AN UNFORGETABLE MISTAKE FROM THE PAST

It is expected that when a female white-rumped shama is introduced to a male who is not ready to breed, he may attack her violently. I would very much want to share a very unpleasant experience that I had sometime ago, when a female was introduced to an unready male. On that occasion, the male did not attack the female violently but had just did enough to prevent her from having access to the food and water. I had not realised this in time, thinking that all is well. Since there appeared to be no indication that the female will come to any serious physical harm, I had left the pair together. As a result of this carelessness in observing the pair during the introduction, the female died 3 days later, not from physical injuries but from starvation. Sometimes it is hard to forget a mistake, no matter how many ways I looked at it afterwards. Perhaps, by sharing this mistake, I will have to bear with the disgusts of the more experienced but I hope that it could also be of some use to others who are less experienced.