Last Chance to See

by Douglas Adams

“This is Pink,” he said. We looked. Pink gazed at us intently with his two large, deep brown eyes. He fidgeted a little with his feet, clawing at his perch, and seemed tense, expectant, and slightly irritated to see us. “Pink’s a Mauritius kestrel,” said Richard, “but he’s basically weird.” “Really?” said Mark. “Doesn’t look it.” “What does he look like to you?” “Well, he’s quite small. He’s got sleek brown outer plumage on his wings, mottled brown and white breast feathers, impressive set of talons …” “In other words, you think he looks like a bird.” “Well, yes …” “He’d be shocked to know you thought that.” “What do you mean?” “Well, one of the problems with breeding birds in captivity is that they sometimes have to be reared by humans, which leads to all sorts of misunderstandings on the bird’s part. When a bird hatches from its egg, it doesn’t have much of a clear picture of what’s what in the world, and it falls in love with the first thing that feeds it, which in Pink’s case was Carl. It’s called ‘imprinting,’ and it’s a major problem because you can’t undo it. Once he’s made up his mind that he’s human, he—” “He actually thinks he’s a human?” I asked. “Oh yes. Well, if he thinks Carl’s his mother, it more or less follows, doesn’t it? They may not be brilliant, but they’re logical. He’s quite convinced he’s a human. He completely ignores the other kestrels, hasn’t got time for them, they’re just a bunch of birds as far as he’s concerned. But when Carl walks in here he...