Bird Flu

From deep within the bowels of an asbestos floor-tiled building in Downey, one with storage closets full of mimeograph machines and mop handles (I made that up), the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services Veterinary Public Health – Rabies Control Program (good luck fitting that on a business card… when you visit, they probably have to give you two or three) has issued an edict: “Backyard Bird Owners Beware the Bird Flu” (It’s an alliterative group, that CLADHSVPHRCP).
Dated February 2006, this is a document that explains that the bird flu is a virus that makes birds sick, that there are many types of bird flu, that most types of bird flu don’t infect people, but that because of Asian H5N1 we are all going to die. Wait, it doesn’t say that exactly. It does say, though, that if the virus mutates and becomes contagious between people, “billions (!!) of people could catch this disease around the world.”
And, what does this have to do with backyard bird owners and their families, you may wonder? Well, CLADHSVPHRCP addresses this very question. “Backyard bird owners live close to their birds, and handle them often,” they tell us. “They have more physical contact with the feces, blood, feathers, secretions, and tissues of their birds than do workers at poultry farms” (who actually know what they are doing)… “If their backyard birds get infected with bird flu, the bird owners and their families may also get sick.”
Now, please, if you will, step over to this window and take a look at my backyard. That one right there is named Sophie. She lays greenish blue eggs and seems to be pretty smart and sensitive for a chicken. The other one over there is Peep. She used to live in Santa Monica. We didn’t name her. These are the chickens that will get sneezed on by some house sparrow that is carrying H5N1. Then, they will pass it on to me through their feces, a feather or a secretion (ew, I hope it’s a feather), so it can mutate in my body before I grade your kid’s homework at Clifton Middle School with a contaminated pen, and the next thing we know it’s London 1650.
So, that’s the good news, just in case you didn’t have something to think about at two a.m.

Rainforest Adventure

My favorite artifact that I brought back from my friends’ wedding in Panama last weekend is a certificate that documents my participation in a “Gamboa Rainforest Adventure.” Our guide, Ana, wrote my name on it while we were all riding back to the Complejo Principal del Resort (that’s Panamanian for “Resort Main Building”) in an open air tour bus/ tram with wooden seats. Since we were in motion my name is a little bit squiggly, but that makes it more authentic, right?
I earned this certificate by spending 35 American dollars (which happen to be exactly the same as Panamanian dollars) to catch an open air tour bus/ tram to the Estación Principal del Telefércio (that’s the Aerial Tram Main Station), where four of my friends and I were to catch the Telefércio for the “Canopy Tour.” This was to be an hour and a half trip, so we were reminded to use the restrooms before embarking for the Torre de Observación (Tower of Observation) in the heart of the Panamanian rainforest. Hydration had been a priority of mine in the preceding 12 or so hours, so I made sure to empty my bladder. Plus, I was pretty excited, having just witnessed my first authentic specimen of Panamanian rainforest wildlife, a blue butterfly that had skirted the deck of the aerial tram station before disappearing around the corner of the building. Ana, already earning her keep, had informed us that it was …are you ready? …a Blue Morpho. So, after I flushed and washed my hands in the rainforest restrooms, I was set.
We all entered the green aerial tram vehicle. I am in an ongoing debate about what such a vehicle is properly called. I think I’ll go with “gondola” here, but if you have other suggestions, I will happily entertain them. I got the front seat of the gondola. I had my brochure map of the Gamboa Rainforest Resort, which I‘d obtained at the front desk of the Complejo Principal del Resort (Resort Main Building, remember?). This map has (in addition to the actual locations of the tennis courts, jogging path, and full service marina) pictures and fanciful locations of many different species of rainforest wildlife. There are toucans, tree sloths, turtles, alligator-looking-things, a black and white checked frog, a snake, orchids, parakeets, black monkeys with white faces, and white monkeys with black faces supposedly available for tourist ogling at various locations throughout the resort. But, now that I look more carefully at my map, I notice that none of the hypothetical flora/ fauna locations correspond with the route of the aerial tram. Instead, I learned, on the 35 dollar canopy tour, you get a Blue Morpho, the sound of a beetle that brings to mind far off Pacific Northwestern National Forest clear cutting, and a slow, soothing ride through every broad-leafed palm-like houseplant known to humankind. Maybe floating along forty feet above the ground at 12 miles per hour isn’t actually the best way to experience the rainforest. Don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining. You get a nice certificate with your name on it.

Field Guide

I have in my possession a Kaufman Field Guide to the Birds of North America. This is a book that took an unimaginable number of person-hours to produce. It has more than 2,000 images digitally edited by Kenn Kaufman himself, which are based on photos taken by more than 80 photographers. This book includes information on migration patterns and bird calls (FYI the voice of the Bald Eagle is a “rather weak, harsh chatter”). It can help you distinguish between a Hermit Thrush, a Veery, and a Swainson’s thrush, all seven-inch-long brown birds that you can’t even see in real life anyway.
And, if you take into account factors like the number of hours he spent pursuing advanced degrees in ornithology, developing film, and tracking the Canyon Wren through the arroyos of the west, it becomes clear that the author of this book hoped that it would be used for much, much more than the humble purposes for which I have employed it; namely, squinting at the mini flock in front of my garage for forty minutes before making a positive identification of… a… bunch of… House Sparrows.
I am pathetic. I don’t need this book, the result of years of scholarly and naturalist endeavor. I need the pathetic San Gabriel Valley neighborhood edition. It would have, like, four birds in it. They would be: 1) The vacant-eyed Mourning Doves that just stare up at you from the sidewalk. Fly bird! Can’t you see I’m a predator? I have binocular vision and sharp teeth; act scared! 2) The Crows dropping acorns in my street and on my car. 3) The ever-elusive, difficult to identify Monrovia Backyard House Sparrow, and 4) Those Parrots. They wake me up on the weekend. They eat all of the apples from my tree. They frighten children and intimidate joggers. And I’m pretty sure they are responsible for the graffiti that is showing up everywhere all of the sudden.
That’s the field guide I need. Because, I know that somewhere in the wilderness, Kenn Kaufmann is cringing every time I see a woodpecker with a red head, and go, “ooh, a woodpecker with a red head. I wonder what kind of bird that is.” Then I flip through my field guide, through the Nighthawks, and Kingfishers, and Trogons until I find the bird I am looking for.
It’s a Red Headed Woodpecker.