The Enugu Bird Club and Other Coincidences.

I am Ortega Alikwe, I have always been a lover of trees and birds, its almost impossible for me not blurt out the phrase "ya birdie" when I watch a bird do a bird thing. My father is a professor of Animal science, both families (maternal and paternal) are agricultural families and I have lived on two farms whilst growing up.

I likewise studied Agricultural Engineering as my first degree. I have a small collection of Nat Geo magazines, once upon a time my favorite pastime was nature documentaries, and reading random maps.

I watch birds in this clime for the love of flight and it’s relativity to human powered vertical lift through biomimicry, something that has been a dream for so long, as I work with the International Helicopter Flying School. Also, I am a soon to be member of the vertical flight society. Its impossible to mention the symphony of bird calls and songs in the mornings and evenings before humans wake and the noise of city life takes over, you'd almost always catch birds travelling from nesting ground to feeding ground as they dance through the sky in theor different styles.

A few months ago the Instagram algorithm matched Bill Uko and I and we took the bold step to set up the Enugu Bird Club, and we took our first birding trip to the NIke Lake Resort, but by some providence I missed the trip.

The beauty of all this is from the bird club came a number of coincidences that have birthed other passion communities in the city that did not formerly exist, at the end of the birding trip to the resort we (I mean they all) came back to life in the city, and the spontaneous connections started, I got to learn about the other passions of the members of the bird club. Chidera Sam-Eze, a Photographer having attended the Abuja Photo Festival and saw to fill the gap for a photography collective in the South East started the Enugu Photo Festival.

I on the other hand, mixed up the date for another event I was to attend somewhere in Enugu and found myself in the lounge of The Sunshine Hotel thinking about my life and listening to soothing Sunday Jazz, and there it dawned on me that I could indeed start another of my passion projects at the hotel, and start I did. I walked up to the slales rep and sold the idea of the Enugu Jazz Society that was still in its infancy in a well packaged way to benefit the hotel, and it was sold. We were to have the Sunday Jazz Brunch on the first and third sunday of every month and it has now grown over the months beyond my imagination.

The centre point of my piece is to give you the boldness to allow your passions lead you into communities that will enrich your life amidst the wave of depression that comes from living a triangular or rectangular life due to your mode of work which is predominantly becoming remote or hybrid for most knowledge workers. The impact of social isolation due to the break in connections that come from networks being broken up as the brain drain continues and the constant rise in price of the basic things of life that offer a repose.

Post Script: Our participation in the Wader Quest got published in the Wader Quest Newsletter