The Bird Called Maya By MindLeaks
This bird is not the former Philippine
national bird called Maya.
I never thought that a bird like maya, with its previous high status as our national bird, would be wrongly identified by many people. Even to the people whom I considered as very educated. Most of these people reside in the city, the place where only a handful of these fine birds would venture. The misidentification of these birds is partly due to the false information by the media that largely funneled to these people where it has a strong presence.
I came to realize this widespread mistake when I happen to wonder about the name of the particular brown bird so abundant in every Philippine urban areas. A friend of mine from negros call this bird guryon. In our place when I was a child, we call it citybirds or lovebirds, because it is very common in the city and we often seen it flying in pairs or in groups. Personally though, I do think it was a wrong name, it is not even in our local dialect. When I asked my girlfriend (now my wife) about the name of these birds in their dialect (My mother tongue is Cebuano from Mindanao while my wife is Hiligaynon from Capiz) she readily answered that the bird’s name is maya. I was surprised! I admit that the brown bird (in the image above) is as small as maya but it is nowhere the same in appearance. The real maya has a black head and somewhat dark red in its body.
I came to realize this widespread mistake when I happen to wonder about the name of the particular brown bird so abundant in every Philippine urban areas. A friend of mine from negros call this bird guryon. In our place when I was a child, we call it citybirds or lovebirds, because it is very common in the city and we often seen it flying in pairs or in groups. Personally though, I do think it was a wrong name, it is not even in our local dialect. When I asked my girlfriend (now my wife) about the name of these birds in their dialect (My mother tongue is Cebuano from Mindanao while my wife is Hiligaynon from Capiz) she readily answered that the bird’s name is maya. I was surprised! I admit that the brown bird (in the image above) is as small as maya but it is nowhere the same in appearance. The real maya has a black head and somewhat dark red in its body.
The real Maya
I have known maya long before I saw this kind of bird and had read some school books with a description of its habitat when I was a child. What I had learned from my parents, grandparents and the old people in our place is that our former national bird is look like the image in the left. Those references coincided very well with the habitat of maya that I have known, the flock of birds I have always seen crowding in the rice fields, often feasting on our precious rice and then quickly fly if someone comes near. They are mostly the reason why the rice fields contains a long colorful ribbon called banderitas, like the one we see in streets during fiesta, designed to sway even in a little breeze, and a human-sized scarecrow made of straws. Rice fields are the favorite place of maya, in sharp contrast with the birds in the city sidewalks, buildings, parks and plazas and others. I am pretty sure that the bird in the first picture is not a maya. Not even its relative.
At that time, after our conversation, I thought that maybe it was just a misidentification of my girlfriendwife, but in the early week of February 2007 she informed me that one of the Philippine leading newspaper, the Philippine Star, January 21, 2007 issue, in the article intitled “Ohh Baby, Baby It’s A Wild Bird” by Ann Corvera, posted a picture of what seem to be a city bird in our topic, like the one in the first image. The caption as what I had read, roughly states that the bird in the picture, the Eurasian Tree Sparrow in English, is locally called maya. Eventhough the caption never said anything about this bird being our former national bird the term “maya” is enough for the readers to consider it is the former national bird. This mistake is a big disappointed for me as I was expecting to hear or read only truthful information from our leading newspapers. I hope they would spend a little time researching about their topics before posting or publishing anything in their papers.
At that time, after our conversation, I thought that maybe it was just a misidentification of my girlfriendwife, but in the early week of February 2007 she informed me that one of the Philippine leading newspaper, the Philippine Star, January 21, 2007 issue, in the article intitled “Ohh Baby, Baby It’s A Wild Bird” by Ann Corvera, posted a picture of what seem to be a city bird in our topic, like the one in the first image. The caption as what I had read, roughly states that the bird in the picture, the Eurasian Tree Sparrow in English, is locally called maya. Eventhough the caption never said anything about this bird being our former national bird the term “maya” is enough for the readers to consider it is the former national bird. This mistake is a big disappointed for me as I was expecting to hear or read only truthful information from our leading newspapers. I hope they would spend a little time researching about their topics before posting or publishing anything in their papers.
A Philippine stamp with maya. The color seems a bit off.
In my part, I did some digital research. Browsing the net for this interesting birds I stumbled on the images of old stamps of the Philippines and I found this picture (see the picture). On its leftmost side “National Bird (maya)” is printed. Obviously, the bird in the picture is nowhere look like the Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus). It has a darker head and redder body than the foreign Tree Sparrow. Further search confirmed that many people mistakenly identified the Eurasian Tree Sparrow as the former Philippine national bird called maya. There are even an article in Wikipedia with similar mistakes (this is probably corrected by now). The maya is actually belong to Munia family (Lonchura sp.), probably three species or more of these birds can be seen in most part of the Philippines. The bird in the picture is the Black-headed Munia (Lonchura atricapilla).
The former national bird of the Philippines
