Tag Archive | #kidlit

Parrot or Fish?

Nov10

Image from Wikipedia

 

The parrot fish is not a bird

Image by Wild Horizon

It cannot fly. T’would be absurd

To say it could. It cannot speak 

But still, its mouth is like a beak

 

Its beak is formed from bony jaw

The strangest mouth you ever saw

It chews on coral close at hand

And when it’s done, it poops out sand

 

Photo credit: © Ken Marks

It keeps the coral algae-free

And lives thus symbiotically

The coral thrives; the fish gets fat

So both can benefit from that

 

At night he makes a sleeping bag

Of slimy slime that doesn’t sag

Inside this sack he’s safe and sound 

From predators that swim around   

 

His scales are bright as feathers rare

But parrot fish can’t fly through air

A different name might be preferred

Since this bright parrot’s not a bird

— Ruth Gilmore Ingulsrud

From BBC Earth

Of course it’s a fish. But it is called a parrotfish since it is so colorful and has a very cute beak-like mouth. This “beak” is actually exposed bone and not true teeth. It uses that hard mouth to eat the algae off of the hard coral on which it grows. Parrotfish help to keep coral reefs healthy by eating excess algae. Overfishing removes too many parrotfish from a reef and the health of the ecosystem suffers.

Because a parrotfish scrapes off some of the coral as it cleans, the ground up coral limestone passes through the parrotfish’s body and is pooped out. A large parrotfish can poop out over 800 pounds of sand per year!

Parrotfish are also fascinating because of the way that they can change from female to male. Some parrotfish remain female for their entire lives, but others, as they get older, change from female to male. And as they change, their colors change becoming brighter and more vivid with beautiful markings.

The sleeping habits of some parrotfish are a wonder to see. Before settling down for the night, the parrotfish burps out a slimy mucus sleeping sack which completely covers the fish. This keeps predators, or bigger fish who might like to eat the parrotfish, from smelling their nighttime snack. They swim right by the sack of slime, not knowing that the parrotfish is hiding inside.

The parrotfish is an amazing creature. You can thank the parrotfish for being beautiful, and industrious and interesting as all get out. But you can especially thank the parrotfish for those white, sandy beaches on which we play. Yes, parrotfish poop does contribute to that silky smooth, ground-up limestone sand that is so much fun to dig in. Here’s a silly song by Robert Sams for the BLUE Ocean Film Festival (in 2 versions!) to help you thank the parrotfish:

Learning to Fly

Sep1

At my first SCBWI Conference in LA…. Nervous and excited…. Feeling like a bird trying to launch for the first time; teetering on the edge, gathering my courage for the leap:

 

Braving the Blue

What bird has a fear of the heavens     

Though its blue is more vast than the seas

Yet with no hesitation it opens its wings

And flings frail bones to the breeze

 

What bird stays abed on a morning   

That blows chilly and frosty with snow

Instead with persistence it puffs out its chest

And faces straight into the blow

 

Yet I lack the wings and the courage

To lunge toward the wonder of why  

I’ll borrow the tough little soul of a bird

And fearlessly learn how to fly

 

– Ruth Gilmore Ingulsrud

 

How do birds learn how to fly? They have no instruction manuals, no aviation life preservers, no formal flight school. They do have instinct, they imitate those closest to them and they practice. Their flight instructors, their parents, can be strict teachers.

Birds learn to fly by instinct, but they also need their parents to teach and encourage them. An eagle, for example, will flap its wings vigorously directly above the nest when the chicks are almost ready to take flight on their own. And while flapping its wings, it holds a tasty morsel in its beak, just out of reach. The young eagles, eager for food, imitate the parent and flap their own wings. Their first attempts at flight are helped by the wind from the wings of its parent directly overhead. The food is also a wonderful motivation to rise up.

As the fledglings, or growing chicks, get to the point where their wings and feathers are big enough to support them in flight, the parent will try to coax them out of the nest with food. The young bird shrieks for its meal, but the parent flies past dangling the food just out of the fledgling’s reach. It might even perch nearby and start eating the meat in plain sight of its hungry chick. If the young bird expects to survive, it is going to have to learn how to fly and capture food for itself.

Eagle parents must be cruel to be kind. This teasing behavior only happens when the fledgling is big enough to actually manage flight on its own. Sometimes, the young eagle remains in the nest for many days, losing weight, until it is hungry enough (and light enough) to successfully fly to where the parent waits with sustenance… a juicy rabbit or freshly-caught fish, to fill its belly and give the bird strength to keep learning how to fly.

Just as with birds learning how to fly, writers like me need practice. We need to stay hungry and keep on writing, even if we take a few nosedives in the process. At a writer’s conference, we experience the company of seasoned authors whose words are like wing strokes helping to lift us out of our protective nests and niches.  We are also challenged to consider our motivation; our reason for writing, the “wonder of why.” What drives our need to write? Is it a strong enough “why” to keep writing despite the pile of rejection letters?

It’s no wonder that beginners in this business are referred to as fledgling writers. We are attempting to do something that, at first, seems impossible. It is appropriate that the first writing pens were made with the long, strong flight feathers of birds. Writing that soars only comes with fearless practice.