Papagaios, Life & Times on a Speculative Archipelago

Passage taken from “Animals That Go Bump in the Night: The Real-Life Animals Behind Ghost Stories and Folktales From Around the World” by Patricia Rogers. Published 2004.

It is telling that many stories of the supernatural are told by people in unfamiliar places: a new home, the woods, a run-down hotel off the beaten track. The general unease felt in new locations sharpens the senses and can lead to every noise, movement and shadow to take on a life of its own. This is most true in a place that no living soul has ever been before.

Many tales of strange creatures are first recorded during the age of European colonisation. While many colonies were founded in places with existing human populations, there were a scattered few in truly empty, uninhabited lands. To those pioneers every wood, valley, cave and cove could be either a safe haven to start a new life, or home to fearsome creatures eager to taste human flesh.

The Papagaios Archipelago, first settled by the Portuguese in 1443 are some of the most remote islands on Earth. The original settlers found themselves in a land of cliffs, canyons, volcanoes, sea storms, poisonous soil and animals the like of which they had never seen before. There are many mythic creatures said to live on and around the islands such as the Leviathan of Vulcão and the Vale Miners, but the original Papagaian folktale dates back to its very first colony; a small village on the site that will one day become the islands’ capital, Porto Oeste.

The islands were discovered some time before the first settlers arrived. The settlers, blown off course by easterly winds, overshot the archipelago and approached from the west. Thus the first settlement, Porto Oeste (West Port), was sounded on the far side of the island of Milagres, relative to Portugal. It lies within a cove sheltered to the north and south by tall cliffs with a narrow mouth between them. This provided safe mooring for the settlers’ ships and protected the village from the worst of the ocean’s fury. It was said that the cliffs were so protective that at night you could hardly hear the ocean.

It was this silence that allowed the first phantoms of the island to be noticed, after which they could not be easily ignored. Every night, the sun would set and the residents of Porto Oeste heard the whispering of the As da nuite.

The As da Nuite, or Night Ones, is another name for the Santa Compaña – the Holy Company – a ghostly procession of souls in torment that wander through villages after midnight. They were in truth not wandering souls, but enormous flocks of small, nocturnal birds now know, in honour of their mythic origin, as asdanuites.

Much like Porto Oeste, subsequent settlements in the early colonial days were on the coast for ease of transport and a fear of the impenetrable mountainous interior. Most asdanuite colonies are further inland and so it would be several hours after sunset that the birds first reached the villages, at which point the terror set in.

Grammar point: the common name for this animal group “Asdanuite” comes from the Portuguese “As da Nuite” or “Night Ones” and as such is already pluralised. However, in reference to the animal the three-word phrase has merged into a single word and so when multiple birds are present they are pluralised as “Asdanuites”.

Asdanuite are members of the kingray family of passerine birds. Descended from a dipper-like ancestor, they have radiated into a variety of forms to be perhaps the most diverse lineage of birds in the world. More accurately, asdanuite are Trychocapinae, a group of nimble, short-winged, fly-catching birds. Asdanuite have distinguished themselves further by become almost exclusively nocturnal and taking on a role similar to bats, which do not exist on the Papagaios.

As near-silent fliers, due to soft feathers on the leading edge of their wings, people would be unlikely to detect individual birds in the dark, though may feel a whoosh of air over their heads as a bird passes by. When in flocks, however, their combined flight sounds like a ghostly whispering. Early colonists record hearing this whispering in their diaries, before the birds’ presence was known. Eventually they were discovered and the connection made, by which point their link to the Night Ones had stuck.

The most common species, aptly named the common asdanuite, contains all the features typical of the group include a wide, round face, a short beak and wide mouth and two large eyes. The feathers of the face give it a disc-shape and funnel sound toward the ears. At the back of the head, large tufts of feathers also serve to intercept sounds, and have the appearance of ears. Around the beak, chin and eyebrows, protrude a number of long rictal bristles – stiff, hair-like feathers that serve the function of whiskers. Combined, these features allow the birds to hunt insects by sound, touch and sight, even on the darkest night.

The common asdanuite is dark blue in colour with a white face, grey ‘ears’ and throat, and a chest of lighter blue and white, arranged in v-shaped stripes. Also of note is the bird’s nose plume. This feature is found in all kingrays but in asdanuites is shaped like a teardrop, or a small dish on its face. It was once believed this was another method of locating prey, but studies show it in fact hinders the process. The best guess then is that the structure is ornamental, perhaps serving to identify the individual, or is a factor in mate choice.

Most asdanuite species living in large flocks in caves, sheltered cliffs, or particularly large old trees and while having one main partner with whom they raise chicks, often mate with other birds within the colony, making it difficult to determine a bird’s exact parentage. As a mating strategy, it seems to have evolved as a way for females to have chicks by multiple fathers in the hope that at least some have advantageous traits, while for the males allows them to father far more children than they could raise themselves. Combined, this strategy binds the flock together as any bird could be a distant relative. As a result, orphaned chicks are adopted, often by juveniles currently to young to breed themselves, and injured birds are fed by their neighours on returning to the colony at dawn.

The common asdanuite is but one of many species however. The best record of this group comes from Jules Blanchard, ornithologist and lawyer in the 1910s. His sketches and notes describe fifteen species, of which only thirteen are believed to survive to this day, with several others on the edge of extinction as habitat loss and invasive species threaten colonies.

The above sketch contains some of Blanchard’s drawings:

I. Crested Asdanuite: The largest species at 15 inches long, comparable to a jackdaw. The live in caves, sinkholes and on occasion mountainside hollows if they are deemed high enough to be safe. As the largest species, they are braver and more likely to roost alone if caught far from home at sunrise.

II. Crowned Asdanuite: A close relative of the crested asdanuite and almost as big. It is the only diurnal species and its elaborate crest seems to be used to look larger to potential predators.

III. Goblin Asdanuite: Named for its wide, low-lying ‘ears’ and large eyes even by the standards of it relatives. A smaller bird, it lives in the eaves of ancient walnuts on the uplands of Milagres, but more recently has moved into barns and other human structures in the countryside.

IV. Large-nosed Asdanuite: One of the smallest species at 5 inches long. Formerly residing on sheltered cliffs, they can now be found on rooftops and window ledges in coastal settlements. It has the largest facial disc of any species and is the species most likely to chirp and cry when interacting with its neighbours, a habit that irritates the human residents of the buildings it claims.