In case anyone asks, the colour of nothing is “coot.” Iridescent black, and water-loving.
In New Zealand we have the tui, a similar colour. Not a water bird, but a nectar lover, and a show-off. On the farm in the Hawkes Bay I have seen one fly upside down for a little way. They also can imitate the calls of other birds, notably the Bellbird, so as to confuse everybody, including themselves. Also the seagull, as I have heard myself.
A couple of years back, in Auckland, a tui flew into our garden and sat in the branch of a tree not one metre from me, all for the purpose of giving Mummy Puss a piece of his mind. Maybe it was nesting time. I might have reached over and grabbed him with my hand, but the tui was not the least bit concerned by my proximity.
Mummy Puss, embarrassed by the tui’s audacity and the prolonged invention of his song, moved to the other side of the garden. The tui followed, landing on a twig calculated to give Mummy Puss a fighting chance, four or five feet from the ground. Again he let Mummy Puss have it in no uncertain terms.. a thousand variations on the theme of Mummy Puss being a very, very naughty animal. What came out of this bird’s mouth was so outrageous on pretty much every level, but mostly on the level of no one having ever heard it before. Not Mummy Puss. Not me. Not even the Tui himself.
The tui I can admire. The number of languages he speaks. The eccentricity of his dinner suit. The delivery!
And I think it a pretty fair fight-back for a bird a hundred and fifty years ago not knowing one single enemy save old age, with the character and gumption to turn around, thumb his nose at the noble homo sapiens and his bird-eating hangers-on, and by sheer good humour, will himself and his kind to survive.
Not all have this gumption. In New Zealand we have more extinct birds than the rest of the world put together, including six foot penguins and the world’s largest eagle.
At thirteen, I contemplated making a pact with every other human being living on the planet to the effect that, if they would all commit suicide, I would too.
Admittedly, it is ridiculously easy for thirteen year olds, let alone any other age group, to come up with silly ideas.
And of course, I knew I was on to a winning bet and not all would live up to their end of the bargain.
Too bad for all the cuddly little animals.
That is, all except for Kurtl The Turtle who threw himself out of a seventeenth storey window in Vienna somewhere in the nineties while I was in the middle of a twenty five year long coma.
