01.07.10 kulturnatib

IYBB

This year has been declared by the United Nations to be the International Year of Biodiversity or IYB.

Even before this declaration or before I learned about it, I had already made my own somewhat related declaration or resolution that at that time didn't have any special designation to it.

Now, taking the cue from the UN, my resolution is called IYB with an added B; IYBB for International Year of the Backyard Bird.

While I have had my share of more than just passing interest in birds – among others, when I was producing a magazine-format TV program I made it a point to include an episode on the birds in the Tabunan Forest, the last remaining patch of forest in Cebu and another one on the Olanggo Bird Sanctuary – it was two recent bird incidents that led to this resolution.

The first, though chronologically this came later, is not an actual bird incident. It is a virtual one, though not of the cyber kind.

At the entrance of the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library is a much smaller library I try to avoid, like a recovering alcoholic avoiding a bar. The books here are for sale for usually cheaper than your usual bottle, pint, glass or shot in a bar.

Here I found, “Songbird Journeys : Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds.” As my usual practice is with books whose covers I find arresting – this one is with a strong Audobonesque flavor – I started flipping the pages randomly to see if the content is as captivating.

I flipped to page 28: “They streamed just feet away but made no attempts to approach or land . . . I could have caught dozens, perhaps, hundreds with a butterfly net . . . the effect was exactly like standing on a rock in the middle of a swiftly flowing river . . . the river of birds continued to flow hour after hour . . . .”

This was a description of birder John Arvin on an off-shore oil drilling platform off the Louisiana coast. He was part of the project to monitor bird migration across the Gulf of Mexico where he was lucky enough to witness a rare ornithological spectacle and to be among the few eye witnesses of the magnitude of this migration that had been previously contested but then undeniably confirmed with the use of radar.

From this book I've learned many things. Among them, that Henry David Thoreau wasn't just an iconoclastic radical but was also a passionate birder and that Walden Pond wasn't just an experiment with economic and political self-sufficiency but an ornithological observatory as well.

More importantly, it confirmed – which ties in to the other and earlier bird incident – that birds migrate at night.

Walking home one early evening, sometime in mid-November, I heard the familiar squaking of geese. I looked up. But, with the sun just a thin orange line over the horizon, I could't see anything. Still the squaking continued and becoming louder.

Then, there they were. A graciously undulating and flapping ribbon. Just a tiny strand of that carpet of the great winter bird migration. I watched until they were swallowed by the cooling, soon to be icy sky.

Still there are the resident birds. The backyard birds. They will test my resolve; To watch, appreciate, learn.