Talk about hitting the ground running. The night of 31st December 2010 and 1st January 2011 saw the skies of the City of Beebe, Arkansas State, USA, playing unpleasant tricks with it. It saw its bird population hit the dirt in lethal haste. What was happening to the avian creatures? This last New Year morning greeted the residents of Beebe with a ghastly spectacle of rooftops, streets, treetops and fields scattered with carcasses of red-winged blackbirds.
Talk about hitting the ground running. The night of 31st December 2010 and 1st January 2011 saw the skies of the City of Beebe, Arkansas State, USA, playing unpleasant tricks with it. It saw its bird population hit the dirt in lethal haste.
What was happening to the avian creatures? This last New Year morning greeted the residents of Beebe with a ghastly spectacle of rooftops, streets, treetops and fields scattered with carcasses of red-winged blackbirds.
The birds started falling out of the sky at around 11 o’clock in the evening, on the eve of New Year, and by morning no blackbird was left alive. Five thousand blackbirds are estimated to have perished.
To this day, scientists are lost for words. Some began speculating that the birds could’ve been killed by lightening or high-altitude hail. Others attempted to put the blame on fireworks. All were shamed into silence when 500 blackbirds dropped to their death in the nearby State of Louisiana, five days later.
Clearly, blackbirds were having a hard time staying alive in south-eastern USA. Was someone doing them in?
I suspected this when, on 7th January, I read a report that Saudi officials had arrested and detained a bird as a suspected Mossad spy!
The griffon vulture landed in the desert Saudi city of Hyaal and was seized and handed over to the security forces. On frisking him, security officials discovered that he was carrying a GPS transmitter and pronounced him guilty of espionage.
A GPS tracking unit is a device that uses the Global Positioning System to determine the location of a person, vehicle or whatever it is attached to. The recorded location data can be stored within the tracking unit or transmitted to a central location data base.
Since the tracking unit bore the name of Tel Aviv University, Griffon Vulture was ‘confirmed’ to have been sent by Israel.
A griffon vulture can soar at up to 0.15 km above sea level, and can you beat that as a vantage point? You can practically observe everything in Saudi Arabia.
The last time I heard about the bird, Israelis were lamenting: "The device does nothing more than receive and store basic data about the bird’s whereabouts, his altitude and speed…..Now this poor bird is paying a terrible price.”
I just hope that nothing untoward happens to the poor guy (the lingo of the youth). As to whether he is guilty or not, I wouldn’t know. What I know is that birds are capable of many things.
After all, isn’t it fresh in the mind, the time smugglers used homing pigeons to transport illegal diamonds in southern Africa? As to carrying messages, anytime you could ask a homing pigeon to carry a letter to your correspondent in point A, and bingo! That, of course, was before the Internet put pigeons out of business.
However, birds are my buddies for other reasons – being my guardian angels. But for a bird buddy of mine, today I’d not be breathing this clean, ‘orderly’ and ‘business-minded’ air of Kigali.
I’ve told you about Nyangwe, the leopard I’d given the name for accompanying me on my evening milk deliveries, until I fell out of his favour for tickling him scared. Even then, Nyangwe startled me because the bird that used to inform me about any presence around me was not there, for some reason.
Rushorera, my guardian bird, always unfailingly used to tell me when to be on my guard. And he used to make different sounds for different creatures so that I could easily tell when Nyangwe was tailing me. Because Nyangwe was familiar, Rushorera used to make long, slow and happy snores.
When there was a snake in my path, he made frantic shrills. If a familiar herdsman was coming my way, Rushorera made laughing sounds, the kind that laughing hyenas make. If a rat or pole cat (ifuku) was in my way, he would make scornful cat-calls that sounded like "Asyi garu we!”
Unfortunately, I didn’t know Rushorera except by his sounds. He never showed himself during the day and even if he did show himself, I’d not know because he only spoke when it was dark. I’d have loved to have known him, so eager was I to show my gratitude but, try as I could, I could not.
One time I’d not gone to tend the cattle and I thought I had a chance. It’d been announced on radio (crackling short wave, those days) that there would be an eclipse of the sun at around mid-day and I made sure I was near the shrub-growth through which Rushorera used to escort me.
I knew it’d not be pitch dark but thought that he’d still be fooled. But, as we used to say in Mbarara, Uganda, ‘wheya’! I crossed the shrub twice but not once did he open his mou…., no, beak! Maybe he knew he needed no reciprocal good-turn and preferred to let sleeping dogs lie.
Well, let me lie but make a wish: may all creatures of God be protected, wherever and whoever they are!