Flying North in Autumn

Flying North in Autumn.

February.

I wish I was a penguin.

They seem so content where they are. They have never been in the Northern Hemisphere and feel no pressure to go there. They know they belong up here in the South.

Well, so do I.

People call us Arctic Terns.

But that is only because most of those people live in the Northern Hemisphere. We spend more time on the Antarctic than in the Arctic.

I think of myself as an Antarctic Tern. This is where I belong and want to stay.

The fact that I was hatched in the North, as we all are, is not the point. We left there when I was less than 3 months old. That is not my home! My vague memories of 'there' are only of being hungry and scared. OK, fair enough, that was mostly because I was just a chick; being hungry and scared is what small chicks do best. But answer me this: are there polar bears, arctic foxes and other animals in the Arctic that just want to eat us? Of course, yes! And are they found here, in the South? No!

Antarctica is a place - a real place, with jagged, beautiful mountains (where the updrafts that help us soar effortlessly are just glorious!).

The Arctic is just an old lump of floating ice!

I'm with the penguins. We should stay here.

Since we have arrived here I have been on top of the world.

When we left the North, to fly up here, the daylight hours there were getting less and less. We hate that.

Here, the days have been endless. And the fishing seems so much easier - though I have to admit that might just be because I am older, faster, more experienced.

I don't care. I want to stay here.

I want to stay here and I want the days to stay long. For more than 3 months the sun hasn't set. I don't want anything to change. The sky full of sun, the sea full of fish. Is that too much to ask?

I do not understand why we would leave.

The journey to get here was seriously long - and hard. It was, for a very young bird, a tough introduction to long-distance flying.

The next flight would be faster and easier. But who cares? I don't want to go!

My flock will pressure me. I remember watching them swooping and circling overhead before we left the North. They will do it again. I know they will. I felt - and heard - the call then; I will again.

But I'm not going to go. They can't make me.

*********

March.

Do penguins wish they could fly?

I know I said I wished I was a penguin but . . . . flying! It's what we do. It's who I am! To live without flying is not living.

I suppose penguins would say how special swimming is. But I don't get it. I mean, I dive into the water when I am fishing but there's no real joy in it. To soar into the sky - well, you have to experience it to understand how special that is. Whether it is coming out of the water with a delicious, wriggling fish in your beak or just floating, half-asleep, on a rising thermal, there is nothing like it.

And recently I have been enjoying it more and more. I seem to be in a wonderful cycle of eating more because I am enjoying my food more and more (that reference I made to a wet and wiggling fish made me feel hungry again!) so I am gaining weight and getting fitter and fitter: I can fly higher, faster and in better and better formation with the other energised birds who seem to be feeling the same. It is wonderful.

I still don't want to leave here but I bet, if I wanted to, I could make the journey down North with ease now. As I said, flying - it's what we do.

It seems strange that all my brothers and sisters have, like me, started flying more, further and higher. Spending more time in the air. I think that is partly because we encourage each other. I say 'my brothers and sisters', but of course they are not all part of my actual family. That feels important; especially when it comes to the girl-birds, some of whom are actually quite cute. I hadn't noticed that before.

I wonder if any of them have noticed me: noticed how my wings seem to have grown and stretched? I have to admit to a secret pride in my wingspan. I am sure that, at full stretch, it is nearly three feet across! It is hard to resist showing off, by swooping and plunging. I don't think it is too fanciful to think that 'she' might be among them. I am sure she is out there somewhere, the one I am destined to spend my life with, and it is perfectly possible that she is here: hiding in plain sight, so to speak.

Funny that. I can kind-of accept the idea that I will meet her, the one for me, one day. Even a few weeks ago, the idea of .... well, of mating .... was something I tried not to think about. But now I am starting to think that having a bird to share my life with wouldn't be so bad after all. A part of me is, if I am honest, slightly disgusted at myself for thinking like that! But I can't help it. Sometimes we have fun, racing and chasing each other, and it seems to feel right if I especially focus on flying after one of the girls.

Chasing them is fine; it is just a game. But this morning, as I was flying back to the shore with a fish I had just caught, a girl-bird sitting on the cliff-edge looked up at me and I had this extraordinary urge to give her my fish: my fish! That is not going to happen!

I wonder if she, the bird for me, could be persuaded to stay up here, in the South with me? It would seem a bit strange to stay here, on my own, and watch my whole flock - including her, whoever she may be - flying down North.

*********

The sun now dips below the horizon for a short while every day. Not for long but I miss it when it is down, out of sight. I have tried soaring - rising and circling ever-higher, to try not to lose sight of it. But even if I ride the thermals, rising with and through the clouds, I cannot hold on to the daylight. I, and the other birds flying with me, have to glide back down towards the darkening ground.

This is wrong. We are birds of paradise and paradise is where the sun is.

Do we have to follow the sun: go down towards the Arctic to find it again?

No! I want to stay here!

But will she understand that?

I could stay here - just this year - welcoming the others back when they return. I don't have to find her yet. I don't want to settle down, nesting and .... breeding .... for years yet! It seems we all want to eventually. Well then, I will join the flight North in a few years' time, when I want to: not this year.

I suppose penguins get used to periods of darkness. They have to; they can't fly.

But if I do stay here - just this year - it is good to know that it will be my choice. If I wanted to, I could easily rise up and fly away - with my flock. They are my flock, after all. So many of them are swirling overhead, shrieking gloriously with increasing urgency. It is hard not to be moved to join them.

I could go. It would be so easy. And there would be a certain joy in it.

Isn't the sunlight more important than where we are?

Will it matter that Antarctica has mountains, when the sun goes and you can't see them?

The sun.

My flock.

Her : even if I won't want to ... pair up .... for a few years.

They are all going to fly North, with or without me.

More and more of the flock are circling and calling: faster, louder. Compelling. It is impossible to ignore them.

I must go up; go up to join them. Just to fly. I want to fly. I have to fly: feel the air across my wing feathers.

I'm in the air. In the flock.

We glide, dive, climb, float, soar, wheel, circle, rise, swoop, plunge, whirl, twist, plummet, rotate and spin. The tumult is overwhelming. I am swept up in it. I call and shriek with the rest.

We are going to fly North!

Of course we are going North. It is what we have to do!

Did we ever doubt it?

I do not want to land.

I want to go!

I want to go NOW!

****************************

"Flying North in Autumn".

1540 words

Giles Scott

October 2020

<scotspot@sybaweb.co.za>