By: Owen Robertson
You told me
that the Cebu Flowerpecker
was the first bird to be labeled a “Romeo Error”
after its rediscovery in 1992.
You told me
it was endemic to the island of Cebu
in the central Philippines.
You told me
that forest degradation was a threat
but conservation plans were in place.
You told me
that we couldn’t lose it
again.
You didn’t tell me
that Cebu has only 1%
of its original forest cover
intact.
You didn’t tell me
that the Philippines has one of the worst systems of forest protection,
and one of the most voracious logging industries
in the world.
You didn’t tell me
that the last eBird report
was from 2005.
You didn’t tell me
how much it hurts
to listen to the thin, delicate “seep-seep”
of a bird that is lost, again.
You didn’t tell me
that Romeo’s real error
was failing to fetch the antidote.
You didn’t tell me
what it was like to see a Cebu Flowerpecker
and now
I’ll never know.
Owen Robertson is a seventeen-year-old birder from Louisville, Colorado. An incoming senior at New Vista High School in Boulder, he works at the Front Range Birding Company. Owen has participated in the American Birding Association Young Birder of the Year program for the last three years and received first-place honors for his writing and community leadership work. He has been a birder for over ten years and is incredibly grateful to his loving family for their support. The bird he’d most like to see (or hear!) next is the Boreal Owl.
