{Louise's A Flight of Twelve Southern Hemisphere Birds in hand, featuring November's Antarctic Tern (Sterna vittata) and December's Shaft-tailed Whydah (Vidua regia), and May's Southern Boobook (Ninox novaeseelandiae) alongside the month of June's Grey-rumped Treeswift (Hemiprocne longipennis).}
Two artists’ books by Louise are to be
launched next Wednesday evening and you are invited. To
serve as enticement, here in my hands, a closer look at A Flight of Twelve
Southern Hemisphere Birds, which is a limited edition of ten hand-coloured
artists’ books, and below, a snippet of my explorer’s text written for Louise
as part of A Year of Southern Hemisphere Birds, her unique-state artists’ book
that tips hat to Wallace, Audubon, Gould et al.
Housed in a custom made solander box, A
Year of Southern Hemisphere Birds features on the page twelve Field Notes by me, and I took
great delight sending Twitcher Louise to the rainforests of Papua New Guinea by
way of Codfish Island
(Whenua Hou), New Zealand, in search of the flightless Kakapo. To the tropics of North Queensland, too, before landing in the Banhine National Park, southern
Mozambique grasslands, where our story ends (or does it?), a concerto by Pergolesi humming about the ears as she
watches the birds feed in the midday sun.
Here, a teaser. To North West Argentina. In the month of April. Eyes peeled for woodpeckers, now.
APRIL Yellow-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes flavifrons)
MONDAY 22nd
1.45 PM
You find me now in the Upper Bermejo River Basin in North West Argentina, in search of the fruit-eating Yellow-fronted Woodpecker. Four months into my task of cataloging a varied winged twelve, I am looking the seasoned Twitcher. I cannot warble off the facts of my peers with apparent ease, but my attire has the role well pegged and, as we all know, appearance is a great way to half of a thing. Look the part and they’ll never know, the Kingdom rule. Besides which, in the quiet of the hide, chatter is minimal. We wait for our self-nominated birds to appear. We wait, soundlessly. All noise comes from the forest around us that threatens to ensnare us and make of us its lucky charm. Earlier in the day as the hour drew close to lunchtime, my stomach rumbled with such ferocity that it was ordered to hush. ‘But how?’ I mimed with shrug-shoulder movement to my colleagues closely perched. I proceeded to rummage (to my ears) noiselessly in my rucksack for a cracker to quietly in small pieces suck, but this too, this was deemed too much. Evicted from the hide, I left in bad temper. I let my footfall fall heavy, breaking twigs underfoot, looking the very picture of petulant child. Once I’d cooled and taken on regular form once more, I sat down on the forest floor and made a picnic of two (crunch! crunch!) crackers. Upon doing so an inquisitive Yellow-fronted Woodpecker appeared. It perched upon my open rucksack and seemed to wish to join me. Together, we feasted, before he posed for me for several hours with his red cap resplendent. Five points to the blundering novice, this triumph is sweet and chance is my new master.
