Your "Isinay Bird" Is One-Year-Old

I JUST REALIZED that this blog site has turned one year last January.

And this is the reason why I changed our design to a green one from the former beige format.

If it were a real bird (mantetteyav in Dupax Isinay, mantaytayab in Bambang Isinay, tumatayab in Ilocano), it would have become full-fledged by now.

"Full-fledged" means having more feathers, stronger wings, and sharper instincts.

It may not exactly mean full maturity but, yes, it does connote more power, greater ability, and better judgment.

Power to fly far or to soar high.

Ability to know which trees, forests, mountains, islands, ponds, rivers, etc. to perch on.

Judgment to choose the correct fruits to peck, nutritious insects to chase, and other birds to make friends with.

Isinay Bird in a cornfield near the Marian Bridge in Palobotan, Dupax del Sur, Nueva Vizcaya (photo taken by Bonnie Calacala at 6:48AM of Feb 16, 2012)

AS WE CELEBRATE this blog's first birthday, maybe it would help to tell why I used "Isinay Bird" as blog name.

The "Isinay" part was intentional. The first time I Googled the word, there was practically nothing much you could find in the Internet written about it.

And so, as an act of loyalty to my being an Isinay (even if only a mestizo), I thought that including Isinay as name for this blog would at least contribute to the number of "hits" searchers would get.

Indeed, it came out to be a good move. For pretty soon it developed that a number of the blog's readers discovered this site when they typed Isinay in their computer. 

On the other hand, the "Bird" part of the name came after I mulled over such candidates as Forester, Firefly, Writer, Chronicler, Tweeter, and Sylvan Stroller.

I thought Bird would aptly represent the other trajectory of this blogsite -- that of the bird-rich Dupax that I used to know as a child. I thought the name would be a good umbrella for the bird-related or, for that matter, nature-flavored memoirs and ruminations I would be depositing in this blog.

Not only that. Late last year I got to realize that the Bird part of the name also applies to some of my personal traits that I may not have articulated until now.

One is love for the great sunny outdoors. Another is love for life close to Nature or Mother Earth. And still another is love of freedom.

Yes, like a real bird.