The Amazon: Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve

A bird flies across the evening sky some distance away; Miguel calls out to Jairo and revs the outboard motor, steering the canoe towards the tree where the bird landed. Another of the birds crosses. In silhouette, it looks a little like a small, heavy-billed stork, but the identification doesn't click until Jairo tells us — it's a white-throated toucan, the largest of the toucans in this area. Another first for me; not just the species, but the group — the first toucan I've ever seen.

But I wonder about what it means to say I've seen a white-throated toucan. The silhouettes of birds flying in the darkening sky; a few seconds during which I didn't even know what I was looking at? This is an aspect of the birds, but not the same as a protracted period of watching, noting the shape, the colours, the behaviour; listening to the calls, watching them feed. Sometimes the brevity of an encounter's inevitable — I remember the momentary glimpses of botos (freshwater dolphins) breaking the surface of the river, and the second or two as the otter slipped into the water (a sighting, Jairo says, about as rare in this area as seeing a jaguar) — and perhaps this is bordering on semantics — I saw the bird but don't know it — but the substance of my frustration remains.

Sometimes, however, second chances arrive. At the laguna I finally get a good look at Greater anis, after missing the earlier sightings of these strange, long-tailed, heavy-billed birds. We see botos again, too, as we start fishing for piraña (I catch eight, and try to put them back with as little harm as possible to the fish and my fingers) but if we hadn't seen the documentaries, we'd have no idea what these river dolphins looked like. For us, they're a splash, a gasp, a glimpse of a pale greyish-pink hump, ripples spreading; nothing more. Later we move to the middle of the lagoon and swim in the murky water, with much nervous joking about swimming with pirañas. I'm glad I've seen the documentaries and read Richard Conniff's excellent book, and in truth I don't feel at all apprehensive, even when Jairo tells us the lagoon's also home to stingrays and electric eels. I assume he and Miguel wouldn't be swimming if the risk was worth considering. Besides, the water feels lovely. The laguna has a distinct thermocline, a layer of warm, almost bath-like water over much colder water. After the first few people have stirred it up, the water becomes a patchwork of cold and warm — a curious sensation.


By the third evening I realise I'll miss these swims — the feeling of being in the water, the knowledge I'm swimming in one of the innumerable headwaters of the giant, wonderful Amazon, surrounded by everything from caimans and pirañas to monkeys (we've seen five species: squirrel monkeys, white-throated capuchins, woolly monkeys, sakis, and a pair of night monkeys), gorgeous tarantulas and countless birds, including the weird hoatzins that fascinated me almost from the time I developed an interest in birds, meaning almost as far back as I can remember. I'll miss the social aspect of larking about with friends, too. I've been lucky with this group, some of whom I've known only for a few days, the others a few weeks at most.

That question again — what does it mean to say you know someone? People can go for years without getting past the stage of saying "Hi", yet strong and lasting friendships can develop within a matter of days. Circumstances can influence this; the intensity of the situation can forge friendships remarkably fast, and in the same way, the intensity of an encounter determines what one sees. I could have looked at white-throated toucans in a zoo, but could I justifiably say I'd seen them? The tendency to think of things — animals, in this case — as objects in an environment seems to miss the point: they're part of their environment and when they're removed from it, they're incomplete and so is that environment. Perhaps this is a rationalisation of not having seen white-throated toucans close up and in detail, but for me it's a consolation. I've seen white-throated toucans, not as specimens or objects for inspection, but on their terms, as an integral part of their environment: flying in the warm dusk over the Laguna Grande.

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Notes:
1. "Jairo" is pronounced, roughly, "HAI roh". Our guide for the whole four days, he speaks excellent English, has a degree in ecology, and did an excellent job. 

2. I wrote this post from journal notes while on Isabela Island in the Galapagos. If it’s a little rough and lacks links, it’s because I’d rather be out enjoying the wildlife ;^) [Update: added the link to Richard Conniff's book. I think he's a wonderful writer,]

Photos:

1. Red-bellied piranha

2. Samona Lodge, Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve

3. Ruby dart frog.

4. Jairo and a friend from a nearby lodge wait for night on the Laguna Grande so we can look for caimans. We found them, including a very large black caiman.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

Cotopaxi

At the little museum beyond the entrance to Cotopaxi National Park, Pedro gives us a brief tour, speaking in Spanish, which I mostly can't follow, and skipping the tattered, stuffed condor with its outstretched wings. The enormous bird saddens me — dispossessed of its life in every sense. I've seen animals mounted so expertly their eyes seem to retain the memory of life, and although taxidermy raises difficult philosophical questions, at least the care and expertise with which those animals were mounted suggests a respect for the animals, an attempt to retain the life taken from them. I don't know the history of this condor, but can't help feeling it represents (unintentionally, I trust) not the wonder and magnificence of the largest flying bird in the world, but the power of humans over animals; too often, the only reason we do things to animals is because we can. I glance at the dusty bird, its disintegrating primary feathers, its dull dark head and lifeless eyes, and turn away.

Outside, however, I feel more optimistic, particularly after I've tried a cup of coca tea from the little stall. Coca tea's supposed to help one cope with the effects of altitude, but I'm trying it because, ... well, because it's tea; it looks like real tea, with lots of big leaves steeping in the cup. I love it; I'd happily drink more. The flavour differs from the teas I love (and miss here), but at least it has a flavour, unlike the steely tea bags to which I've resorted.

We drive up towards the cloud, along a badly corrugated and pot-holed dirt road. Wild horses graze unperturbed as we pass by; a few fine spots of rains appear on the windscreen, then sleet, then we're bouncing our way up through snow. At the car park (about 4500 m) we change into whatever warm, wind-and-rain-proof gear we have and begin the 300 metre steep trudge up volcanic scoria to the refugio. I'm breathing hard because of the altitude but feel good. I settle into a steady pace and maintain it all the way, loving the feeling of working hard in a wild, cold environment — the kind of environment that reminds me of familiar places in Aotearoa.

Pedro arrives at the refugio and congratulates Mike and me, telling us we're very strong.
"Next time we will go to the top", he says.
But there won't be a next time, not for Mike, who flies home in a week's time, and not for me. An expensive guided climb — a non-technical slog, in fact — as part of a long line of people all intent on the summit holds no interest for me. Even on this day of bad weather, the refugio's crowded and people still trudge up from the car park. This is not a place for me; I don't resent the crowd or deny them their enjoyment — I'm glad to see so many people enjoying the place — but I don't feel at home here the way I would if the hut were much smaller (this sleeps 70 people), with just a handful of people present.

Back at the car park I'm appalled at the number of cars, and they're still arriving. The place reminds me of a skifield car park in New Zealand. The weather closes in, so we drive lower, unload the bikes and try to get them to work. This proves difficult. Mike's has a bald back tyre, so he can't brake effectively and eventually has to stop partway down to change bikes; my gears barely work and when I remount the bike further down the mountain the chain slips off the sprocket and I'm dumped onto the ground, knees first but fortunately into soft volcanic dust; Sean's seat keeps slipping down and his gears eventually fail completely.Nevertheless, I enjoy the fun and the exercise despite the discomfort, although the appeal begins to wear thin while biking on the flat in the rain along a rough, corrugated road.

But by the time we reach the restaurant I'm still mostly dry thanks to the foresight of having packed leggings as well as parka. I've seen a few new birds, too — Stout-billed Cinclodes nesting in a roadside bank; a large raptor circling a long way off and far below; Andean lapwings on the flats.We recover in the restaurant over chips and guacamole, brown bread, slices of banana and apple, a delicious bean soup, and cinnamon tea, then begin the long drive back to Quito. We all sleep well, but Sean sets the record: 14 hours. Even I sleep well, and I need it — the next day I have an overnight bus journey to the Amazon.

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Note: Check the photoblog for more photos of our day on Cotopaxi (and elsewhere)

Photos:
1. The summit of Cotopaxi.
2. The car park when we arrived.
3. Mike rests on the parapet at the refugio as the cloud begins to lift (briefly).
4. (L to R): Phil, Serena and Sean wait partway down the road while Mike gets a replacement bike.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

The summit of Rucu Pichincha

Near the summit of Rucu Pichincha, after the hard, slow slog up the soft sandy ash scree — each step a fight to stop from slipping back — I reach solid ground and the walking becomes easier. The man a little way ahead leans on his poles, then heads left, but to the right, splashes of paint suggest a marked route. A small cairn confirms the way, and even if leftwards might be easier, this crosses solid steep rock — apparently not difficult or dangerous, but enough to provide the feeling of active climbing rather than mindless trudging. The route veers across the face, towards the ridge, and as I approach the edge, the feeling of height grows; the land seems to fold away, leaving me closer to sky and swirling cloud. Here the rock steepens, requiring hands as well as feet, and the feeling of easy climbing on sound rock on a high mountain delights me, bringing back memories of the Otira Face of Rolleston years ago with Jono. Different worlds, similar emotions.

Sunlight breaks through the cloud, warming my back. A sudden shadow passes over; I look up and there, only a few metres away, a bird — a raptor of some kind — slips sideways in the air, looks down at me and sails out of sight beyond the summit ridge. In this barren place of dry rock and sandy ash, to see something so alive seems both incongruous and an unqualified joy. What was this bird doing, sailing so close, apparently checking me out? I can't resist the thought that it was waiting for me to fall or just checking to see whether I was dead enough to eat, although this is clearly ridiculous. Later, when I've identified it as probably being a juvenile northern crested caracara (I see two unmistakeable adults later, from the summit), I decide it's probably checking to see if I've discarded anything edible (I haven't, and don't).

A short section of steep rock with enormous holds, then the summit — almost an anticlimax, with its enormous "Bienvenidos" sign, graffitied, lumpy boulders and earth packed hard by the feet of thousands of visitors. The man with his walking poles has just arrived and is already sitting, looking slightly  flushed, with his daypack resting nearby. He removes his large watch, checks it, makes some adjustments, then gets up and hangs it on one of the splintered poles holding up the welcome sign. He wanders off, returns, photographs himself with his phone. I glance across at his pack and notice his Teleferico ticket lying loose on the ground.
"Su tarjeta?" I say, pointing.
He exclaims and rushes over before it blows away. As it turns out, the ticket isn't necessary for the descent, but I don't know that, and judging from his reaction, nor does he.

I drink water and wander around, eating a banana and packing the peel away carefully in my bag, not wishing to add to the orange peel  and other reminders of how many people visit this summit each weekend. Another man arrives and sits a little way off. We've passed each other a couple of times — he taking the slow and steady approach, me the not-quite-as-slow but stop-and-photograph approach. We've exchanged a few words and smiles of acknowledgement, and already he seems curiously like someone I know, someone who could become a friend if my Spanish were much better. Even in his positioning himself at a little distance he seems to share something of my own preference for visiting these places either with good friends or alone.

The latter, however is not an option today. After 15–20 minutes and a few photographs, I hear someone talking below; shortly afterwards a man in his twenties arrives, ebullient with success. He starts calling out instructions and encouragement in English to his friends below, pointing out the easy way up, congratulating them on their accomplishment when they arrive bent over and puffing. Further down the slope, groups of people plod slowly upwards.  Cloud swirls overhead and sends wisps trailing over the pass between Rucu Pichincha and the nearby summit; patches of sunlight race over the páramo between Rucu and the fractionally higher Guagua Pichincha. My hands have begun to chill and the relative solitude of the summit has vanished like the caracara — now only a memory. I sling my bag over my shoulder, put my hands in the pockets of my jacket and start down the mountain.

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Notes:
1. Rucu Pichincha is an extinct volcano near Quito, Ecuador. The usual route is to take the Teleférico (gondola) from the outskirts of the city to the páramo grasslands at 4100 m, then follow the very well-worn trail to the summit at 4696 m. While the power pylons, occasional trail bikes and crowds mean the route feels only marginally like a true mountain environment, the weather's a different matter, and visitors should go prepared for anything.

Photos:
1. Rucu Pichincha from the lower part of the trail.
2. Mike and Serena enjoy the Avenue of Volcanoes from the top of the Teleférico.
3. One of the Bar-winged Cinclodes we watched foraging near the rent-a-horse place.
4. The summit of Rucu Pichincha.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

On the bus from Otavalo

At the Cascada de Peguche on the outskirts of Otavalo, people swarmed everywhere along the foot-polished trails; they scrambled over the worn-down rocks edging the big pool and stood triumphantly with upraised arms in front of the waterfall to be photographed; they jammed the wooden bridges. The place seethed with humans, or so it seemed to me. Perhaps I'm too used to places where another person or two comprises a crowd. I tried to look past the crowd, to see the falls, and for a moment saw something incessant, inexorable, something still unaffected, that might outlast us or, if eventually destroyed, would disappear without surrendering. For the moment, the water still keeps falling, even in the dead of night in the middle of the week when the people, presumably, have gone.

But then the crowd reappeared and I turned away, looking towards a tangle of dusty vegetation where a few butterflies flitted about. I'd noted long, orange-yellow flowers, and turned to Sandra.
   "I'd have expected to see hummingbirds around those flowers," I said. I'd hardly finished speaking when a tiny bird, hardly bigger than a bumblebee, shot past and disappeared into the tangle of foliage. We watched intently for a few minutes until the hummingbird reappeared. It hovered, darted, hovered again, then shot up over the canopy and disappeared somewhere into the other side. I had no idea what species it was, but the delight of watching it fly, of seeing something so intensely alive gave me a little hope. One of the things I love about birds is the way they so often either ignore us (within the limits of safety) or regard us as an opportunity to be exploited — in short, they live largely on their terms, not ours. The little hummingbird at Peguche exemplified this perfectly.

Near the entrance to the main trail, youths kicked a football around; fires burned down, perhaps readying themselves for the evening's grilling; large tents occupied spaces between the trees; dogs wandered around, sniffing hopefully. Smoke drifted across a line of stalls packed with colourful souvenirs. We walked on, stopping to look at a small black pig tethered by a much twisted rope knotted around its middle. It tossed aside a disintegrating board with its snout, but in that dry and dusty yard the chance of finding anything edible seemed remote. On the other side of the yard a small, scruffy sheep, also tethered, gnawed at a few dust-smothered weeds. Then, incongruously, a  beautiful, lithe grey cat stepped out onto the cobbled road, crossed it and slipped through a high, iron gate. I went over to say hello but in a manner suited to its bearing the cat ignored me and strolled further into the yard. I didn't mind the snub.

 

Further on, we passed a long, open food stall — little more than a back wall, one end and a roof, sheltering a collection of simple tables and a cooking area where a middle-aged, weathered woman worked at an enormous pot. An old lady sat eating at a nearby table and looking out at the passersby from the elevated terrace on which the stall stood. I smiled; she smiled back and waved. On the spur of the moment I started walking over, realising as I did that I had no idea what I'd say, other than "Buenas tardes".

When I got closer I saw a black and white cat under the table, at her feet. Without thinking, I pointed and said "El gato," and the cat immediately rose and came to the edge of the terrace to bump against my hand. I rubbed its neck and head with my knuckles, trying not to think too hard about what I might be catching and consoling myself with the thought it probably would be nothing worse than something a fungicide would clear up in short order. The old woman was grinning; so was the woman at the pot.

   "Bonito," I said, indicating the cat and hoping it was the right word.

They seemed to appreciate it; I said goodbye and left them laughing, but I needed no knowledge of Spanish to understand the good humour.

On the bus back to Quito I tried to ignore the sporadic stench of some kind of solvent and the hideously awful movie on the screen at the front of the bus — a film seemingly about little more than steroid-poisoned men smashing each other into bloody pulp in variations on cage fighting  — and instead looked out the window at the real lives going on in the late afternoon. The pigs in yards; the tom turkey displaying hopefully and futilely to an oblivious chook; a child running with a couple of dogs to a small stream at the bottom of a sloping paddock partly obscured by wild vegetation. What was the child feeling? The freedom of running in a half wild place, perhaps? The delight of being released temporarily from homework and chores? Maybe, without knowing it, the child was simply enjoying the freedom of not knowing enough about the wider world to be trapped into coveting it?

Later, I saw huge earth-moving machines with work-polished blades devouring the mountainsides, widening roads, straightening corners, improving bridges — gnawing at the Andes  — and I felt momentarily overwhelmed by the relentless, inexorable destructiveness of human beings. The bus drove on into the evening and the lowering sun threw a longer, warmer light. On the side of the road I saw striations in the soft earth  — the marks of the blade of a massive digger. A swirl of wind, and sand fills the marks a little more; the glancing evening sun accentuates the textures  — the raw, brash marks of the machine; the fine, dusty texture of the sand slowly hiding those human-made marks. In the distance, the white cone of a volcano; here, the deep valley with its swift, turbulent river churning far below. A sere, arid landscape of steep mountainsides thorny shrubs, cacti, dust and the long, deep shadows of evening.

The bus drives on, taking us back to Quito, but to what future?

 

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Photos:
1. The Cascada de Peguche.
2. In the Otavalo market later in the day, when the crowd had thinned.
3. The view from my room one evening. The mountains appear smaller in the photo.
4. Same view, telephoto; this (I think) is one of the routes to Rucu Pichincha (not the usual one, which starts from the top of the teleférico).

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

The first hummingbird

Outside the El Colibri cafe last Sunday I took a deep breath and walked in, through the tree-shaded courtyard where apparently one could watch the hummingbirds (hence the name: el colibri, the hummingbird) and into the pleasantly cool main seating area. At the counter I explained in Spanish that I didn't speak Spanish; the attempt must have worked because the waitress said no more and slid a menu across to me. At least I understood most of the components of the dishes, so I eventually ordered a vegetarian tortilla and mineral water. The waitress said something I had no hope of understanding.
"No entiendo," I said.
"Sit down," she said, carefully. I assume her English was as rudimentary as my Spanish.

I found a little wooden table under the trees and sipped the water, glad I'd chosen the most effective form of rehydrating. A Great thrush, strikingly similar to the blackbirds I know so well, flew across the courtyard; an Eared dove padded about on the ground. Above me, a small, unidentifiable bird flitted through the foliage of a broad-leaved tree and somewhere else a bird made a sound like two stones being struck together.
"Dondé estan los colibries?" I thought, trying not to translate it into English but understand it directly. "Where are the hummingbirds?"

Still, even if they'd preferred somewhere else, this was a lovely spot —quiet, attractive, with birds clearly used to the close proximity of humans, and with enough trees to diminish the sense of being in a large city.

Another small bird flew across beneath the canopy and settled on a twig. This one, however, wasn't unidentifiable; on the contrary, as soon as I saw the long bill, the posture as it sat upright on the twig, and noted how small it seemed, I knew I was looking at the first hummingbird I'd ever seen. Un colibri at El Colibri, I thought. I watched, fascinated. I couldn't see the colours clearly because I was looking up and the bright sky, even broken up by the leaves, made the shadowed bird difficult to see. But as I watched, I saw it calling and realised this was the bird making the two-stones call. Later, after having enjoyed seeing it in better light and having consulted The Birds of Ecuador, I felt confident identifying it as a Sparkling violetear, and the persistent and potentially annoying "tik tik tik ..." call confirmed the identification.

I sat there, savouring my tortilla and drinking my agua con gas on a quiet Sunday afternoon with a mild breeze on a warm afternoon in the leaf-filtered sunlight, watching the pair of Great thrushes, the Eared doves, the Rufous-collared sparrows, and the little Sparkling violetear, and I thought, this place is idyllic.

When the waitress cleared my table I said, "Me gusta," then "Me encanta los colibries" — I love the hummingbirds.
"Ah!" she said, and thought for a few moments. "Is beautiful."

I couldn't have agreed more.

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Photo: A poor photo, but the best I can do for the moment. The problem at El Colibri is that I'm trying to photograph from beneath the bird, with a bright sky in the background. Fill flash might be a solution, but would draw attention to me (not something I'm keen on in Quito) and in any case I have only the little built-in pop-up flash on the GH1 (a definite failing of this camera, which has no capability for off-camera flash, thus greatly constraining macro photography).


Update, 19 April 2012: I've posted a slightly better, larger photograph on the photoblog.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

Pohangina valley, Aotearoa, to Quito, Ecuador

Last Tuesday I caught a bus from Palmerston North to Auckland  — eight hours through the centre of the North Island, arriving after dark on the first stage of a journey that will return me four and a half months later to the country in which I've lived most of my life. Late on Wednesday afternoon I flew out of Auckland; eighteen hours later I landed in Quito, Ecuador.

My first priority is to improve my rudimentary facility with Spanish; the second..., well, I don't have a second, but if I had a list of priorities, seeing a hummingbird for the first time would be high on it — in fact, so would seeing some of the birds and other wildlife for which Ecuador and South America are famous. Some of that wildlife, like certain spiders, I intend appreciating from a comfortable distance but, perhaps surprisingly, snakes don't bother me — I love them (although I'd draw the line at sharing my tent with an eyelash viper).

Other priorities? Mountains, of course, although my engagement with them will be limited to trekking, possibly a non-technical climb or two, and of course simply appreciating them. When I eventually get to Patagonia I'll do my best to see Cerro Torre — to my mind arguably the greatest mountain on Earth: Reinhold Messner aptly described it as "A shriek turned to stone". However, I'm resigned to the possibility I might be as unlucky as one party who camped near Cerro Torre for a fortnight and never saw it once: Patagonian weather is infamous. Still, since I intend spending most of November in Patagonia, I'll have the time to give a sighting of Cerro Torre my best shot.

But I've leaped from the start of the journey to near its end — although who's to say when a journey begins and ends? So, back to the start. For the first three weeks I'm in Ecuador, I'm at a language school. On my weekends off, I'll be finding my feet and employing them doing short exploratory trips. In fact, on just my third full day here, and still not completely recovered from the debilitating flight nor fully adapted to Quito's altitude (about 2800 m), I visited the lovely little town of Mindo in the cloud forest, a couple of hours' bus journey from here. I'd been lucky to tag along with a couple of students from here; Shannon had spent a year in Spain and therefore spoke fairly competent Spanish (from my perspective, she was fluent), so I avoided the hard work of interpreting signs and attempting to make myself understood (more to the point, I avoided the near impossibility of understanding the replies). A great day with excellent company, and although I didn't make the most of Mindo's great reputation for birds, I'm sure I'll be back.

Now, the jet lag's gone, as have the sporadic but intense headaches (I'd have said they were mind-numbing but they were just the opposite) and today's four-hour lesson proved less challenging than the first two. I even had the faint but highly encouraging feeling that the language was becoming familiar; that even if I got it wrong, I might be roughly right. Doubtless I'll have days when I feel I'm going backwards, but for me the biggest form of encouragement when I'm trying to learn is the feeling that I am in fact learning, moving towards a goal, becoming more proficient.

More updates will follow, although I won't promise they'll be regular, and from time to time I'll post a photo on The Ruins of the Moment (they, too, are unlikely to be up to what I trust is the usual standard, given the shortcomings of this little netbook). To keep you keen, the next post  — when I manage it — will be about the first hummingbird. Whether I can manage a usable photo remains less certain.

Hasta la proxima vez (until next time).

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Photos: 
1. The rapids Serena, Shannon and I visited below the Cascada Nambilla, the waterfall at Mindo where one can pay to leap from a potentially crippling height into the pool below the waterfall. We didn't, but others were less imaginative. A lovely place in a lovely, albeit increasingly tourist-frequented area.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

What the magpies taught me

When I was a small boy magpies terrorised me. After school the bus dropped me half a mile from home and I walked from there past a handful of houses with well established gardens, on past the old quarry and eventually to the short, gravel road that led past the row of old pines and macrocarpas to our gate. I began to get nervous as I approached those old trees. I hurried past, constantly looking over my shoulder, but the magpies never attacked when I was looking; always the assault came from behind, somehow unexpectedly even though I knew to expect it. A sudden rush of wings, the snap of the beak, the electric rush of adrenaline. They never once made contact. They didn't need to — the surprise, the shock of being attacked did the job and I never hung around long enough to find out what might have happened had I hung around. Those magpies were my enemy.

Now my local magpies seem like friends.

Even when they attacked me as a boy, I understood they were just doing what magpies do; I knew they were defending a nest. The knowledge didn't seem like much of a consolation: it seemed like no consolation at all, and if I could have swatted my assailant from the sky and killed it, I'd have been delighted. Not now, though. I don't know much more about magpies than I did then, at least nothing particularly relevant to their propensity to attack people. What, then, has changed, to enable me to tolerate an occasional magpie attack?

Several things, I think. First, over the years I've learned how to tolerate things I would have raged against as a boy. Sometimes I can even appreciate and value those things — being attacked by a magpie, for example, offers me the opportunity to think about my instinctive reactions and replace them with more reasoned responses. The initial reaction's always likely to be outrage, of course, but instead of holding onto that outrage and wallowing in absurd schemes about how to get even, I can now let the fear and anger go quickly and instead think about magpies and the way they behave and the astonishing skill with which they can fly, the way they can swoop silently to within a few metres before letting the air rush noisily through their wings and snapping that beak within a few centimetres of my head even while it's speeding along the road atop my furiously pedalling body. I can think about the way fears conditioned by millennia of evolution can be overridden by reason, and how understanding can be such a powerful counter to fear — xenophobia, for example, can be overcome best not by trying to suppress other cultures but by immersion in them. The opportunities for constructive thinking arising from a magpie attack are limitless.

Besides, I've grown to enjoy their personalities, even if those include some less than charming aspects. Last summer as I biked back up the road in the late afternoon a magpie swooped at me. After the first attack I knew to expect another, and the magpie didn't understand the significance of the low sun casting my shadow distinctly on the steep bank as I pedalled up the hill. I kept an eye on that shadow and, sure enough, saw the magpie's shadow swooping in behind me. Just before it reached me I flung my arm up into the air; I heard a surprised "Sqrrark!" and the bird veered off and landed in a nearby manuka. Birds, with their solid beaks, have little or no ability to alter their expressions, but this magpie looked at me in a way I swear said: "Okay, truce. Stay away from my nest and I'll keep my beak away from the back of your head." I grinned all the way up the hill, and I've never been attacked since. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, for the last several years I've lived with a family of magpies. The parents, and sometimes a youngster or two, feed regularly in the paddock in front of my little house, and often from the kitchen I enjoy watching them forage in that so-deliberate, calculated way — paused, head tilted, a few steps forward, a moment of peering, then the peck and swallow. Then a few more steps, and the process begins again. They're always wary, but I think they've begun to recognise me; often I can sit out on the verandah in full view while they continue to forage, and when I walk down the drive they'll sometimes watch rather than immediately fly off. They've become individuals, and just as reason can override instinct, so familiarity disarms the desire to harm. Wars are possible because the enemy is an abstraction, not a person.

I just wish the magpies of my early schooldays had understood that.

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Notes: 
1.The magpies I speak of are Australian magpies, Cracticus tibicen, which are more closely related to butcherbirds and currawongs than to magpies elsewhere. Introduced to New Zealand in the second half of the nineteenth century, magpies now inhabit most of the country. They're central figures in one of New Zealand's best-known poems: Denis Glover's The Magpies.


Photos

1.  They like to sit in the silver birch behind the house, too.

2. One of my friends in the paddock in front of the house.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor