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The Delirian - Believe it or not
Keep watching the skies! (especially on April 1st!)
© Paul Bannick
April 1 - High above the clouds caressing the upper reaches of the mountains soars the most majestic bird you are never likely to see or hear: the Semi-Fixed-Wing Silver Delirian. With a wingspan of some four yards, a sleek metallic silver body almost as long as its wingspan, and huge winged feet, the Delirian visits once a year - April 1st - during its annual migration from its home in Tierra del Loco, a remote island promontory rising out of the southern Pacific.
BirdNote®
The Delirian - Believe It or Not
Written by Frank Corrado
This is BirdNote.
[Sounds of the Delirian]
This time of year, high above the clouds caressing the upper reaches of the
Sierras, soars the most majestic bird you are never likely to see or hear: the Semi-Fixed-Wing Silver Delirian.
[Sounds of the Delirian]
This enormous creature, with a wingspan of some four yards, a sleek metallic-silver body almost as long as its wingspan, and huge winged feet, visits our region once a year during its annual migration from its home in Tierra del Loco, a remote island prom-ontory rising out of the southern Pacific.
Until recent years, the Delirian was known only to the natives – a scant seventy-three in number – of its home base. Then in 1989, a Russian spy satellite detected its presence along the Northern California coast. It being that brief period known as per-estroika, the Soviet authorities, mistaking the Delirian for a missile, alerted the US Air Force. Jets were scrambled, and not until they had attained a height of forty thousand feet did Americans catch their first glimpse of this all-but-mythical creature.
Why the name? Tierra del Loco is the one and only protectorate of the ancient Micronesian principality of Deliria.
I’m Michael Stein for BirdNote.
###
Audio track is taken from Didgeridoo, composed by Peter Sculthorpe, recorded at Wellington Town Hall, New Zealand
Ambient sounds provided by Kessler Productions
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Dominic Black
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org April 2017 Narrator: Michael Stein
ID# 2008-04-01-delirian-01 aprilfool-01c
