Prologue

My husband and I moved to Colorado six months ago from Munich, Germany after a meticulous Internet research coupled with a quick visit in 2009.  It is, undoubtedly, one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.  One reason why we love the Centennial State is the amazing wildlife it boasts.  One doesn’t have to go farther than one’s backyard in order to enjoy creatures great and small, an aspect that immensely feeds my current obsession with photographing and painstakingly identifying each one of them.   My exciting (and in most cases, fleeting) encounters with critters constantly take me back to Sta. Ana, Manila where I was born and raised and where, once upon a time, lived together a family that was bonkers for domesticated beasts.  I actually look forward to the nostalgic trips induced by my natural high.

Ringo was named after the Fab Four’s drummer.  He had always been there tucked in his little corner just outside our house for as long I could remember – restrained from further aggression and compulsive behavior.  I think he once bit one of the neighbors and that sealed his fate.  Because of his bad rap, I was never allowed to pet him.  He was a beautiful beast, an askal, with fluffy reddish-brown mane reminiscent of a red fox and a pair of sad eyes full of wisdom.  He died at 13, around 75 in human years.   

And then came a string of mutts – Jeprox (courtesy of Mike Hanopol’s hit song), Bridget, Barbara, Doris, Gineb (named after my favorite PBA team) and George.  Nanay was very fond of dogs, indeed.  Exasperated by the skin rashes wreaked by the tick-infested critters, Ate once expressed that Nanay preferred them to her.   Of course, that wasn’t true at all.  But the pooches stayed and Ate went on to live in a dormitory at the university campus where she was pursuing her master’s degree.

Kuya Nonoy, like Nanay, took under his wing a ménagerie of various species: fighting cocks, chickens (he still has one to date), quails, rabbits, dagang kosta (albino rats?), Korean bugs among others.  He used to bring me along every time he’d drop off his fighting cock eggs for incubation in that dingy place next to the Fire Station in Sta. Ana.  I really thought he’d make an excellent veterinarian having seen him diagnose and perform simple operations on some of the sick animals.  He was never one to be grossed out easily.  Sometimes, he would catch house lizards and scare the wits out of Ate and me by dangling them in front of us.  What a cheeky monkey!  

Kuya Nonoy and Sasso - happy together.
Sasso is, in fact, a French breed, an acronym for
Sélection Avicole de la Sarthe et du Sud Ouest or Poultry
Selection of Sarthe and South West.  

Speaking of which, we had a couple of those too.  Jakol (I have no idea what Nanay was thinking when she named him THAT!) was killed by Barbara.  I had never seen mother wail and flail like she did when we discovered the gory scene.  Meanwhile, Jackie died in the fire that razed our house to the ground in 1991.

Sadly, he passed away a year ago.

Oh and yes, we owned a medium-sized aquarium filled with gold, striped, black, orange and red fish, most of which were Kuya Boying’s pasalubong/present.   I remember constant bickering between Kuya Nonoy and me as to whose turn it was to clean it.

I’m more of a dog person obviously but I did try my hand much later at raising Othello (I was taking up a course on Shakespeare then), a stray black kitten who showed up one day in front of the house.   But he vanished as quickly as he came, never to be seen ever again.

We live in an apartment at the moment but we will soon move into our own house and the zoo can finally start … haha!!!  A dog or two are in order for starters.  As for other possible recruits, negotiations are underway … with my husband, that is.