The right damn bird

The rain started pouring again, but that didn’t matter because the group of six hadn’t been dry for 36 hours anyway. “At least the mosquitos don't like being drowned, too.” Bianca, a middle-aged farmer from Arizona, murmured as she carefully stroked the biggest of the red bites on her forehead. Mike, her husband, hadn’t spoken for six hours, and he wasn’t about to start now.

They marked the end of the small queue of birdwatchers fighting their way through the thicket of the Costa Rican Corcovado rainforest. Paul, the youngest and most passionate of them (some participants would have said the most annoying), was following their guide, Filipo, closely. Daphne and Zoe, the elderly Belgian twin sisters, mimed shooting arrows into the back of his shirt, which read: “Birdwatching goes both ways.” Admittedly, that was quite funny and also true.

Of the 59 different bird species that had watched them struggle through the woods like confused but functionally clothed ants, they had noticed only seven. Actually, Paul had noticed six and Filipo one, when it had accidentially landed in front of them.

At the foot of a giant tree Filipo stopped to let the group catch up. “Guys,” he said. Sweat and rain dripped from his upper lip. “It’s 4 p.m. The sun will set in two hours. We will go to our cabaña for the night, and there we will eat a warm and hearty dinner.” Magic words, exciting words. Words, that made the group forget all their struggles for a second.

A three day trek through a hot, humid and hilly rain forest is never easy, but doable with enough sleep and food. Which they hadn't had. The first night, spent in a small guesthouse, had been wet, cold and short. The breakfast, consisting of a handful of beans and rice, had given enough energy for two hours of hiking, the meager lunch packs provided for another two. But that was 6 hours ago. The prospect of a bed and food was like seeing a cool spring after a week in the desert.

Paul raised his hand. Filipo had already turned away and started walking again. The rest of the group followed, pushing past Paul. “Uhm…” He lowered his hand. “Filipo? Una pregunta? One question?” He hurried past Daphne and Zoe again, who now started stabbing him in the back with imaginary knives.

Filipo stopped again and half turned toward him, which resulted in an awkward collision with Mikes enormous chest. He apologized and rubbed his hurting nose. “Yes, Paul? Una pregunta?” “Uhm, my app registered some birds you haven’t commented on yet.” He closed up to Filipo and held his waterproof phone a few centimeters from the guide’s face.

Filipo stepped back and scanned the birds displayed on the screen. “Ah yes. A Graceful black-throated Trogon, very pretty, a Cocoa Woodcreeper, mhm, quite unassuming, and a Northern Plain Xenops. Funny name, right? Okay, well.” He fumbled for his own phone, scanned it with one hand shielding it from the rain, and pondered. Obviously, he had no internet connection and no Google.

It had become clear quite early on that Filipo was neither a particularly good nor a particularly ambitious birdwatching guide. Which gave Paul more opportunities to be annoying.

Filipo put the phone back into his pocket. “Well, yeah… let’s talk about it when we’ve reached the cabaña. There’s not much time left before it gets dark.” And he went on.

Paul looked disappointed and turned to the other participants for approval. He saw their faces, turned back hastily and hurried past Filipo. The group continued their trek in silence.

Two hours later, Daphne was the first to raise her voice. “Filipo, where is the cabaña? Het werd donker. Dark. Night.” “Noche!” Zoe chimed in. Filipo hesitated, then turned around. “Guys,” he said, and his smile was too wide. “We will change our plans. Listen. The cabaña, eh... my friend says it's full of animals. Spiders and ants, you know? We won't sleep in the cabaña. We'll build our own. It will be way more fun!”

Now Mike spoke his first word since morning. “Bullshit.” Bianca sighed, and Mike went on. “Big, steaming bullshit. You lost the trail, and you have no idea how to get us out of this shitty forest.”

Daphne and Zoe nodded along furiously. “Right! And there are no sloths at all!” “And no jaguars!” “And no tapirs!” “Just mosquitoes!” “And ants!” “And you!” They glared at Filipo expectantly.

Paul stepped in front of the guide, as to protect him. It looked a little pathetic, since he was two heads shorter and half as broad. “Ladies. Mike. Listen. Let's not lose our spirits here. Keep this on a positive note. Sleeping in nature is the rawest and most honest experience you can get. And by the way, do you know how much a survival camp costs at this agency? Twice as much. Actually, you're getting two for one. And you can sleep in a nice, warm, luxurious hut all your life.”

Filipo coughed a little, then cleared his throat. “My man!” He stepped beside Paul and put a hand on his shoulder. Paul looked very proud. “That's absolutely right. It's a special for you. A complimentary program. Making fire, building beds, cooking delicious food that we'll, uh... hunt ourselves.”

Filipo fixated his eyes sternly on Mike. “Of course we're not lost. Look at me. Am I a liar? I know exactly where we are. In fact, we're close to civilization, and tomorrow we only need another two hours to get back to the headquarters." He supported his words by nodding along vigorously. "Vamos, amigos! Es una aventura! First, we need wood.”

Mike glared at Filipo, who didn't notice because he was already propping his backpack against a tree and collecting twigs. Paul immediately did the same. Zoe and Daphne sat down and watched them. Bianca seemed undecided. Then she glanced at her husband, decided he could do without her for a while, and joined the others to collect more wood.

Half an hour later they sat beneath a tree, looking at a wet pile of twigs. “I don't think it will burn,” Bianca commented thoughtfully. “I don't think we'll have a bed tonight either,” Mike noticed in a very tense voice. “Or food,” Zoe and Daphne chimed in unison.

Paul looked at Filipo. “What is your agency's emergency plan? Can you contact anyone?” Filipo tilted his head to look at the sky. “No emergency plan. And no reception.” Paul waited. “Sooooo...?” Filipo snapped his head back and stood up, angrily. “I will tell you about birds now!”

He took out his phone and scrolled through a PDF document. “Here. Listen. There are 367 bird species here in Corcovado. That's 3-4 percent of all bird species in the world. We start with the Anhinga. The Anhinga is also known as Snakebird due to its long neck ..” And he went on.

The group stared at him. Only Paul seemed not completely stunned and nodded along. Filipo worked his way through the birds from A to P before he finally stopped, exhausted. Silence fell again. Paul looked pleased and typed something into his phone.

Then Mike spoke. “So there are birds that only live deep inside the rainforest, yes? And there are birds that live near civilization, yes?” “Yes!” Filipo and Paul answered simultaneously. “And there's an app that recognizes bird calls, yes?” “Yes!” This time it was only Paul's voice. “And it also works offline?” “Yes.” “Great. So if we know which bird we're hearing, we can determine whether we're near civilization or not.”

Bianca looked at her husband in awe. That might very well have been the most attractive thing he had ever said during their entire marriage. Paul nodded, a little hesitant and a little sour because the idea was genuinely good and he hadn't thought of it himself. “Yes, it seems so.” Mike shot a glance at Filipo, but he seemed to have shut down.

“Well,” Mike continued, “then we should try to get some sleep, make our best guess about where to go in the morning, and hope we hear the right damn bird.” The group nodded, Filipo stayed catatonic. And so it was decided.

Mike and Bianca stacked a few logs together, spread their sleeping bags on top of them and laid down, Bianca pressing herself against her husband with newfound passion. Zoe and Daphne built their beds a few meters away. Paul hung his ultralight hammock between two trees. Filipo lay straight down between two giant roots, his legs in a puddle. Something inside him seemed to have broken.

Night came. And stayed. And stayed. And stayed. With it came bugs with eyes in impossible places, low and distant howls, spiders and fog. Then night finally left again, leaving six people with shattered nerves.

Filipo seemed to have recovered a little, though. He got up with the first morning light and placed himself in the middle of the group, seemingly reclaiming his position as leader. He clapped his hands together, his trousers dripping wet. “Well, that was your first night in the jungle! Exciting, no? Very close to nature. A big adventure.”

Surprisingly, even Paul said nothing. Daphne pulled half a spider out of her hair. Zoe helped her and removed two of its missing legs. Mike and Bianca rolled up their sleeping bags. They looked suspiciously happy.

Filipo clapped his hands again. “Now we have to choose a direction. Since you are my esteemed guests, do you have a preference?” “Home,” Bianca, Mike, Zoe, and Daphne said in unison. “Moss,” said Paul.

Filipo looked puzzled. “What?” “If we find moss, we know where north is because of the wind and the moisture.” Paul walked around the trees, inspecting every side. There was moss everywhere.

“Or... is there a river around here? I think if we follow a river downstream, we'll eventually reach the ocean.” “If we reach the ocean, we're at the ocean,” Mike grumbled. “And it's still about eighty kilometers from here.” "Well, then make a suggestion" Paul crossed his arms.

Mike pointed in some direction. "Who wants to go there?" All but Paul's hands went up, even Filipo's. His moment of leadership seemed to have passed again. "Who wants to go another way?" No hands. "Well then."

After some minutes, everything was packed up and the group was moving again, now with Mike at the front. It was 24 hours by now that they had last eaten something besides trail mix. Thanks to some contraption Paul had built for the night, at least they had been able to catch a few liters of rain water. Nobody was confident enough to determine what plants were edible and Filipo's idea of hunting animals had evaporated due to the lack of animals and hunting skills. They had to find civilization. It was not about comfort anymore.

It was almost noon when Paul whisper-screamed. "Bird!" And he pointed into the canopy. "Which one?" Bianca whisper-screamed back. "Uhm, I don't know. It has to chirp or tweet or whatever for my app to identify it." They stared at the small yellow bundle of feathers, willing it with their minds to make some noise. It didn't.

Paul chirped. The bird looked at him. Paul chirped again. The app gave a notification. "Show me. Show me!" Filipo gasped and grabbed the phone. It showed a penguin. Filipo looked at Paul, who grinned sheepishly. "I'm good at imitating penguins."

All of a sudden, the bird gave two piercing screams and took off into the green darkness of the tree tops. Filipo and Paul glued their eyes to the screen again.

And then the battery died.