Zana – Someone is coming

The San Bushmen call the Woodpecker (my favourite bird) Zana, they said that when the Zana calls, it is telling them that someone will soon visit them and indeed each time this happened they pointed it out to me and soon afterwards someone did visit us.

This got me thinking just the other day. I remember as a young boy at boarding school I saw my first ever woodpecker on the school lawn, it was the Green Woodpecker and from that point on I became interested in birds. However, when I left school I no longer pursued my interest in birds, not until I had joined the army and was posted to Germany.

One day I was out walking in the local woods near to my house when heard an usual sound as I was drawn to this sound I looked up and there flying right over me was my very first Black Woodpecker a magnificent bird, simple in colour but quite powerful in its presence and it has become my number one bird. Once again my interest in birds was fired up and it has been the case ever since, going from strength to strength.

I see the Woodpecker as a spiritual bird with a message, its undulating flight, reminds me of how life can be with its ups and downs and sometimes just before alighting on a tree, the woodpecker changes its course at the last minute to land on a different tree, and this is how it has been for me in life often changing course at the last minute and then experiencing a new and amazing journey, for example when I was leaving the army I was going to live in Germany where my children live, but at the last minute while serving in Bosnia I changed my mind and for some unknown reason and to every ones dismay, I decided to return to the UK.


And I can tell you I have no regrets, my life has been as colourful now as it was then but in quite a different way. So maybe the visitor who was coming to visit me all them years ago with the Green Woodpecker and again in Germany with the Black Woodpecker, maybe that was my creator.

In fact I know it was.