Why Not An Aviary?

One mid morning last week, I could not comprehend how happy I was to see a pair of Tucmo hopping from one branch to another of the Bugnay near my small garden plot in a mountain barangay. The tucmo is a bird specie, probably of the pigeon family, while the Bugnay is a kind of tree whose fruits are a prime choice of birds.

How sure I was that it was a Tucmo? In my boyhood, I always had few chosen stones lined in my pocket and a slingshot that either I carefully kept inside my school bag or hung like a necklace of sort. After class hours, I would, more often than not, go to the back part of the school where Bugnays were grown to hunt for birds. Almost always, the Alimukon, Manatad, Punay and Tucmo would be there. When these birds were somewhere else, I could always walk to the nearby Dakit and Tugas trees, where the Antolihao and Tikarol would be found. And yes, I had roasted bird (is there such a nomenclature?) for meal.

Why would I be so gladdened with what I saw? For so long a time (and this was since my high school years in the 60’s), I had hoped to see birds on our trees. The cacophony of their chirps, I dreamed, could breathe joy to a sobbing heart better than the Ray Conniff Singers. Alas, it seemed to me that they became ominously fewer and fewer with each passing year. Maybe because we cut trees rather needlessly and in effect destroyed their habitat. It could also be my feeling of guilt having been a part of those who indiscriminately hunted birds.   So, when I saw the pair of tucmo that morning, I was overwhelmed by joy.

Truthfully, when I discovered the Bugnay trees several months back, I nurtured them. We spent energy pruning useless branches, introducing fertilizer (horse or carabao manure, if you may) and cutting competing bushes. It was our hope that someday when they bore fruits, the birds would, in finding them, come back. Indeed, the pair of Tucmo appeared, we knew that our efforts paid. The satisfaction was in fact, more than a kind of payment in gold.

A quirk of fate however, was more cruel than tragic. On our way home to the city, that same day, we saw three teenagers, one of whom, had an air gun with him. He just shot at something we did not see what but which we took to be a bird. Judging from the boys’ collective body language, we assumed, to our relief, that the shooter must have missed.

We are told that birds from part of a balanced ecology. Their presence adds richness to our environment.

His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama, is in the position to launch a most laudable program his predecessor failed to recognize. It is timely. While the city administration is tackling their budgetary requirements for the fiscal year 2011, the mayor can direct the allocation of funds to constitute a group tasked with the duty of multiplying the population of indigenous birds.

I am sure that we have, in our city, men and women both tooled the kind of scientific education relative to birds and motivated to see them abundant again. Our mayor should tap them and give the marching orders to collect the species of Agiling, Alimukon, Antolihao, Manatad, Punay, Tikarol and Tucmo and even the smaller ones like the Itit, Tagol-ol, Tamsi, Tibas and Yacyac and others. Of course, they should be likewise appropriately funded so that they can find ways to increase the bird population in our city.

Along the way, the mayor has to cause the construction of a large and modern aviary. I am certain it can serve as a tourist attraction of the rare kind. When the birds have increased their number, they can be released to woods and hopefully they find their way to my Bugnays. Right, the result may look like simply serving my selfish motivations but, in all frankness that is an insignificant aside compared to the common weal.