It’s below zero and snowing. That shouldn’t stop a two-fisted birdwatcher from tramping around the woods.
But combine it with the biggest football game ever, and this will be a stay-at-home Sunday.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be bird sightings.
Just when I think that avifauna will not figure into my day, I find a folded NY Times travel section at my door.
It was put there by my friend, Avi. This guy’s name is not short for “avian” or anything relating to birds. The newspaper story is about birds of India, the place of Avi’s birth.
Looking at photos on the crinkled page, I could sense jungle humidity, smell rivers; imagine the sounds of insects and unknown birds.
The smoky red sun is near. So are cobras, jackals, elephants and birds created by Picasso—a guy who was not Indian, but who took liberties with the way we see things.
A Paradise Flycatcher looks like he’s been assembled with the parts of four other birds. There are Malabar Whistling Thrushes, White-throated Kingfishers, small Jungle Owlets (not baby owls, this is the name of the owl species) and the tallest flying bird in the world, the Sarus Crane. Dr. Seuss helped Picasso with that one.
The biggest crane made me stop thinking about the biggest football game ever—at least for a few minutes. And I felt uncharacteristically bird-illiterate.
I’ve seen birds in Europe and Russia, the Pacific, Caribbean and Alaska. I know what it’s like to visit another guy’s field guide. So what caused this feeling of avian illiteracy? India!
There are 1,200 species there, compared to our 900. And most are exotic. There are two ways to deal with this.
One, we say, “weird!” and forget about it, comfortable with our daily Red-tailed Hawks, White-breasted Nuthatches and Great Blue Herons. The red, white and blue.
Or, two, we say: Let’s go to India. A whole different ball game of avifauna awaits in the Western Ghats…the jungles and shorelines of Goa where I’ve heard there are lions. And in the Annamalai Hills where there are Hornbills.
Not sure I’m up for it, but if I ever do go bird watching in India, I’ll ask Avi to come along for the ride. He’s got the right name for it.
Interesting and fun reading. I can recite most of Rudyard Kipling‘s poem ‘Gunga Din’, but thats about the depth of my knowledge of India. ‘Birds of India’ probably won’t be on my gotta read list. An aquaintance of mine just got back from that “sunny clime”. They told me the locals can apparently drink from the Ganges. Our western digestive tract has a wee bit of a trouble in that area.
Go to India!!! You’ve been to so many other places, why not go there? 🙂 Then I can live vicariously, as I do not have money to travel.
I read your blog with great interest. I am sure one of these days we will get a chance to visit India together. I have been to two of the bird sanctuaries there: one in the North near Agra (in a small town called Bharatpur) and the other in the South near Bangalore. One of my early memories was that most migratory birds appeared to be “foreign” … Now that I have been traveling around the world and across continents, one thing I can conclude that birds are the true citizens of the world. They do not need visas or passports, and receive a warm welcome in all bird sanctuaries, except in places where they shoot them!
Avi(an)