by Michael Pettit
There are moments of wonder. Spot them.
It was late. I was too cold and too spent to barter with midnight. Pointlessness was at my throat. The only parking bay was next to a row of black wheelie bins. As I pulled in, I caught white wings flapping against the dark – a bird, no, not a bird: a book, a book on top of a bin lid, its pages in flustered argument with the wind. I was longing to be indoors, but I hesitated. Why hadn’t it been chucked in with the other rubbish? I got out and picked it up: A beginners guide to OUR BIRDS. There was a moment of wonder at this serendipitous connection. The thin paperback was bound with staples. I opened it. On a blank page, in a neat, childlike hand:
For Colin,
Love Margie
* * *
I made coffee and paged through. As someone unable to distinguish a book from a bird, I felt it might offer help.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK prepared the beginner (that would be me): At first glance there might seem to be a great many numbers in this book. I’d missed this. I glanced again. It was true: numbers were many.
A tape recorder is very helpful – and, it added brightly – You will always be able to find someone to identify the calls you have recorded. Really? I did a snap survey of my friends’ assorted skills and drew a blank, their knowledge of birds being more or less limited to boiling an egg.
A fledgling, eager to explore, I flipped ahead. It was clear Margie’s gift had been thumbed through many times. The layout was from another era. I flipped back to check the publication date: 1978. Alongside a photograph of each species was a block of facts: some birds look rather like little aeroplanes / one of the first to arrive at a carcass / when sleeping they hang upside down. Okey-dokey. The Blue Crane is exclusively OURS. It’s South Africa’s national bird; that I did know. I wondered if this accounted for its rather swollen looking head. The entry didn’t say.
A certain bird calls zzip-zzip-zzip over and over again. Other sounds to listen for: tree-ree-ree, hoop-hoop, and doo-doodle. Also (translated from the Zulu): My mother is dead! My father is dead! All my relatives are dead! OH, oh, oh, oh; and – a little less stand-out perhaps – cheep-cheep. Number 413 just utters harsh screams. The generosity of detail continued: When in flight they make a mewing call like a kitten / there is always a busy swizzling chatter.
One bird’s bio characterised it as a nuisance in orchards … and also as cheerful. The temperament of the next bird, 707, was not specified. Phlegmatic? Sanguine? We’re not told. Maybe, it too has a happy disposition in tandem with its darker side: a habit of impaling its prey of insects and frogs and small birds on barbed wire fences or thorns to keep a well-stocked larder. Gosh, I thought. And quite tricky to impale an insect, surely? I tried to visualise a bee on a barb. The mind boggles.
One poor creature, a duck, was dealt with in a curt, perfunctory note: most common … unmistakable. (Don’t count on it.)
The longest entry – HAMERKOP – highlighted the wisdom it uses in nest building … using sticks, bits of newspapers, odds and ends, and all sorts of rubbish. The wisdom goes on for about six months – which is so unlike the pigeons that check into the timeshare on my balcony. The guy just chucks a few stray twigs at the spot, hit-or-miss, and that’s it sweetheart, take it or leave it. And the attitude! It’s like, “What?”
Ten fresh watercolours, reproduced large, showed birds in their natural habitats. The one on the cover depicted a pair of OUR long-legged blue cranes in a sunny open field, tail feathers trailing to the ground. They had long, pliant necks and, yes, rather swollen heads. The husband had his beak open and, if I’m not mistaken, appeared to be smiling. Is that possible? Anyway, the vision of this unspoiled, lost Eden lay limpid on the page, delicately embellished with the circular stain of a wine glass.
A FOREWORD endorsed bird and book. Below it, a signature spanning the entire width of the page endorsed the endorsement. Bird-spotting, the foreword promised, will make the whole family’s … long car journeys … much more fun. So that’s what was missing. If only we’d known.
Did you know a bird has three eyelids?
There was an INDEX (I was ever so sorry not to find Swan. Not one of OURS, obviously. No Budgies either.) At the top of the CHECKLIST was a tip: if you use a soft pencil, you will be able to rub out the ticks later. (Colin had rubbed his out.)
A teeny font listed the SPONSORS, all five hundred of them – Prof. & Mrs C W Abbott running through to Dr Nolly Zaloumis – each, I imagine, keen to tick off and then rub out a Boubou, Stone Chat or Chinspot Batis. There was sound practical advice regarding binoculars: adjust and focus them. Don’t sit for ages squinting … with one eye shut and wondering why you can’t see anything!
It was clear that the lively and informative handbook had been put together with care, expertise, and some degree of evangelical zeal. Its shining mission to preach and propagate Bird-Joy infused every page. The preacher, Jo Oliver, was as spot-worthy as the bird with only two toes, his voice so distinct he could have been sitting beside me with his own mug of coffee (more likely, a well-dented thermos flask), bubbly, sunburned, and binoculared.
The book had been a gift. I thought of how hard it is to throw out any gift anyone has ever given me. It matters not that the giver would never know, nor how horrid, daft, or space-guzzling the item may be – the thing stays. Redundant gadgets, goo in ribboned jars, ornaments that hurt … Get rid of them? I couldn’t take the guilt.
Did gift-guilt play a part in Colin’s decision not to dump Margie’s book in the bin but to leave it on the lid instead?
Where, luminous and human in the night, it called to me, and took flight.
While the rest of the rubbish – bits of histories, jettisoned stories, scraps of lives – decaying in the dark, waited to be wheeled away.
I sipped my coffee and thought of Colin and Margie and Jo and the frailty of it all, the radiance of passion, and the suddenness of beauty.
Enjoy your birdwatching – LOOK and LISTEN! A whole new world is waiting to be discovered.
Not to mention busy swizzling chatter.
Cherish difference.
Be a beginner. Always.
Use wisdom and all sorts of rubbish to build your nest.
There are moments of wonder. Spot them.
Michael Pettit is a South African artist – a painter. His short stories and poems have appeared in The Barcelona Review, The Bookends Review, Meniscus and in various anthologies: WestWord Prize (3rd Prize), Parracombe Prize, Bournemouth Writing Festival Competition, MTP Short Story Competition (Highly Commended), Hammond House Prize (Editor’s International Choice award, and also 1st Prize for song lyrics).
