This is Bird Note. When poet Craig Santos Perez was growing up, his relationship with birds was somewhat abstract.

Craig is Chamorro and grew up on the island of Guam. By the time of his childhood in the 80s and 90s,

most of our native birds had either gone extinct or were taken into captivity by

zookeepers to keep them safe from the invasive brown tree snake which had come to Guam a few decades earlier and colonize the entire island and taking over the ecology.

And so, sadly growing up, when I would go into the jungle

into the forest, it was very silent place.

I didn't hear any of the native birds.

So early memories of the native birds.

So early memories of the birds, you know,

was basically learning about them in school,

learned their Latin, English, and Chamorro names,

which is our native language.

We would learn about their characteristics, their feather colors, their patterns,

and we would even do some projects in school where we would build

fake nest or color in pictures of the birds and it was kind of you know

memorial kind of way because they were either no longer wild or no longer even in existence. Craig's elementary school mascot was actually

the Coco, the fast-running Guam rail that was extinct in the wild. But it was a different bird________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ we call a seahick and I kind of fell in love with this bird mainly for its colors

very bright like orange and blue feathers and a cute looking bird I even have a

picture of one actually on my desk.

The Micronesian Kingfisher, also known as the Guam Kingfisher, has been extinct in the

wild since about 1988. Craig never saw one while he lived on Guam.

My family migrated to California when I was 15 years old.

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