Growing up on Cape Cod, I was in love with birds. My grandmother kept a Roger Tory Peterson book of birds on her kitchen table and regularly recorded what birds she had seen on one of her many bird feeders. From a very young age, I followed suit.
So it was with great excitement that I read the stories this morning of the discovery of an ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas. I had heard of the bird, which has been thought to be extinct for the last 60 years, when I was a kid. But, it's not as though I have some nostalgic connection with the bird. The idea of discovering something thought to be extince would be like finally seeing the Loch Ness Monster.
I think my deeper emotional attachment to it, though, is the idea that America is, in part, still undiscovered. Even in our own backyards, there are things we don't understand or know and treasures that are just waiting to be discovered.
I can only imagine being the person who first saw one of these birds last year and the great joy that must have overcome them upon the discovery of something that was impossible.
It also speaks to the idea that one should never give up faith, no matter how high the odds are stacked. You just never know when good fortune is going to hit.
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Posted by: iga | January 28, 2013 at 12:14 PM