In a bar in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapiés where he lives, the Hispanist Ian Gibson (Dublin, 83 years old) proudly shows off one of his most precious books, an old, patched-up guide to the birds of Spain and other European countries, from Peterston, Mountford and Hollom.
There are many who recognize this writer and specialist in contemporary Spanish history on the street, but few know about his facet as an ornithologist and naturalist.
Accustomed to hearing him talk about Federico García Lorca or Antonio Machado, the truth is that the songs that attracted him to Spain 65 years ago were not about poets but about birds.
While he talks about the seagulls of Madrid or his passion for geese, he laments the serious deterioration suffered by Doñana, where one of the magical moments of his life took place.
Ask.
Where does his passion for ornithology and Doñana come from?
Response.
I have been an ornithologist since birth, because my father was a naturalist.
He passed on his passion for nature to me;
above all, by birds and, especially, by waterfowl.
When I was 16 years old, an ornithologist much older than me told me about Doñana, its 80,000 geese and how these birds came to the dunes to ingest sand.
I didn't believe it and wanted to go see it.
Q.
The first time you arrived in Spain in 1957, you knew much more about birds than about Machado.
It is not like this?
A.
I know almost nothing about Machado.
The miracle occurred for me that summer of 1957, when I bought Rubén Darío's poems at the Casa del Libro on the Gran Vía.
“Month of roses.
My rhymes go round, to the vast jungle, to collect honey and aromas in the half-open flowers”.
It was very sensual and caught my attention.
From there I began to enter other Spanish texts.
Q.
And what happened when you finally visited Doñana?
R.
The truth is that it took me years to go to Doñana.
But it was one of the truly magical moments of my life.
I will never forget when in the marshes there began to be heard a sound of flapping wings and a song that I knew perfectly well from Dublin.
They were the same geese, but thousands, in the Guadalquivir.
Q.
What do you think of the current situation in Doñana?
R.
Seeing Doñana dry hurts me a lot, like many things in Spain hurt me.
I am concerned about the aquifer, the illegal wells, the surrounding strawberries… Without water there are no geese or anything.
It is a disaster and Doñana does not belong only to Spain, it is a place of universal importance.
I am not British, but they helped [biologist José Antonio] Valverde and WWF to protect this park.
Q.
Are there also birds in the poems of Antonio Machado or Federico García Lorca?
R.
Machado knew more about birds and this comes from his grandfather, Machado Núñez, who is a professor of Natural Sciences and has a fundamental influence.
Q.
Machado's grandfather wrote a catalog of Andalusian birds.
R.
Exactly, and fish.
They also say that he was the first to identify an Iberian lynx in Doñana.
I don't know if that's the case, but that Machadian background of love for nature is something that attracts me a lot.
P.
And in the case of Lorca?
R.
Lorca is a telluric poet who comes from mother earth.
And although he doesn't know about birds, they are there.
"How Zumaya sings, oh how she sings in the tree!".
The historian does not go out to the countryside much anymore, but he is very aware of the birds of Madrid, like the thousands of seagulls he sees from his terrace.Samuel Sánchez
Q.
What are the Iberian birds that most attract your attention?
A.
I really like the hoopoe and the bee-eater.
But my passion, the birds I am fascinated by, are the geese, the geese.
Q.
Why the geese?
R.
A flock of geese generates an absolutely surprising clamor and at the same time connects me with the mystery of nature, of life.
These creatures arrive from the north, come to the south to spend the winter and then return there to the tundra, they are the cycles that repeat themselves.
There are other birds that travel a lot, like the tern, which I love, but they don't fascinate me as much as the geese.
Q.
Should poets know more about nature?
R.
Miguel de Unamuno said that a poet has the obligation to know the words he uses.
Once there was Unamuno and the poet Don Francisco de Villaespesa walking beside a pond.
Villaespesa sees a beautiful flower that is floating on the green surface of the pond and asks: What will this beautiful flower be called?
And Don Miguel replies: "They are water lilies, those that appear in all his poems."
Q.
Is there a lack of more education in general about nature?
A.
Without a doubt.
I think a lot about the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, in its way of teaching, its emphasis on nature, its excursions through the Sierra de Guadarrama and El Pardo.
Machado and his brother are the product of that.
It makes me very sad that then the war came and ended all this.
As Mariano José de Larra wrote, Spain is the new Penelope, who does nothing but weave and unweave.
Q.
Birds are also a symbol of freedom.
What do you think of people who use freedom as a pretext to oppose any environmental restriction?
R.
Be careful how we use the word freedom.
It does not mean that everyone can do what they want.
It can't be like that.
We have to respect nature, because we ourselves are nature.
It is obvious that we must protect the environment, the air we breathe or what we throw into the sea.
At this point in my life I am not able to understand the clumsiness of human beings.
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