it’s only a protective layer. And sometimes when the right crack appears, the ancient machinery underneath is ready to scream itself awake.
Maybe that’s what I struggled with the most.
It wasn’t the birds or their bodies. I couldn’t conceptualize the reminder that life isn’t always noble or unrestrained.
And still, despite my discomfort, I left food and water nearby for the birds. Not because I liked them or admired them, but because they’re still living creatures.
And life, even when it offends your senses, deserves care.
Featured image via Vince Fleming on Unsplash
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