The Wonder of Birds*

Not sure of a better way to celebrate mum in spirit, than by getting up as the reclined silver cup of a moon is just slipping out of the trees to climb the brightening sky, to give thanks to God for beauty and domestics, and do something personal and creative before my family wakes up.

The first bird this morning was Finn, who crowed, “Errh. Errrrh!” for his 4:45 warm milk snack. Then, as I lay in bed debating sleep over personal time at the break of day (my body said sleep, my mind said “mornings this beautiful with no sandpaper eyelids are a gift. Don’t refuse.”)… the next bird to wake up was the muezzin a couple areas over. The mosque is just the right distance away: if I listen in the morning, I can hear call to prayer; if I’m sleeping, it doesn’t wake me up.

And then roosters--stewbird or make-new-bird birds.

And then songbirds. I never ever get tired of them. Chirps, twitters, calls, whistles, chatters, slide-whistle sloops, trills, pops and croaks, purrs and hoots. The insects have quieted down now that we’re through the rainy season, but the birds, gratefully, have not.

You know, all you Northern Hemisphere types, that this half of us down here is not rejoicing over returning signs of spring and lengthening days. Night is coming noticeably earlier where we are, the sun is coming in the windows at new, oblique angles. Those trees that do are dropping faded leaves. As our guard John says, “Now is the time of year when we are rushing to the coldest months.”

It’s so fun to have a reason to wear socks in the morning and make rice milk Rooibos chai (from a powder mix I bought in South Africa—they don’t make that sort of thing here).

A List to Keep Things Organised:

1.Happy birthday, Mum. I wrote this back on Your Day a couple weeks ago when you turned SIXTY FIVE. oxox.

2.The ingredients on the (now-empty) instant rice-milk chai bottle from Cape Town: organic rice milk powder, Rooibos tea, black pepper, cardamon, ginger, cloves, curry leaves. In that order. And Laura, I add sugar fyi.

3.If you’re at all into birds, you should check out these the collections of these two photographers: Layzeboy and Dave Appleton.

4.Mental note: remember how great this was on the big screen? Joh: watch this again when you get back to the US.

5.The dazzling loveliness of even the most common yard birds is almost as wonderful as their names: firefinch, blue waxbill, whitefaced whistling duck, blue-eared starling, sacred ibis, masked weaver, black-bellied bustard, freckled nightjar, ruddy turnstone, little bee-eater, honeyguide, tinkerbird, and of course the lizard buzzard .

6.Andy’s twittering. If you look on the right side of our blog, you’ll notice his updates as he twitters throughout the day. It's his solution for trying to find a way to write about his patients and experiences as a physician here in a way that doesn't overwhelm the reader or the writer (120 characters max!). I suspect you’ll be as interested as I am to find out what he actually does in clinic for eight hours every day. Feel free to chatter back about his twitter. And if there’s something you’re wondering, ask away. I’m probably wondering the same thing.

7. If I had to give Andy's Twitter a bird name from my Zambian safari list, it might be something like dark-capped bulbul. Or African stonechat. I suppose after a few days in Zanzibar he might be a sunbird--scarlet chested or violet-backed, though not if I know Andy and his sunscreen habit. No, much more likely to remain a white-rumped swift or simply a red-necked spurfowl. It'll be several years before he's anything close to wattled starling, unless this unexpectedly becomes a tropical boubou.

Folks, it's 11:30pm my time, and as much fun as I'm having cracking myself up, as you can see if I don't stop acting like a white-faced scops owl and and put my bird list away for the night, I'll be a red-faced mousebird by morning rather than my usual laughing dove personality.

Good night(jar)!



*Ms. Melin, I have you to thank for introducing me to the band I've ripped this title from.