The Many Birds of Pintassilgo
February 11, 2011
The neighborhood that we live in is called Moema. It’s a large neighborhood, so one half is actually referred to as Moema-Indians, where all the street names are hard-to-pronounce indigenous names like Alameda dos Nhambiquaras or Alameda dos Maracatins. And, our half is Moema-Birds, where the streets have names like Rua Sabiá (Robin St.), Rua Pavão (Peacock St.), or our street, Rua Pintassilgo (Finch St.).
It’s been fun to learn bird names in Portuguese by wandering the area and looking them up later. Some are very exotic sounding like Rouxinol, pronounced ho-shee-noh-oo, which means nightingale, or sweet sounding like Canário, which is more obviously, a canary. I also discovered an strange looking bird with a cool name: Macuco. It’s supposed to be a Solitary Tinamou in English.
Anyway, I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, or if it’s really how our neighborhood got its name, but we really do have lots of birds that frequent our block. People who visit our apartment tell me their neighborhood isn’t the same.
I love waking up in the morning to the sounds of the various birds. There’s one in particular that is called Bem-Ti-Vi, which literally means “Nice to See You!”. Their song sounds like it would if you were saying his name: something like Beng Chee Vee. It’s really quite charming. I think in English the actual bird is called Kiskadee (which ironically has the same rhythm as Bem-Ti-Vi).
Another of my favorite bird-visitors, I named early on: Ssaro. I basically took the last half of the word for bird in Portuguese: pássaro. “Ssaro” is a regular visitor to our terrace. He has the sweetest song that is quite melodious. (Don’t ask me why I think he’s a he!) I’ve tried to record him singing, but I usually manage to scare him off before he gets recorded. Several people have told me he’s either a finch or a canary. I need to do some more research to find out which. He’s a dirty yellow with brownish bits.
Our most colorful visitors, beyond a doubt, are the dozens of parakeets that hang out in the tree below our bedroom window. They are brilliant green and are VERY noisy. They will often wake me up with their loud squawks if I’ve slept too late. They seem to be quite territorial and chase away most other birds who come by.
This leads me to a mystery that I’ve finally solved. Last summer, I thought the tree below our window was dead–there were absolutely no leaves on it, and only a few weird marble-sized balls on the ends of branches. (This may be when my bird-watching started, because I could see the birds in the tree so easily.) Imagine my surprise this spring when the tree was fully leafed out in vibrant and healthy leaves. At the time, I wondered if maybe it leafed out only every other year.
The mystery of this tree has been solved as I watched our street’s birds. Little by little, the birds of Pintassilgo have been eating it throughout the spring and summer. I’m not kidding! The tree is probably half picked-over right now, with little stubs of leaves left on large sections of the tree. The parakeets by far do the most consuming. I imagine by May or June it will be bare again like I saw it last year. Who knew I would come to Brazil and be a bird-watcher!
(PS – if you know about birds help me identify the first few photos!)
