The second book in my friend Thelma's and my "Norwegian torture" series,* Harens år, or "The Year of the Hare," was published in 1975 in Finnish and tells the story of a dyspeptic journalist who adopts a wild hare—after he hits it with his car on a forest road—and then proceeds to leave life as he knows it (including his wife) behind, running through a series of little adventures, mostly in the far north of Finland. It's an episodic novel in which the hero, Vatanen, fights fires, cuts down trees, stumbles on German war booty, overturns a corpse, goes fishing, gets drunk, is arrested by the Soviet authorities, etc. He meets various people who might have somehow changed Vatanen (for the better, one keeps wishing), but in fact he doesn't change. The hare plays virtually no role except to be his constant companion
(indeed, at moments you wonder if he'll survive, Vatanen does so little
to watch out for him), and this is no animal lover's story, because over its course he metes out a gruesome death to two other animals.
The cover of the Norwegian translation calls the book a "whimsical fable from the Finnish forest," and apparently the author, Paasilinna, was beloved in Scandinavia back in the 70s. Perhaps I don't share those northern sensibilities.
There is something to be said for the self-discovery, self-reinvention novel, which is ostensibly what this is. And it's possible that Vatanen ended up happier after his year of carefree vagabondage. But me, I didn't like the man: he started out selfish and unhappy, and ended up merely selfish.
As for Norwegian, after a year of struggling through this book, I feel barely more competent than before. That's a little depressing too. But masochists that we are, we're currently considering what the next book will be. Doctor Proktor's Fart Powder by Jo Nesbø is in strong contention.
* The first book in our series, finished on September 29, 2016—this is a very slow process: we meet maybe once a week, for an hour, hour and a half, and there is much paging through dictionaries and scratching of heads—is reported on here.
But first I will say, I obviously did not become a birder while in Vietnam, because just yesterday we were out for a walk, and what did we see but a couple of small raptors! But could I get a closer look, in order to identify them? NO! Because I was out and about without my bins! A real birder does not go anywhere without her bins. My initial thought (for no reason whatsoever, except it didn't look like a kestrel—not colorful enough) was that it was a merlin. A quick look at the relatively few falcons in The Sibley Guide to Birds neither confirms nor denies. So I remain clueless. And . . . did I take my bins on today's walk, just in case the same raptors showed themselves? NO! See: so not a real birder . . .
Anyway, back to Vietnam. Here's a final rogues' gallery of some of the birds I got a good look at, even if only once. First, a few flycatchers and a thrush:
Siberian stonechat (Saxicola maura). Photo by John Richardson
And yes, we generally saw them perched atop reeds and grasses,
just like this.
Plumbeous Water Redstart (Phoenicurus fuliginosus).
Photo by Phillip Edwards
Hainan Blue Flycatcher (Cyornis hainanis). Photo by cookdj
Japanese Thrush (Turdus cardis). Photo by Neil Fifer
Looking very much (except in coloration and spottage)
like our good friend Turdus migratorius, the American robin.
And then there were a few starlings, which I am in the habit of not liking much because the European starling is such a pest hereabouts, but Asian Sturnidae (a family that includes mynas) have softened me a bit.
Chestnut-tailed Starling (Sturnia malabarica).
Photo by Nayan Khanolkar
Black-collared Starling (Sturnus nigricollis). Photo by Dave Irving
This is another bird that the Vietnamese like to keep caged, for their song.
Golden-crested Myna (Ampeliceps coronatus). Photo by Harold Stiver
And finally, let's finish this thing off with gaudiness—the sunbirds! And finally finally, a repeat appearance by the ten-foot-long green peacock, which I will never forget seeing.
Crimson Sunbird (Aethopyga siparaja). Photo by wokoti
Olive-backed Sunbird (Nectarinia jugularis).
Photo by Paul van Giersbergen
Mrs. Gould's Sunbird (Aethopyga gouldiae). Photo by Gary Kinard
Green Peafowl (Pavo muticus). Photo by James Keith
I thoroughly enjoyed my three weeks of "walking meditation," especially being surrounded by so many experienced and generous birders. Whenever someone spotted something, every effort was made to make sure that everyone saw the bird: a green laser pointer helped in the dark jungle, and we all got pretty good at describing particular features in otherwise dense and chaotic forests. Birding can be a competitive sport, but our little group was by and large more interested in a quality experience for all than in personal bests.
So in addition to the 222 bird species I saw (most of which I will not remember, except for their fabulous names: fulvettas! yuhinas! prinias! pittas!), I'd like to acknowledge our valiant leader, Susan Myer, and her co-leader Luke, for the first half; the Brits Mary and Michael, Jules and Ange, David, and Gill; and Dixie from New Hampshire, Sally from Tucson, Doug from Richmond, Virginia, and (for the second half) Matt from the office (i.e., the head honcho at WINGS Birding Tours)—as well as our local assistants/fixers/translators Luan and Nhan.
And now, I need to turn my attention to all the photos I took in Vietnam—not a one of them of birds. Because it's way too hard. I admire Susan and Michael for their efforts on that front. I hope that they met with success, even if it's just one shot that they're proud of. That would be plenty.
Better finish this accounting while these birds are still somewhat fresh in my mind. Other amazing specimens we saw include a couple of woodpeckers:
Speckled Piculet (Picumnus innominatus). Photo by hydroscwan
Black-and-buff Woodpecker (Meiglyptes jugularis).
Photo by Mark van Beirs
And then we got into some colorful birds, including broadbills, minivets (in the cuckoo-shrike family), shrike-babblers (aka Vireo allies), orioles, and monarch flycatchers—beautiful all:
Black-and-red Broadbill (Cimbirhynchus mnacrorhynchos).
Photo by Phil Liew
Long-tailed Broadbill (Psarisomus dalhousiae).
Photo from charismaticplanet.com
Male Scarlet Minivet (Pericrocotus flammeus) (the female is
bright yellow and gray, also very pretty). Photo by James Eaton
Blyth's Shrike-babbler (Pteruthius aeralatus). Photo by uzair ar
Asian Paradise Flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi).
Photo from exploreyala.com
One of the more spectacular sights of the trip involved a greater racket-tailed drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus) hectoring a great hornbill (Buceros bicornis) over the jungle of Cat Tien National Park. Imagine our surprise when, later that day, a couple of our party, leader Susan and Matt, stopped in at a park lodge simply to check out the accommodations and spied the very same scene in a painting on a room wall! This event must happen frequently. I was so glad Matt shared the picture with me—good ol' AirDrop.
Here's a greater racket-tailed drongo more lifelike; seeing one always made me happy:
Photo by Nitin Srinivasamurthy
I'll leave you with two more birds for now (there will be a part VI, it seems, when we will venture into the land of fulvettas, yuhinas, and sunbirds, oh my!).
Sultan Tit (Melanochlora sultanea).
Yellow-billed Nuthatch (Sitta solangiae). Photo by Craig Brelsford
There's nothing like a nuthatch to fill me with cheer—I could say, the more colorful the better, but even our drab West Coast white-breasted nuthatches are delightful as they scamper up and down trees, searching for insect prey. They're determined little clowns, defying gravity all the way.
And on my list, we move on to the babblers, bulbuls, and barbets. (Okay, I'm skipping a few, for the sake of alliteration. I'll get back to those in part V.)
Babblers! They are not found in the New World (unless introduced): they show up on Wikipedia specifically as the "Old World babblers," or Timaliidae, a family of passerine (or perching: three toes forward, one back) birds, the largest order (Passeriformes), with 5,100 species (out of 9–10,000 species in the world total). As for the babblers specifically: 53 species, in nine genera. We saw the puff-throated, Abbott's, buff-breasted, scaly-crowned, and golden babblers, the pin-striped tit-babbler, and the limestone wren-babbler, and heard a few others. They are diverse in size and coloration (though most are rather drab), and tend to be characterized by soft fluffy plumage.
Scaly-crowned Babbler (Malacopteron cinereum). Photo by Daniel Koh
The Vietnamese Cutia (Cutia legalleni) is a babbler too:
it was one of the final birds of our trip, and greatly gratifying:
a lovely little thing. Photo by Allan Lewis
Bulbuls (family Pycnonotidae) are also passerines, with 150 species in 26 genera; also only Old World, through Africa and Asia. Species we saw included the black-headed, black-crested, light-vented, sooty-headed, red-whiskered, streak-eared, puff-throated, stripe-throated, flavescent, ashy, mountain, black, and chestnut. I marked many of these with an asterisk. Here are the three I flagged with exclamation marks or circles on my checklist—meaning, I got a good look and they filled me with delight. (The first entry below is an hour-long video of a red-whiskered bulbul singing—I think it's meant as a meditation aid. Though that said, we saw plenty of red-whiskered bulbuls in cages on the streets of Da Lat, enjoyed for their song. The poaching of wild birds, whether for food or their music, is a big problem still in Vietnam.)
Stripe-throated Bulbul (Picnonolus finlaysoni). Photo by Tom Backlund
Chestnut Bulbul (Hemixos castanonolus). Photo by Marcos Wei
And finally, there are the beautiful barbets, who are listed in my check list as Capitonidae, but a glance at Wikipedia suggests that the barbets have been divided into various geographical groups, such that my Vietnamese Asian barbets can proudly call themselves part of the Megalaimidae (meaning "large throat") family. (This bird taxonomy business is exhausting. So many of the birds we saw on our trip had, Susan explained over and over again, been "split" from a previous designation, based on some minor attribute: a different song, a longer tail, a chin stripe, an eye ring, etc. My feeling is, you could just keep splitting all of us until you get to the individual. Don't there have to be some reasonable limits? Ah, but that's a question for another post.)
Here are a few of the barbets we enjoyed watching through our binoculars or hearing from a distance in the shady forest:
Lineated Barbet (Megalaima lineata). Photo by Subharanjan Sen
Golden-throated Barbet (Megalaima franklinii). Photo by Lawrence Neo
Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala)
Susan talked about the onomatopoeic qualities of the barbets' calls—which, by the way, are sung with a closed beak: it's like Tuvan throat singing, only much more melodious. Here's what some of them say, when translated into English:
Yellow-crowned Barbet: Someone took my bra! Someone took my bra!
Indochinese Barbet: Big fat buddha . . . big fat buddha . . .
Coppersmith Barbet: tink . . tink . . tink . . tink (like a metalworker working metal)
Blue-eared Barbet: a Coppersmith on amphetamines
Bornean Barbet: on a double dose of amphetamines
Red-vented Barbet: on pot, "doot . . . doot . . . doot . . ."
Necklaced Barbet: wow! wow! wow! wow!
3. Gene Weingarten, The Fiddler in the Subway (2010) (4/10/18)
This collection of twenty feature stories by Washington Post journalist Gene Weingarten is varied and interesting, with sometimes quirky subjects ranging from a flawed children's party clown to Bill Clinton's father; the contract author of the Hardy Boys mysteries to a visit to the "armpit of America," Battle Mountain, Nevada; a reunion with a girl Weingarten had a crush on at the tender age of twelve to Doonesbury author Garry Trudeau's treatment of the Iraq war; people who don't vote to Woodrow Wilson's perhaps mistress.
Weingarten specializes in humor, but I was especially struck by his more serious pieces, two of which, in 2008 and 2010, respectively, won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing—one, the title essay, about "a world-class violinist [Joshua Bell] who, as an experiment, played beautiful music in a subway station filled with unheeding commuters," and the second, "Fatal Distraction," "a haunting story about parents, from varying walks of life, who accidentally kill their children by forgetting them in cars" (quoting from the Pulitzer website). I found "Fear Itself," about riding a bus in Jerusalem that fifteen years ago was frequently the target of suicide bombers, of special interest because of my own visit to Israel last year, though the situation is less fraught now than it was when he wrote the piece. Plus, fear fascinates me.
The writing is good journalism, sometimes involving research, generally including candid conversations with his interview subjects, and always with a strong dose of Weingarten himself as a participant observer. Here, for example, is how he ends "Fear Itself":
Just before I left on this trip, my friend Laura gave me a $5 bill. Laura is a journalist, an expert in affairs of the Middle East, and the daughter of a rabbi. The bill, she told me, was "mitzvah money." When someone is heading off on a possibly dangerous journey, it is a Jewish custom to give him money to give to a beggar at his destination. That turns the journey into a good deed. With luck, God will protect you.
The bill is still in my wallet; I'd completely forgotten about it. At first, I felt ashamed. But sometimes, when you focus too intently on your own situation, you miss the big picture. I'm going outside, right now, to give the five bucks to the first homeless person I see. It's all the same world, you know.
If you're interested in reading "The Fiddler in the Subway," it can be found here. You can also watch part of Bell's performance below. It was a provocative experiment. I like to think I would have stopped to listen . . .
And so my birding tour of Vietnam has come to an end. I brought home just a few souvenirs: a pair of lounging pants, super comfy; a shirt for David featuring pineapples, XXL (he actually wears a M, but sizes are relative); a pair of green peacock feathers; a tube of Korean chili paste from the airplane; and, perhaps the most important, my completed Field Checklist.
Pretty much every evening for the past three weeks, fifteen minutes before dinner, the ten of us would gather in the dining room or bar and go through the 18 pages of the checklist, reviewing the day's birds. I used a check mark for birds I'm sure I saw; a dot for ones that other people saw but I didn't (or didn't get a good look at—flitting shadows in the vines don't count); and an H for ones that we—or at least our leader, Susan—heard (which also don't count).
Birds that I got a very good look at or that knocked my socks off with their beauty got a star in the margin. Here are photos of many of those birds, gleaned from the Web. There are too many to cover in one post, so I'll present them a dozen at a time. (As always, click on the images to seem them large on black.)
Green Peafowl (Pavo muticus). Photo by Sasi Smith
Yellow Bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis). Photo by Ryan Cheng
Malayan Night-Heron (Gorsachius melanolophus).
Photo by Francesco Veronesi
Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela).
Photo by Shahin Olakara
Collared Falconet (Microhierax caerulescens). Photo by Subhash Chanda
Vernal Hanging Parrot (Loricula vernalis). Photo by Alex Vargas
Asian Barred Owlet (Glaucidium cuculoides). Photo by Prasanna Kumar Mamidala
Orange-Breasted Trogon (Harpactes oreskios). Photo by arinaturephotography.blogspot.com
Banded Kingfisher (Lacedo pulchella). Photo by Lars Petersson
Blue-bearded Bee-Eater (Nyctyornis athertoni). Photo by Jason Thompson
Indian Roller (Coracias benghalensis). Photo by Susan Schermer
Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris). Photo by Eric Bronson
