I could never get enough of looking at the partridges Grocer Uncle Ahmet kept in reed cages inside his shop. Black rings adorned their gray and beige bodies. Their red beaks resembled human lips. I was always looking forward to being sent to the grocery store.
It was early May. In the afternoon, my classmates Mehmet and Dark İsmail called for me from my house. We sat at the edge of the concrete water basin near the corner of the school. Dark İsmail was teaching us how to make whistles. Dark İsmail knew a great deal about birds.
“Whenever I play the reed flute in the shade while resting from farm work, birds come to the branches of the trees. Most of all, starlings.”
“What kind of bird is a starling?” Dark İsmail answered my question with a knowledgeable air:
“I know these birds very closely. They are neither too small nor too large. Medium-sized, you know. They have pitch-black wings. Some of them even have white spots on their wings. Their legs are pink. And their beaks turn black in winter and yellow in summer.”
“So they change according to the seasons, huh!” said Mehmet.
“These birds migrate too, and they travel in large flocks. Many farmers welcome their arrival joyfully because they eat the worms in the fields. On the other hand, though, they have to watch out for their seeds.”
We really enjoyed the information İsmail shared. Apparently, birds had a world of their own.
While we were talking, Halis Uncle’s eldest son, Mehmet Ali, approached us carrying a double-barreled shotgun. Seeing Mehmet Ali, who had just returned from military service, we all stood up and ran over to him.
When we showed him the whistles we had made, Mehmet Ali said, “Yeah, not bad. Maybe later I can teach you how to make even better whistles. Now, if you want, come see how I hunt!”
“What kind of hunting?” I interjected.
“It’s starling season now. They like to perch on the cypress trees beside the school. If I hunt enough starlings, I’ll give some to you too.”
Dark İsmail, Mehmet, and I were stunned. Before any of us could realize what was happening, we had already followed after Mehmet Ali.
Because painting and whitewashing work was being done at the school, the doors and windows were open despite it being the weekend. With Mehmet Ali ahead and us behind, we climbed the tall concrete stairs of the school.
Passing through the school’s large hallway, we entered the classroom where the 4th and 5th grades studied together. A few meters past the windows stood the school wall. Just inside the wall, tall cypress trees rising in a row past the height of the school formed a tree barrier every 3 to 4 meters apart.
Mehmet Ali leaned against the sill of the larger open window and pointed his double-barreled shotgun toward the trees. “We’ll wait a bit. The birds will come here in a flock shortly,” he said.
“Do they travel in one huge flock? And where are their nests?” I started to ask.
“Never mind their nests right now. We came here to hunt birds. Now quiet down, let’s see!”
We all ducked down a bit more. It was as if we sensed what might happen in a moment, but we also knew we were powerless to stop it.
“If we don’t hunt them, there are larger birds—eagles, hawks, owls—that eat those birds anyway.” Mehmet Ali had noticed our anxiety and was trying to put us at ease.
A FLUUUUTTTTEEEEER sound signaled that a flock of birds had landed on the branches of the cypress trees in front of us, arranged like an orchestra settling into place. With slow movements, Mehmet Ali adjusted his position. The barrel of his shotgun had been aimed at the middle branches of the cypress tree all along.
The shotgun blasted with a booming BOOOOWWW, like a drummer announcing the arrival of hell. In our mind’s eye—operating automatically—we could see the starlings falling to the ground one after another: PLOP, PLOP, PLOP.
“I shot three of them, kids! Come on, let me go get them.”
“Mehmet Ali, what did you do?!” I yelled. “Mehmet Ali, you killed those birds! And you fired right from inside the classroom where our teachers teach us to love animals and nature!”
Suddenly, I noticed Dark İsmail’s face turning deep purple. He was fuming with anger.
“Mehmet Ali,” Dark İsmail said, then continued: “I used to hunt those starlings with a slingshot too. One day, I shot a starling down with my slingshot. Just as I picked the bird up from the ground and was about to walk away, I looked up and saw three or four newly hatched chicks in a nest where the branches met, chirping continuously. It was as if they were protesting something. Nature? Me? Whom, what? What was going to happen to those chicks now? They surely couldn’t survive on their own! What had I done?!”
“But İsmail!” Mehmet Ali tried to interject.
“No buts! Ever since that day, almost every night after I fall asleep, I see those bird chicks.”
“Birds are living beings too, part of nature. Is it a crime to want them to roam freely in the trees, sing their beautiful songs to us, and live happily with their young?” When Mehmet said these words with emotion, Mehmet Ali lowered his head. He didn’t speak for a while.
“Those bad dreams you see haven’t stopped haunting me either. What do you say—if I quit hunting, do you think the birds I’ve shot so far will forgive me?”
Dark İsmail looked at us first, then at Mehmet Ali. “They will. They definitely will!”
“You’ve taught me a great lesson, kids. I’m going to ask our village mukhtar to ban hunting in our village… What do you say?”
We hugged Mehmet Ali’s hands. He lifted each of us into the air and embraced us. “You’ve taught me more than all the knowledge and manners I acquired in the military. Thank you, bless you all!”