Do you know the story of the Wake Island rail? It lived, guess where?, Yes! on Wake Island and nowhere else. Wake Island is a small Pacific island and the Wake Island rail was a small flightless rail. When Japanese soldiers arrived on Wake Island there were rails, after they left there were no rails. Yummy!
A haiku seemed appropriate.
Haiku
Awake, sleep no more
Gallirallus wakensis
Rail at extinction!
Lonely atoll
Biodiversity of one!
Now zero
Poor little mites didn’t even have chance to rail about their sorry plight
Thanks for the poetic reference to this rather sad loss, Mark. I checked out both Wikipedia links and realised there was no link at all to the rail on the main page about the island. So I’ve investigated and found some recently published research, updated information on the bird’s ecology and cause of its extinction, and added a reference to the Wake Island Rail on the Wake Island page. Let’s hope the war-focussed wikipedians deem it appropriate to retain the link.
It probably took me a lot longer to do than your three lines of perfectly structured haiku – but your efforts are so much more evocative and powerful!
Nick – good for you!
Did you make that up yourself, Mark ?
Its very good – hidden meaning etc. I’m impressed !
roderick – I’m glad I can still impress you after all these years…
Trusting birds, grounded
Hungry soldiers, all of them
What’s a Jap to do?