National Geographic Special

It has always been my dream to appear on TV and host some shows. Since that is pretty impossible, I shall now take advantage of my blog and be one here. Hey, it’s still mass media alright.

It is dawn. The beginning of yet another wondrous day in the forests of Canada. Of the hundreds of millions of species dwelling in these forests, we shall take a look at the seemingly insignificant, yet hugely important animal: the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

“Tock, tock, tock, tock,” here we see the hungry little bird furiously pecking away at the tough bark of the evergreen Elm, pausing in between several pecks as it picked up the little insects tucked away deep within the tree. As the saying goes, “The early bird catches the worm.” This bird, however, is late, so it gets the white slip. The white sap, now having become more runny due to the warm weather in the late morning, dribbles out of the hole the bird made, and flows under the bird, causing it to slip.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker falls 3 feet down and lands with a soft “poof”. Poor bird. It gets up, dazed, but ruffles its feathers and quickly looks around for any hyenas that might take advantage of this extremely embarrassing situation and laugh at it. It spots none, as it is Canada, not Africa. Immediately, it flies up the Elm again, carefully avoiding any spots where it would get the white slip again.

Such is the life of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. It eats, sleeps, shits and mates, but yet it does not know how essential it was in creating the world as we know today. This bird is a highly complex creature, and all that complexity lies in its yellow belly.

We often wonder, “Why is the sky blue?”, or “Why is the grass green?”, but never “Why is the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker yellow?” This, dear viewers, is actually pretty simple, and we must trace the roots of this bird before we can find out why.

You see, when the ancient God Prometheus took pity on man and brought flame to Earth, He flew by the jungle so that Zeus could not see him. However, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, or the Sapsucker, as it was known then, spotted Prometheus zooming past it with a torch in his hand. Quizzically, it asked, “Wherefore art thou rushing to, my dear Prometheus?”

To that, Prometheus replied, “With haste I bring humans this, for their freedom!” and raised his torch. Coincidentally, a French who travelled back in time took a picture of this particular scene, and went back to the future, using this inspiration to create the Statue of Liberty.

The Sapsucker said, “DIE! Ye have stolen the Lord Almighty Zeus’ fire! He is going to be so mad at thee. Well, not if he finds out, if ye get what I mean.”

With resignation, Prometheus sighed, “Fine, sucker. What dost thou want of me?”

“Give me a yellow belly.”

So, after fulfilling the Sapsucker’s weird request, Prometheus continued on with his quest, bringing fire to the people before returning to Olympus. However, upon his return, he was immediately chained by Zeus, who was waiting for him.

“Why art thou doing this to me!” Prometheus cried.

“Dost thou thinketh that I know not of your deeds?” Zeus thundered.

“But… But how!” Prometheus whimpered.

“A little bird on my shoulder whispered it into my ear,” Zeus replied, thus unwittingly coining one of the most widely used phrases.

With that, the Sapsucker, now Yellow-bellied, got Prometheus into years of pain, and put itself in favour with the omnipotent Zeus, who continued to ensure that the yellow on its belly did not fade away.

Now that it was yellow, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker finally established the fact that it was a dirty fellow. No predator dared to come near to it, and the species flourished.

However, most importantly, the yellow belly allowed the world to proceed from monochrome to full colour. Televisions back in our grandparents’ days were actually colour, but they appeared to display only black and white as the world was, well, black and white. However, with the evolution of the Sapsucker from black and white to yellow, with cross species mating, cross pollination and natural selection, slowly, the world was filled with colour. The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker brought us life and vibrancy in the once dull and dark world.

This is a feat that was unachievable by man, but a single witty bird brought us colour. So next time, when you do see this little bird pecking away at a tree, show it some love. Pluck it off the tree, and paint it a different hue. It gets pretty boring being yellow all the time.

P.S. The yellow-bellied Sapsucker is not yellow. It is largely black and white.