What sky brings

IT must be the angles of those legs, drawn as if by a child whose hand could not yet steady a crayon.

After I saw the Little Egrets recently flocking on the campus grounds, I now take a jeepney seat facing the grasslands across the University of the Philippines (UP) Press bookstore.

In the four years I’ve studied here, this was the first I’ve seen the Egretta garzetta congregate like starched white pillowcases blown helter-skelter off a line.

A full-time student, I spend the bulk of my days in the library. If someone pulled out the sky and replaced it with tarpaulin, I may not even notice.

A knapsack holding my laptop and books is my only incentive to take note of the sky. Walking once under heavily dripping trees, I looked up and wondered whether I should unfurl an umbrella when I spotted a flash of yellow in the dense green-black gloom of the canopy.

That was my first sight of Oriolus chinensis in the stand leading to the National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Department (Nismed) of UP Diliman.

The Black-naped Oriole is the Antulihaw to Visayans and the Kilyawan to Tagalogs.

Amado C. Bajarias Jr. in his “A Field Guide to Flight” quotes a proverb, “Wisdom begins… when one puts the right name to a thing.” Published by the Ateneo de Manila University in 2016, his book is subtitled “Identifying Birds on Three School Grounds”.

Bajarias, with lush illustrations from Oscar M. Figuracion Jr., guides even the amateur birdwatcher to the movement of the winged warblers and “skulkers” around three campuses: Ateneo de Manila University and Miriam College, both in the Loyola Heights District; and the UP campus in the Diliman district.

He considers as “the more (sic) important birding area” the UP Diliman, with its 493 hectares of grasslands, stands of acacia and fruit trees (with its insects, staple in bird diets), “even an agricultural field and a wetland”. Only the state university is also accessible to the public.

Known as Talabong in Visayan and Tagak in Tagalog, the Little Egret is one of the 29 families considered as “winter visitors,” according to the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines as cited by Bajarias. The Little Egret is a solitary forager but not shy, a fortunate adaptation because the grasslands the Talabong favor is along a busy route for Ikot jeepneys and cars.

Once slaughtered by milliners for the Aigrettes, the elegant plumes they sport during mating rituals, foraging Little Egrets remind me of ascetics bent over their prayer beads or academics drowsing over their books.

When the birds take wing, I see why they are God’s creatures: I catch a glimpse of the sky, the everlasting.



(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ 09173226131)


*First published in SunStar Cebu’s October 14, 2018 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”