The Joys of Lurnornithology

So, where do birds go in winter? No, really. Where? All this time we’ve been thinking that migrating avians go south (if you live in the northern hemisphere) or north (vice versa) to escape the cold. What if they don’t? What if they go to the moon?

I know that may sound crazy but no more so perhaps than the silly idea that birds aren’t real (that’s not true, is it?).

Where to start? That’s easy. Once upon a time (obviously) a long time ago, people wondered about things, many things, in fact just about everything except for whether or not birds are real (they are, aren’t they?). One of the bird-related questions they did have, though, was this one: As winter approached (once upon a time), numerous species of birds flew away somewhere or just vanished, No one knew where they went.

At least that’s what Alice Gorman tells us. Alice is a space archeologist (yes, a real thing) and author of the book Dr Space Junk vs the Universe. In 2020, Gorman posted an excerpt from her book titled “When Birds Migrated to the Moon.” She notes that the “where did they go?” question had haunted humans at least since the time of Aristotle (4th century BCE in case you were wondering). Ari thought that birds either hibernated in winter–swallows, in his view, might wrap themselves in balls of clay and lie dormant at the bottom of swamps–or they just “transformed themselves into the birds that did stick around for the winter, and changed back when summer came.”

Much later, an English cleric named Francis Godwin solved the mystery. He recounted in print the true story of Domingo Gonsales, a man who trained 25 swans to pull a flying “engine” (see the engraving above). One day, he went off on a jaunt in his swanmobile and that day just happened to coincide with the date on which summer birds usually disappeared. Here’s how Gorman explains the events:

To his [Domingo’s] surprise, the swans flew upwards, until they reached what we would think of as orbit and became weightless. In 12 days they reached the Moon, where he found other migrating terrestrial birds, such as swallows, nightingales, and woodcocks. When the swans started to show signs of agitation, he divined that they were ready to return to Earth; and so he harnessed them again and sailed home in nine days, gravitational pull on his side.

Putting aside minor caveats like how could birds fly to the moon if there were no atmosphere to breath or support flight (maybe there is “dark air,” like dark matter, that we haven’t discovered yet but the birds know about–that sounds plausible), I thought to myself, “Self, there must be someone who knows more about this, a bona fide lunornithologist if you will). I did some searching with Wackipedia and, sure enough, there is someone. Her name is Dr. Una Spro Fugleekspert, a tenured professor at the Universitetet for Uvanlige Fuglestudier in Norway. (That she is Norwegian doesn’t surprise because all brilliant people come from there.)

Una speaks perfect English (naturally) and has spent her life debunking the work of ordinary ornithologists, those who think birds migrate from one place on Earth to another from season to season. “Think about it,” Una says, “These so-called birdsperts try to tell us, to give you an example, that the little wimpy pectoral sandpiper flies 18,000 miles per year, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth from Alaska to South America or Asia to Australia. It’s ridiculous!”

“But wait,” I say [we are Zooming — me in Key West and she at her university, which is located in an obscure Norwegian town called Fuglehjerne]. “The moon is over 200,000 miles away. Isn’t that more ridiculous? What bird could fly that distance twice a year?” “Well, they don’t fly there, stupid! That Godwin guy was a crackpot!” she yells at me. “They use the fugleormhull. They get to the moon in a matter of seconds. Don’t they teach you anything in those American schools?” Embarrassed, I ask, “What’s a…whatever you just said?” She just stares at me. “I know,” I admit, red-faced. “I don’t speak Norwegian. I’m very ashamed.” She doesn’t say anything, just writes something on a sheet of graph paper and holds it up to the camera. There are two words: “Avian Wormhole.”

Intrigued, I want to ask more questions but Una cuts me off. She’s on deadline, apparently, to finish the second edition of the Fugleekspert Guide til Månefugler, that is, the Fugleekspert Guide to Lunar Birds (I had to look it up). Una is spending her golden years giving the birds that disappear in winter their seanextrarrestrial [seasonal off-planet] names. The poor wimpy pectoral sandpiper, in her nomenclature, is, the Copernicus Slappen brystkasse krater floyte, which translates roughly to wimpy chest crater whistler.

Well, now you know where the birds really go in winter. You can stop listening to David Attenborough and his fellow misbirdformationists. As for the birds that don’t leave in winter, they are holographs projected to earth by the real birds on the moon to keep humans from getting too snoopy. Everyone knows that!

P.S. Should you want to become a junior lunornithologist (and who doesn’t?), please send Una $5 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope care of the Universitetet for Uvanlige Fuglestudier, General Delivery, Norway. You’ll get an official nametag, a fugleormhull detector, and an autographed picture of Una. I’ve already ordered mine. Allow fourteen weeks, give or take, for delivery.

(Published originally on RatBlurt™, May 16, 2022.)