national bird selected

The discovery by field researchers of a breeding pair of pygmy burrowing snow owls (nyctea scandiaca pyltaregina) in the Pylta The Terrible National Ecological Protection Area (PTTNEPA) has buoyed the spirits of the Grigovian people. “I remember, as a child, seeing these birds whilst vising relatives in the dizzyingly-high valleys north of Pyltagrad,” said Dorevtha Mouiryindt, 72, who now lives in the southern city of Pryaghdoyest. “Try as we did, my cousins and I could never catch a bird, let alone get close enough to touch one. They are wary, watchful, and quick – the perfect choice for our national bird.”

While technically part of the genus nyctea scandiaca, pyltareginae differ significantly. Brightly-colored plumage clusters around face and foot and lead edge of wing; to some observers, the birds resemble flamenco dancers dressed for carnival. (The birds appear to use the colorful bands during courtship and to demarcate territory.) “We find few opportunistic predators this size that have evolved such attention-getting plumage,” said Yue Zhishuou, 39, an ornithologist at the University of Stockholm. “But the birds, when they hunt during the day, hunt in packs, using tactics similar to those used by other top predators, including killer whales. After locating their prey, they fly away from it in different directions. Then, with piercing screams in their throats, they come floating back on wings of silent menace, dropping from the sky directly above their victim with talons snapping and beaks grasping for purchase. Most often, they run their quarry in circles until it trips over its own feet and collapses into a panting heap, whereupon they pounce.”

“The uhuiyendt are fascinating creatures,” said Hennu Yiptlend, Grigovia's Secretary of the Interior – Natural Resources, using the local name for the birds (uhuiyendt, pronounced oo-whoo-ee-yend-t). “They form family bonds that last for generations, they defend their territory with reckless ferocity, they use tools to reach deep into anthills, they can punch through a foot of iced-over snow while hunting vole in wintertime, and they do all these things dressed in bold plumage replete with dazzling bursts of color.” The minister tied our steppe ponies to a stunted tree just below the top of a wind-swept ridge. We walked to the summit and glassed down onto a flock of uhuiyendt hunting rodents in the sparse Autumn grasses. My host directed my gaze to where a few birds had chased a field mouse out into the open. They screeched and dove at it until the little beast – confused and panicking – ran into the waiting talons of a big, red female. In the early morning sun, her plumage was so bright that I had to lower my binoculars and blink the sunspots from my eyes. The owls started diving at us a few minutes later, loosing their piercing screams at ear level and chasing us off their ridge with quick efficiency. “These birds live nowhere else – they are ours alone,” said Mr. Yiptlend as we were working the horses down a series of switchbacks. “The flock we just saw will defend that ridge from other predators for the next three months but not bag from it, so that, when they return to hunt, vole is fat and mouse is lazy. There are few birds as fierce, efficient, and cunning as the uhuiyendt, few nations a resilient and egalitarian as Grigovia. Long live the People's Republic.” (For more information about the uhuiyendt, and to see pictures of its colorful plumage, please visit pyltaregina.avian.gv.)

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥