The · Affected · Provincial’s · Almanack

When the British naturalist David Attenborough was asked to choose his favorite species on the planet, he picked Wilson’s Bird of Paradise, an extravagantly colored passerine found on an island off the coast of New Guinea. The first recorded footage of the bird was aired in the 1996 BBC production Attenborough in Paradise. It can be seen below.

As a mammal of paradise, I can certainly relate to the trying moments in the lives of these flashy little fellows; but what bewitches one is the footage of this bird twirling in a remote jungle clearing like a bejeweled marionette, and to think that somewhere this creature is doing this without a single soul to witness it:



My God, what precious things live on this planet.

~W