Buddy

We love the birds in our garden. They sing to us from early morning till late at night. The chorus begins before dawn with mot mots, wood rails, and clay-colored robbins. The early morning choir is replaced later by parakeets, wrens and sparrows, kiskadees, saltators, woodpeckers, doves, meadowlarks, and (my favorite) melodious blackbirds. In the evening it is robins and mot mots again, followed by pauraques and owls. It would be easy to take these songsters for granted; but to live without their various and melodious songs would be unthinkable, and tragic.

There is one black bird, not a very pretty one, who's call sounds a little like one of those rubber squeeze toys. "Ti-ho, ti-ho," he says in rapid fire. That is why the Costa Ricans call him a tijo. To ornithologists he is the groove-billed ani. Anis are in the cuckoo family. A common characteristic of cuckoos, according to the late Alexander Skutch, author of A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica, is their feet are zygodactyl -- two toes pointed forward, the other two pointed back. Anis have lumpy-looking beaks and with slightly humpy shoulders, have a skulking look about them. In the mornings they sit on fences and branches spreading their wings to dry in the sun. They live in groups of two to fifteen, and nest communally. They hang out around cattle, hunting insects that are stirred up as the cattle move about.

Despite the anis' homely appearance, I have grown fond of them. One in particular hangs out near me when I work in the garden. I call him Buddy. When I dig in the garden he is only a few feet away, looking for worms and grubs. When I mow the grass he darts in and out getting grasshoppers, sometimes only a few inches in front of the mower. Being anthropomorphic by nature, I talk to Buddy as I work, sometimes warning him not to come too close to the mower. He cocks his head to one side as I talk to him. Or, at least, I think he does. I look forward to Buddy's arrival every morning in the garden. On the few days he fails to appear, it feels kind of lonely. I think Buddy is my pal. I hope he feels the same about me.

Happy gardening!