Revue Magazine 2010-11 (November)

Without any warning a form—a bolt of shimmering emerald green—shot up
from the forest. It was a large male quetzal spiraling upward with long tail
feathers streaming behind.
...continued from page 66
‘SOUNDS LIKE QUETZALS’
One morning I awoke before dawn.
Still in a dreamy state, I could hear
faint but distinct calls coming from all sides.
It was a sad, slow sort of cooing. I thought
it must have been Rosendo’s turkeys digging
around for insects and worms outside the
cabin. I woke up Verónica to ask her what
she thought.
“I can’t be sure,” she said, “but it sounds
like quetzals.”
Adrenaline shot into my blood and I was
up and dressed in an instant. In the past I
had heard one or sometimes two quetzals
singing while exploring the forest, but this
sounded like several dozen. We went outside
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in the darkness. It was windy and I was
startled to find the sky absolutely clear and
full of the brightest stars I had ever seen.
The calling continued; some of the birds were
very near while others seemed to be calling
from across the valley. We stood listening
until the first brilliant rays of sunlight came
over the horizon. It looked like it would
be a bright, clear, sunny day, a rare enough
event in the cloud forest. Rosendo’s youngest
daughter brought us hot coffee and we stood
at the edge of the clearing surveying the
forest above and below.
Over the next few minutes the cooing
diminished to almost nothing. Our next