For decades, Chand Mian, 65, was a tailor at Kuthipara village in Murshidabad’s Nowda. Now, he has a new job — that of a parrot vigilante.

“From morning to night, I sit on my verandah and look at the giant tree from across my home that is home to hundreds of parrots’ nests,” smiled Chand, pointing to a flight of birds as they return to the branches of the Indian siris tree.

He said he got attached to the tree and the birds when he moved to the area in 2000, but it became a full-time job ever since he retired as a tailor some years ago.

“Till a few years ago, I was a busy man, for as a tailor I had to keep up with the tastes of the youth,” he said. “But when my fourth son was old enough to join his brothers in Kerala as a mason, I retired. Then I started my new job.”

“Call it a job or hobby but it is fulfilling and extremely necessary,” he said.

“There have been several incidents, especially at night time, of poachers coming with nets with the intent of capturing these birds. But for as long as I have been here, I have thwarted every one of these attempts,” Chand added, pointing to net fragments hanging from some of the branches higher up.

The parrots are coveted by poachers who sell them to buyers willing to flout the law to keep the colourful species caged at home, he said.

“But it is illegal,” said Chand. “Aside from the law, I believe the birds have the right to live freely in this tree that is their home. It was their domicile in the area for several decades before it became a proper human settlement.”

Chand keeps in touch with the local police station but says his first recourse is always personal action.

“I have chased these goons, often at night, several times. Only if things get out of hand do I call the police, but that has not been required too often,” he said, adding that he “nonetheless wants the police to stay alert about the parrot poachers”.

A police officer in Nowda appreciated Chand’s effort to protect the birds.

“It is difficult for cops alone to protect the birds from poachers. It is to Chand Mian’s credit that poachers don’t dare approach that tree. If Chand cannot handle the poachers, he informs us instantly and we do our bit,” the police officer said.

Residents know him colloquially as the “parrot guardian”. They credit Chand for the sight of hundreds of birds coming back to the tree every evening around 5pm “like clockwork”.

There are several hundred nestlings in the tree.

“These birds are our neighbours, so we should protect them,” said Chand’s neighbour Rasib Sheikh. “But we don’t feed the birds. We leave nature’s processes to itself.”