rare birds

Photo taken by JRW, Bogota 2006, at Parque Simon Bolivar

I'm not sure why this story appealed to me so strongly. Maybe it's because my best friend's dad is a birder, and so for me there's something slightly dorky and terribly sweet about the hobby, or maybe it's because I saw a blue heron on a class trip to Jekyll Island as a kid, or maybe it was the crane Josh and I happened upon in the nature preserve.

The fantastic story of the bird's rediscovery begins with the first confirmed sighting. Tim Gallagher, editor of Living Bird magazine, published by Cornell University's ornithology lab, was writing a book, "The Grail Bird," a history of the search for the ivory-bill. He intended to interview every living person who had seen one. It turns out that there's a whole subcategory of bird aficionados known as ghost-bird chasers, who look for birds presumed to be extinct. Gallagher himself was one, and over his years of searching, he met Bobby Harrison, a photography professor at Oakwood College in Alabama, who was also in this game.

The two men were made for the Chautauqua circuit, which they're now in fact on, sometimes together, sometimes solo, telling the tale of their sighting. Their appearance before an awestruck audience capped the Brinkley celebration. Gallagher is a tall 55-year-old with white hair and a pleasantly restrained Yankee demeanor who introduced himself in Arkansas by confessing amiably that he'd always thought the South was weird and that he considered Harrison his "interpreter and guide." Harrison, a fun guy with a head like a mortar shell, had his own schtick, like saying that he didn't know "damn Yankee" was two words until he was 20 years old. The audience laughed wildly at their tale, which was, like the best sightings, a great adventure story full of snakes, mayhem, missteps, mud, bugs and a bird.

Ah, now I know what it was. A Good Story.

Speaking of which, if you speak Spanish, ask me sometime about my Friday class experience. It's much funnier in Spanish. It boils down to a drunken student stumbling into the seat next to mine, asking me tons of questions, disagreeing with my answers (which were mostly one-word to discourage further discussion), and telling me how it really is. Questions like, "Where are you from?" ("Georgia." "No, you're not from Georgia. You're from Scandanavia.) "What's your name?" (Silence on my part. "I know, it's Juliet. No, Ingrid.") And, "Give me your phone number," which was really more of a demand than a question (Me: "I don't have a telephone." He: turns to the guy on his right, says, "Give me your phone number.") At this point the people around us, who had up to that point been trying to ignore his ramblings as well, started to crack up.

Next question: "Oye, is the professor Jewish?" Me: "Not sure, and I don't care." His hand shot up in the air. Turns out he didn't have much of a question for the professor (former mayor Paul Bromberg) either: "Um, profe, as a Jew and as a grand representative of your race, don't you think Colombia has always been a world leader in culture? I mean, we had the first train, made in Medellin, and [something about airplanes landing in Colombia]..." Bromberg almost choked on his laughter and had to give it a good thirty seconds before he could even attempt a response. I knew the local Asperger's sufferers would find me eventually.