After reading Sir Christopher Ondaatje’s story, ‘The Horrible Scream in the Dead of Night’ (The Sunday Times, September 21), I thought of writing about my own experience of the devil bird.
Our family lived on a hill in Kandy, from where we could see the Bogambara Grounds, a part of Hantana Estate, and in the distance the Good Shepherd Convent, where I was a student. In the ’30s and early ’40s, our neighbourhood was a jungle, with tall grass, a few mango trees and a large kapok tree. At night we could hear jackals howling. But what scared us most was the hoot of the devil birds. A pair of devil birds would perch on the kapok tree, and one bird would hoot and the other would follow a few seconds later.
My dad would go out, accompanied by my mum, and throw firebrands at the birds. Sometimes he would have to repeatedly throw firebrands before the birds would fly away.
These birds are about 16 inches in length, from head to tail. They have short tails and are brown in colour, as seen by torchlight.
I have not heard the hoot of the devil bird for more than 65 years. These birds disappeared when the jungle was cleared.
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