GILBERT TONG’S LIFE LIST
Kate Heartfield1.
Blue-winged teal (Anas discors). Abundant. May (?), 2074
Field Notes: That wasn’t the first day I saw a blue-winged teal, but it was the first day my dad gave me the name for it. We were walking in the fields near the border of the Enclave. That was the best place to see birds, because it was only a kilometre or two from Oak Hammock Marsh.
The marsh, dad said, was like an airport for birds, right in the middle of North America.
Dad probably forgot I’d never seen an airport. He had. Dad came to the Enclave as a kid in 2042, soon after the government of Kiribati leased the land from the Canadian government.
The teal was smaller than most other ducks, determined though. Its pointed wings glinted blue as it glided down into the golden field that
