Mrs Moreau's Warbler

by Stephen Moss

  *

  We make slow progress: not least because, as we are visiting this region for the first time, we keep coming across new and exciting birds, each with its own bizarre and delightful name. We see stripe-cheeked greenbul and white-chested alethe, African hill-babbler and yellow-bellied waxbill, white-tailed crested flycatcher and scarlet-chested sunbird – the last hovering momentarily by a flower, showing off its dazzling red breast as it sups the nectar.

  As we trek higher up the hillside, the mist begins to clear and the temperature rises with the morning sun. A flock of swallows swoop around us, hawking for tiny insects in the sky. At first we ignore them, until Elia points out that these are not our familiar British swallows, as we had assumed, but the rare Angola swallow – another new bird for all of us. We pause to watch them, and take in their subtle differences in plumage and flight action.

  But every time we delay, I feel increasingly anxious: will we be too late to find the bird we are searching for? And, as with any hill-climb, whenever I think we have got to the top, yet another rise in the land appears before us, until I despair of ever reaching our destination.

  Eventually, after two long and exhausting hours, we arrive on the forested ridge just below the summit. Drenched in sweat, we take long gulps from our water bottles, whose contents are now unpleasantly lukewarm. But we can’t afford to rest. With forest birds, the first few hours after sunrise are the key; later in the day they often fall silent, making them almost impossible to find amidst the dense foliage. As we enter the forest, it is indeed much quieter than the terraced farmland below, though we know it holds many birds found nowhere else on Earth: Loveridge’s sunbird, Uluguru mountain greenbul and, of course, our target bird.

  Fortunately, we have a secret weapon. Elia has brought sound equipment and a speaker, so that he can play the song of Mrs Moreau’s warbler. Hopefully this will entice the bird to appear, and perhaps even sing back to what it will assume is a rival male intruding on its territory. So as we hike along the tree-lined ridge, every hundred metres or so we stop, play the call, and listen. Yet every time we do so … nothing.

  Time and again we repeat this ritual: stop, play, listen … and move on. I am beginning to get nervous: what if we don’t see the bird? Would it be worse if I hear it but don’t manage to see it? And how will I feel if I do glimpse it, but get what birders call ‘untickable views’, frustratingly too brief to appreciate its key identification features? Even that would be better than nothing, I think grimly as we trudge towards the summit.

  Then, just as I have almost given up hope, Elia pauses, and gestures urgently down below us and to the left. He thinks he has heard the warbler’s call. We step off the path into the forest, and make our way gingerly through dense foliage, treading carefully on the uneven and treacherous ground. I look up momentarily as a bright blue butterfly floats past, and notice that we seem to be heading towards a small patch where two saplings have grown across one another, to form a distinctive, X-shaped cross.

  And then I hear it for myself. The unmistakable notes of not just one, but two birds – a breeding pair, performing together in a synchronised duet. Elia plays the sound again, and the birds immediately respond. Then he excitedly grabs my arm: ‘There … there!’

  Fumbling with my binoculars, I lift them to my eyes and look towards where he is pointing. The sound is really loud now – a series of flute-like notes, so perfectly integrated I can’t tell which are being sung by the male and which by the female. But still I see no movement.

  Behind me, I can hear Graeme, Kevin and Roy, each exclaiming in turn as they manage to get a sighting of the bird. Cries of delight and relief as they congratulate one another make me even more frantic. My heavy breathing has made my lenses fog up, and I now face the very real prospect that everyone else will see the bird I have travelled so far to find – but that I shall miss out.

  I take a deep breath and try to stop panicking. Then I hear Graeme’s calm, reassuring, Scottish brogue: ‘Look Stephen, there – X marks the spot!’

  I look again, at exactly the point where the two branches cross. And sitting right out in the open, so obvious I can’t believe I have taken so long to see it, is a small, slender bird. Brownish buff, with a long, thin bill, and an orange chest, throat, head and neck, it looks rather like a robin whose red breast has extended upwards to cover its whole face and crown. As if to acknowledge me, it utters one more burst of song, and then melts back into the forest.

  It has been a long time coming, but Mrs Moreau’s warbler is finally, as birders say, ‘in the bag’.

  *

  I think back to what Reg Moreau must have thought when he first laid eyes on this bird. How did he feel when he realised that it was a species unknown to science? When did it occur to him that he could name it after his beloved wife Winnie? And how did she react when he told her of his intention to do so?

  Sadly, I have not been able to find any account of this momentous discovery in his writings. Maybe it was just too personal to put down on paper. Then again, that allows me to let my imagination run free: to visualise the moment when they returned home to Amani, and he revealed to Winnie his plans to name the bird after her. Did they have a celebratory gin and tonic on the verandah, as the sun went down over the Usambaras? I like to think so…

  My reverie is broken, as the male warbler hops into view once again. This time, to my delight, his mate joins him. Once again, they begin to duet: a wonderfully tuneful performance – short, but very, very sweet. Then, after a few moments, they disappear back into the dense, dark-green foliage. The show is finally over.

  We turn, and begin the long hike down the mountain and back to camp. I need some space and time to reflect on my encounter with the birds so, as my companions head along the path, I lag a little way behind.

  How do I feel? Relieved, certainly. Happy, and fulfilled, after almost fifty years of waiting, that my long quest is finally over. The final piece in the jigsaw of the Moreaus’ story has fallen into place for me. And what a bird! It was far more exciting than I could have imagined: its perky stance, subtle but attractive plumage, and delightful song, all made the experience quite unforgettable.

  But I also feel a deep sense of sadness. As we climbed up the mountain earlier this morning, and the mist parted to reveal the whole landscape, it soon became clear just how much of the forest has already been cut down for farming. From the lower slopes, almost to the summit, the land has been cleared and planted with crops, to feed a rapidly growing local population.

  I can hardly blame them for wanting to produce food for their families. But every tree that is felled marks another setback for the endemic birds of this region; birds like Mrs Moreau’s warbler, which are found here, and nowhere else in the world. As I walk away from the duetting couple, with the last notes finally fading away into the forest, it strikes me as highly likely that this species will go extinct during my lifetime. For, as the latest report from BirdLife International reveals, the global population may now be as low as 500 individual birds.1

  *

  Today, we face a huge and disturbing paradox. Even as we are discovering more and more new species – either by finding them for the very first time, or by ‘splitting’ them because of differences in their DNA – many of the world’s birds are heading towards the edge of extinction. What chance does Mrs Moreau’s warbler – and its recently split cousin the Rubeho warbler, found in an adjacent mountain range – have of surviving in the modern world, where billions of human beings demand so much land and space?

  It dawns on me that this is where my passion for bird names has finally reached the end of its long journey. It began when, as a ten-year-old boy, I first came across the name Mrs Moreau’s warbler in Birds of the World. It developed through my lifelong passion for birds, and my growing love of the English language, both of which come together in the names we have given to birds down through the ages. And it ends with the realisation that my fascination with the history and origin of bird
names – whether of common and familiar, or rare and unusual species – is ultimately because these names hold within them the incredible variety of birds around the globe, and the rich stories of their interactions over time with us.

  From the familiar robin, chaffinch and blackbird (whose names turned out to be far less straightforward than we might have imagined) to the Uluguru violet-backed sunbird, Udzungwa forest partridge and Mrs Moreau’s warbler, bird names are far more than just words. Every single one of them tells a story – a story that runs parallel with our own human narrative, expressed through our history, language and culture.

  The naming of birds is, of course, a purely human pursuit; as we have seen, it helps us make sense of a complex and eternally diverse avian world. The birds themselves are entirely oblivious to what we decide to call them. And yet we insist on doing so, and indeed we go further, in celebrating our own world by the names we choose to bestow. In his own small way, that’s what Reg Moreau was doing when he decided to immortalise his wife – and their love and devotion towards one another – in the name of this obscure little bird.

  So what happens if Mrs Moreau’s warbler disappears from the face of the earth? The extinction of any species is a tragedy, not just for the creature in question, but for us too; in John Donne’s words, like any man’s death, it diminishes us. But when we lose a species its name is also diminished, for who can hear of the most famous extinct bird without thinking of the proverbial phrase ‘as dead as a dodo’? What was once a living, breathing creature is now simply a symbol of extinction and loss; no longer part of the wondrous diversity and complexity of the natural world.

  To me, this shift in meaning is almost as important as the loss of the living bird. For, as this story has revealed, the names of birds are central to our own identity – a crucial part of what makes us human. As John Clare aptly lamented, ‘O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away’.2

  The names we have given to birds down the ages reflect every aspect of our own lives: primitive superstitions, myths and legends, invasions and conquests, shifts in language, rigorous scientific observation, our love of sound, colour and pattern, and a sense of place. And, last, but certainly not least, some commemorate the extraordinary achievements of the men and women after whom they are named: including, of course, Reg and Winnie Moreau.

  *

  May their warbler continue to sing forever.

  Notes

  1 http://www.birdlife.org/globally-threatened-bird-forums/2016/11/mrs-moreaus-warbler-bathmocercus-winifredae-request-for-information/

  2 From ‘Remembrances’.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book arose from a lifelong fascination with birds and language, which began when my mother took me as an infant to feed the ducks near my home, and developed through her dedicated encouragement of my love of reading, books and language.

  Many years later, these came together when I met Laura Hassan of Faber, who immediately saw the potential of the complex and fascinating story of how birds got their names. Laura has been fantastically supportive throughout the writing of the book, as has editor Katherine Ailes, whose perceptive comments and ability to see how the narrative should develop have been incredibly helpful. My dear friend Graham Coster copy-edited the book, making many helpful last-minute suggestions, while my agent Broo Doherty has, as ever, provided wise advice and great support. I would also like to thank the team at Faber, Fred Baty in editorial, Eleanor Crow in design, Kate Burton in publicity and John Grindrod in marketing.

  Several experts have kindly taken time to read through excerpts and make corrections and suggestions. They are the linguists David Crystal and Simon Horobin, and ornithologists Jonathan Meyrav, Richard Prum, Paul Salaman, Arnoud van den Berg and Ian Wallace, along with the team behind the satirical magazine Not BB. Any errors that remain are of course my own.

  The Appendices – lists of bird names under various categories, included for my more obsessive readers (you know who you are!) – were a perennial topic of conversation on boat trips along Peru’s Manu River in May 2017. I would like to thank my companions Neil Glenn, Jo Wimpenny, Kyle Carlsen and Brian Egan for their very helpful suggestions (and some really silly ones). Nigel Redman also used his vast knowledge of the world’s birds to add a number of names to this section. The expedition to Tanzania, featured in the Prologue and Epilogue, was organised by Zoe and Roy Hinde of Wild Things Safaris, and led by Roy and our excellent guide Ezra. I should also like to thank Colin Watkins and Nigel Simpson, both of whom provided very helpful and detailed advice to help us plan our trip; thanks also to Nigel for his generous gift of Martin Woodcock’s evocative portrait of Mrs Moreau’s Warbler.

  I have also been inspired by a number of other people who have found the origin of bird names compelling. The late W. B. Lockwood, philologist and author of the slim but indispensable volume The Oxford Book of Bird Names, has been a constant inspiration. Barbara and Richard Mearns, authors of two fine books on the origin of eponymous names, Biographies for Birdwatchers and Audubon to Xantus, have provided much useful biographical information on the people in Chapters 4 & 5. I also referred to the extraordinary two-volume work by Michel Desfayes, A Thesaurus of Bird Names.

  Three of my greatest friends kindly read the whole book from cover to cover, providing really helpful comments throughout. They are my childhood birding companion Daniel Osorio, Graeme Mitchell, with whom I now regularly go birding in Somerset, and Kevin Cox. Kevin and his wife Donna also kindly offered me the use of the cottage in the grounds of their Devon home as a writing retreat.

  Graeme and Kevin joined me on our fabulous trip in search of the elusive Mrs Moreau’s warbler, the eponymous title of this book. I could not have wished for better companions on this, the journey of a lifetime.

  STEPHEN MOSS

  APPENDIX

  Positive and Negative Bird Names

  POSITIVE AND UPBEAT

  beautiful nuthatch, jay, firetail, rosefinch etc.

  elegant parrot, tern, honeyeater, tit, sunbird, trogon, pitta etc.

  exclamatory paradise whydah

  festive coquette

  foxy cisticola

  gorgeous bushshrike

  joyful greenbul

  handsome flycatcher, francolin

  immaculate antbird

  laughing dove, gull, kookaburra etc.

  laughingthrushes

  lovely cotinga, fairywren, sunbird

  magnificent frigatebird, sunbird, riflebird, bird-of-paradise etc.

  many-coloured rush-tyrant

  marvellous spatuletail

  paradise jacamar, kingfisher, drongo etc.

  rainbow pitta

  resplendent quetzal

  royal sunangel, parrotfinch, penguin, albatross, flycatcher

  sacred ibis, kingfisher

  sociable lapwing

  splendid fairywren, astrapia, starling, sunbird

  superb fruit dove, lyrebird, pitta, parrot, starling, sunbird, bird-of-paradise etc.

  NEGATIVE OR UNDERWHELMING

  bentbills

  drab water-tyrant

  dull-blue flycatcher

  dull-coloured grassquit

  fearful owl

  go-away-birds

  inaccessible rail

  intermediate egret

  invisible rail

  lachrymose mountain tanager

  lazy cisticola

  least tern, bittern etc.

  medium ground finch, tree finch

  middle-spotted woodpecker

  modest tiger parrot

  mourning dove, wheatear, warbler etc.

  one-colored becard

  plain antvireo, pigeon, flowerpecker etc.

  sad flycatcher

  screamers

  shy albatross, heathwren

  simple greenbul

  snoring rail

  sombre tit

  solitary sandpiper, snipe, eagle, cacique etc.

  spotless starling, crake

  st
out cisticola

  tiny greenbul, tyrant-manakin, hawk, cisticola, sunbird etc.

  unadorned flycatcher

  unicolored antwren, tapaculo, jay, thrush, blackbird

  uniform swiftlet, crake, finch

  weebill

  widowbirds

  Long and short names

  LONG (MORE THAN TWENTY-FIVE LETTERS – HYPHENS AND SPACES NOT COUNTED)

  26 LETTERS: chestnut-backed jewel-babbler, cinnamon-breasted tody-tyrant, Eastern wattled cuckooshrike, grey-headed canary-flycatcher, King of Saxony bird-of-paradise, Northern rough-winged swallow, plumbeous-crowned tyrannulet, purple-tailed imperial pigeon, Rüppell’s long-tailed starling, Southern rough-winged swallow, Western wattled cuckooshrike

  27 LETTERS: American three-toed woodpecker, amethyst-throated mountaingem, black-and-white tody-flycatcher, black-casqued wattled hornbill, chestnut-fronted helmet-shrike, Eurasian three-toed woodpecker, Northern beardless tyrannulet, Northern brown-throated weaver, Southern beardless tyrannulet, Southern brown-throated weaver

  28 LETTERS: black-and-white casqued hornbill, chestnut-breasted chlorophonia, chestnut-crowned sparrow-weaver, cinnamon-bellied flowerpiercer, cinnamon-rumped foliage-gleaner, Donaldson Smith’s sparrow-weaver, ochraceous-breasted flycatcher, red-bellied paradise flycatcher, slaty-backed nightingale-thrush, slender-billed scimitar babbler, yellow-casqued wattled hornbill

  29 LETTERS: black-and-white shrike-flycatcher, black-and-yellow silky-flycatcher, lesser necklaced laughingthrush, white-bellied crested flycatcher, yellow-throated woodland warbler