In retrospective...

ZOOLANDER
Living close to a ZOO is a good start if you want to experience many interesting incidents. It is quite unusual to go for a walk on a nice autumn afternoon and hear the roar of a lion, plough your way through the thick winter fog at night, listening to the melancholy howling of a pack of wolves, stroll about in the beat of an elephant's trumpeting or take a walk on a hot summer day and listen to the screams of monkeys marking their territory - hm, actually, now that I think about it, screaming apes aren't that unusual in my life, I seem to encounter them quite often… Well, that still leaves me with lions, elephants and wolves, and a few years ago the proximity of the ZOO arranged an unforgettable encounter in the beginning of December. Sambo and I went for a walk on the field next to the Faculty of Biology; Sambo ran around, happy as always, and I walked through the few cm of snow left, with my head in the clouds, as usual. I looked around to see where Sambo was and I caught a sight of a slender tree trunk in the middle of the field. A slender tree trunk in the middle of the field? Odd. Then the greyish and black tree trunk moved. Ok, a stork or a heron, I thought, nothing unusual here. At that moment Sambo saw the bird and went towards it to see if they could engage into something interesting. We both expected that the heron would calmly stay there and then fly away, as they always do. We were both wrong. To our great surprise, the feathery thing boldly marched towards Sambo and when he, in great surprise, stopped short, even ran towards him. Very unusual for a heron, I thought to myself, when I stood there, in the middle of the field, watching Sambo running towards me with Big Bird behind him. When they were already fairly close, the feathery warrior stoppped and looked at me with a penetrating gaze… At that moment, even I, Hawkeye, saw that the bird was no heron but a black crowned crane. When the African saw that Sambo has a helper, he offendedly turned away. Of course Sambo went behind him and decided to do a little herding. The crane obviously didn't like Sambo's circling him and so the party began… Have you ever wondered where Daniel-san picked up the style of the crane? Well, I know the answer, and so does Sambo. When he got near the bird, it spread its wings, started hissing, stood on one leg and didn't let Sambo out of its sight. Sambo, naturally, had a blast when he realized that he brought Big Bird's attention, so he hopped merrily around it; I was amused too, up until the moment the bird had enough of it and launched itself towards Sambo, still standing on one leg and with its wings widely spread, covering about 3 metres in a single jump and kicking through the air in front of it. I didn't feel like laughing anymore and I could already see Sambo sliced up in fillets, with Big Bird standing over him with its golden crown and staring blue eyes. Sambo, on the other side, had just discovered the charm of this feathery wonder and started running around it, full of zeal, rebounding and evading the attacks of a growingly pissed off birdie with an obvious gift for martial arts. I soon saw that Sambo was agile enough and that he would be ok, so I could sit back and enjoy the show – the style of the Crane versus the style of the Black Death. Unfortunately, after 15 minutes or so I had to break off the duellists' fun and recall Sambo, who parted from his feathery opponent with a very heavy heart. Sadly we never met him again, we only see exceedingly boring storks and herons without the slightest trace of a fighting spirit. Perhaps someday we meet again…