Plumage

Hands up if you know the reason for the plumage of the adult male birds to be more vibrant and ornamented than that of female?

Natural selection, I hear you say. The more beautiful male birds have been thought to be for the sake of courtship, offering an advantage whereby the feathers attract females.

Is this simply for natural selection favoring handsome males to attract their mates?

My recent reading on the subject is more positive. And less sexist than the old-fashioned male chauvinism theory. At times, it is better to look at the upper hand of drab female birds. I rather like the idea of female birds preferring a drab plumage for their own advantage. Ah, think about the usual role of female birds to raise the young, and conspicuous plumage at a nest can make both the female and the nestlings more vulnerable to predators.

In other words, females need a camouflage or dull attire to stay safe.

Tulips

Almost four hundred years ago, a mania for tulips swept the Netherlands, when a single bulb of the legendary Semper augustus fetched the equivalent of more than 10 years' wages for their average workers.

No arguing with that. No understanding it either.

I still remember vividly visiting Keukenhof with my tulip lover wife during the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome. The Dutch people were friendly, until they realized we were from Hong Kong. Mention the term "Hongkongers" and everyone became apprehensive back in 2003.

Now that we aren't able to make a pilgrimage to the country with the famous beloved bulb, we find the local garden with tulips. We were so fascinated when we visited a tulip field during our hike to Sai Kung this afternoon.

Oh, thank goodness - "tulipmania" didn't vanish with the virus; it blooms perfectly.

Bird's-Eye View

Essays of Helen Macdonald, an award-winning naturalist, are exemplary pieces of heart-tugging writing about hawfinches, cuckoos, orioles, magpies, swifts, barn owls and many wildlife.

My recent reading of her Vesper Flights had prepared me to immerse myself in the thrilling details of spotting birds. An inchoate attempt with instant gratification. The happiness and the spectacle I've discovered with my camera has held me spellbound.

I watched in awe today afternoon in Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve, populated by songbirds. And so I listened agog when their aerial appearance swelled my heart out of all proportion to the size of my viewfinder. It was thrilling. If there is a better way to conclude a birdwatching walk than seeing a bright grass-green leafbird with a plumage tinge of cobalt-blue, then I don't know it.

Biodiversity

In the days after the pandemic has ground air travel to a halt, I became obsessed with the flight of other species, which include the resident birds as well as passage migrants. 

The Mai Po Nature Reserve, a Ramsar site of International Importance as a stop-off point for migrating water birds on the transit flight between New Zealand and Siberia, held me spellbound every time I visited the wetland. Instantly. Joy, breathtaking, gratitude; an avalanche of emotions from the riveting encounters between urban humans and wild animals. 

Today, I went there with my family and friends after buying a telephoto zoom lens. The pastime of birdwatching increasingly fascinates me, and more so with a new gadget. That was when I recognised the telescopic sights of birds can have a magic pull. On my way home, I had a stopover at my university campus and spotted few more species. So perfectly did this detour give me chance to see a strikingly colourful kingfisher, it had the force of absolute addiction. 

Start a wildlife photography journey and you could lose yourself for days.

School

The coronavirus has always been a rich source of new words for English. Or for me, at least.

Unknowingly, the word "webinar" has become way more popular than Ribena. Inarguably the lingua franca of our times. The idea of listening to webcast lecture is our new normal.

I set my alarm clock to wake up after midnight to learn about the controversial topic of school closure today. That's one day after my daughter returned to campus as soon as Government guidelines permit. At long last. Of course, it isn't full-scale yet but opening at not more than one sixth of the school's capacity.

And this is what my daughter did. She went to school for morning face-to-face session once weekly. Yup, a precious moment, reconnecting with friends. Perhaps the best part of her school lesson is the whereabouts of the classroom: the teachers move the classroom to the countryside on her school's doorstep. I was told that they were having indigenous animal tracking exercise, tree climbing and meditation.

We'd never been more content with school life before and it is probably my daughter's best lesson during the pandemic.

Memoir

For many years, I've kept the habit of browsing through the best book list from Goodreads recommendation site, and will never run out of books to borrow.

One of the real surprises this year is The Beauty in Breaking, a memoir written by an emergency room physician Michele Harper. Looking past the years (and tears) of healing gunshot wound victims, resuscitating neonates, juggling between intoxicated patients and bed debt, Harper has shared many heartfelt lessons she has learned.

Among much else, her navigation through night shifts has touched a raw chord within most doctors. Harper states the cold, hard truth: "Night shifts are always inconvenient and much like hangovers: The older you get, the hard they are to recover from. For some, they are a badge of honor; those types sprint them like marathons, race after race, year after year, with the stamina of a long-distance runner."

One can't help but think of bleary-eyed Michele Harper, kept awake by the sound and aroma of the percolating coffeemaker. I can always find my similarity with her liking for extra-dark coffee, as what she calls "the elixir of life."

Of course, coffee is our life. How could it not?

Team

One of the famous opening sentences in Brené Brown's talk goes like this, "Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives."

This, it seems to me, is at the heart of a recent campaign The Billion Steps Challenge. In essence, we were encouraged to sign up into teams of between two and five people, who then log in our daily step count by syncing our mobile device.

It is a beautiful example of what behavioral scientists mean by nudging healthy behavior with group-based incentive, a far more effective tool than individual incentive. Some years ago, scientists have experimented with the two types of incentive to help people shed pounds. Slimmers were randomly organized into groups of five people or separate individuals. Offering groups a collective reward for meeting target weight loss is more successful than incentives offered to each individual.

Whether you call it social pressure or peer motivation, the trick simply works wonder.