两次被认定消失的鸟

在岛的东部深处,波莉沿着树线往上飞,进入一片与海岸边截然不同的森林:纠缠交错的古老月桂树披着厚厚的苔藓,树冠密得几乎不让阳光落到地面。瓦拉峰周围这片阴凉潮湿的森林,是一种全世界别处都找不到的灰粉色小鸟最后的据点,它叫亚速尔灰雀,当地人称它普里奥洛,而波莉这次来,就是想看看能不能找到一只。

Deep in the east of the island, Polly followed the tree line up into a forest unlike anything on the coast, tangled old laurel trees draped in moss, their canopy so thick that little sunlight reached the ground. This cool, damp forest around Pico da Vara is the last stronghold of a small grey and pink bird found nowhere else on the planet, the priolo, and Polly had come to see if she could find one.

这种鸟差一点消失过两次。一九三二年之后,人们彻底不再见到它的踪影,三十多年里大多数人都以为它已经绝迹,直到一九六七年,一小群个体在正是这样的森林里被重新发现。即便如此,农业开垦和生长迅速的外来树种仍在不断蚕食它的家园,繁殖对一度不足一百对;按多数统计,它是全欧洲第二稀有的鸣禽。

The bird very nearly disappeared twice. Sightings stopped completely in nineteen thirty-two, and for more than thirty years most people assumed it was gone for good, until a small population was rediscovered in nineteen sixty-seven, hiding in exactly this kind of forest. Even after that, farming and fast-growing foreign trees kept shrinking its home until fewer than one hundred breeding pairs remained, making it, by most counts, the second rarest songbird anywhere in Europe.

救下亚速尔灰雀的,是几十年不起眼的耐心工作。志愿者和科学家一点点拔除外来树木,重新种回生长缓慢的本地月桂,那才是这种鸟赖以觅食和栖身的树。波莉看见其中两只从一根低枝上飞起,深绿之间闪过一抹柔和的粉色胸羽,它们用短促低沉的叫声一来一往,随后又消失进树冠里。

What saved the priolo was patient, unglamorous work. Volunteers and scientists spent decades pulling out foreign trees and replanting the slow native laurel the bird actually depends on for food and shelter. Polly watched two of them lift off from a low branch, a soft flash of pink breast against the dark green, calling back and forth in short, low notes before disappearing back into the canopy.

她在寂静中等了很久,盼着再看一眼,可森林重新合拢在鸟儿身后,完整得就像它们从未出现过。波莉想,这大概是一笔公平的交易:一点安静,换一个还在坚持活下去的物种。

She waited a long while in the quiet, hoping for one more look, but the forest closed back over the birds as completely as if they had never been there. It felt like a fair trade, Polly thought: a small silence, in exchange for a species still holding on.