The Year of the Quail
Why
am I so attracted to the way of the birds? I have spent much time watching,
thinking about, and photographing them. Occasionally I have been caught writing
odes to them. But regardless of all that, I just could not fathom the source of
this affiliation that might have bordered on obsession. Furthermore, whenever
my child asked ‘why do you love birds so?’ being unable to generate a
convincing answer was frustrating.
First I came across a word - Goǩotta (pronounced ‘Yo-Koh-Tah’) –
that in Swedish literally means ‘dawn picnic to hear the first birdsong’.
It refers to the act of rising in the early morning to watch the birds or to go
outside to appreciate nature.
And then I came across ‘The Year of the Quail’. In this
book, the gifted and acclaimed photographer Ines Roberts takes you through a
photographic journey of the first year in the life of a quail. Well, a covey
of quail, to be more precise – from eggs to chicks and
beyond.
The story, a real life occurrence, is written in the form of a diary. The
diary is old. It was written in the year 1979 while Ines was spending a lot of
time at home raising her two young children, Solveig and Howie. The story
starts with Ines discovering sixteen Californian quail eggs in her garden while
she was living in Santa Barbara, California. The mother quail had been gobbled
up by the family cat, Gregory. It was that defining moment that motivated Ines
to step in as surrogate mother to the quail eggs. The subsequent imprinting on
the quail chicks of Ines as their mother creates a remarkable story about a
bird / human connection and how it evolves over the course of the quail’s
development.
Ines’ simple, yet elegant, description of the struggle between life and
death of quail being raised in a human household is remarkably insightful. The
human urge to not only salvage troubled wild life but also to nurture it is beautifully
captured in both Ines’ writing and photographs. In doing so, Ines’ creativity reveals
the love and respect that she harbors for the living world.
“How much we love, how much we like to keep and long to tame a little
animal and claim it as belonging to us.”
The author-photographer’s connection with birds is also a quest of a
personal nature as reflected in the question that she poses to herself and the
vulnerability that she exposes: “Why should I feel the loss of a small bird
so deeply, so personal?” Her soliloquy is endearing as she reaches a
conclusion of sorts: “…helpless creatures in our hands…enriches us, fills us
with tender joy and humility.”
Ines’ book also delves into the connections that young children develop
with animals and birds with which they are entrusted. Her observations about
her children’s thought processes provide another interesting facet to the book:
“Fantasy and reality must be a very blurred line to our children…”
The overall essence of the book, and perhaps why Ines created her work, is
summarized in the question “Is it our yearning for paradise lost and to be
in harmony with nature?”
What exactly happens to all sixteen eggs? How many chicks survived and
what were their outcomes? Who were the ‘death candidates’? Who were
Girlie and Boyboy? What fate befalls Gregory the cat? All these questions, and
more, can be addressed when you read the book.
As an academic / researcher, if I were to come up with any critique of
Ines’ book then perhaps it would be the lack of scientifically sound facts to
corroborate her detailed descriptions and observations about the quail. If I
were to put Ines in the same league as Charles Darwin who was also an obvious
lover of the natural world, the difference would be in the scientifically rigorous
and painstakingly detailed coverage given by Darwin to the finches, birds that
he found in abundance in the Galapagos Islands to which he travelled. However,
as I fancy myself to be a lover of living beings - human, animal, bird, plant –
and an aficionado of creative exploration and expression through writing and
photography, I can safely speculate that Ines was likely not interested in
being a natural historian through her creative work. She simply dwelt on loving
her quail and that was sufficiently dealt with in her book: “…four little
birds fly out of a tree…and follow you wherever you go – that moment of wonder
and joy is not diminished by any sobering knowledge of down-to-earth science.”
It should be noted that the high quality publication of Ines’ work by the
publisher, Bookgroup, played an important role in making the book a visual
delight. The bright multi-colored pages and lovely formatting of the text and
photos caught my attention from the get go. As a writer of books for children,
I have learned the importance of having children evaluate children’s
books. More so than captivating my imagination, the book was
quite favorably received by my two children, twelve and seven years,
respectively. Introducing ‘The Year of the Quail’ in the English curriculum
at my son’s school in Karachi is a move in the right direction as there is a
dearth of contemporary literature for these young students. However, the
messages inherent in the book will be of great value to children and adults
reading the book – irrespective of being incorporated into school curricula.
I mentioned the word Goǩotta at the outset. Perhaps you would like
to really understand the ethos of Goǩotta? If so then pick up a copy of
‘The Year of the Quail’ – it will do you a world of good.Book Details:
The Year of the Quail
Author: Ines Labunski Roberts
Publisher: Bookgroup, Pakistan
ISBN: 9789695501191
Pages: 74
Price: Rs. 800 / $12
[from Mixed Bag & the Conference of the Birds]
Acknowledgment: This article was first published by the Houston Inner Looper Newspaper (Feb 2014).
Comments
Post a Comment