'Birds have imbued each place I’ve ever visited – from deepest jungle to city center – with its own avian associations, and just a glimpse of those birds again, or a snatch of their voice, brings back that place in an instant,' writes Mike Unwin.
As a child, I learned about the world through birds: Antarctica had emperor penguins; the Great Rift Valley meant flamingos, New Guinea was for birds-of-paradise, and so on. As an adult, and now a travel writer, it is still birds that help me navigate the globe. Birds have imbued each place I’ve ever visited – from deepest jungle to city center – with its own avian associations, and just a glimpse of those birds again, or a snatch of their voice, brings back that place in an instant.
Many birds are celebrated for their gorgeous colors and beautiful displays. In this respect, few species top the Andean cock-of-the-rock of Peru’s dense cloud forests. I remember one dawn in Manu National Park creeping to a traditional display site to watch a group of males strut their stuff before a judging panel of females. Their fluorescent orange plumage was so dazzling that they seemed to glow in the murky half-light like lanterns. Weirdness can be just as impressive.
With other birds, it is the things they do. In Zambia, a greater honeyguide once deliberately led me and my companions to a bees’ nest in a baobab tree. This unobtrusive little bird feeds on bees’ wax and has evolved the trick of guiding traditional honey-gatherers to bees, hoping for left-overs. We followed the bird’s frantic ‘guiding’ call a kilometer through the dense bush, dodging elephants in the process, until we arrived at the prize.
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