Khalil Ibrahim watches from his tent as the orange light of dusk is darkened by a flock of European starlings arriving on their annual migration to northern Iraq.
He prepares to trigger his nets as they circle the field, but at the last minute a child throws a stone in the distance and the birds vanish over the dimly-lit horizon.
He and other trappers catch the starlings during the bird’s two-month migration and sell them in the bazaar of nearby Irbil.
Some people buy the birds to eat them and they are regarded as a delicacy, but most people pay for their freedom as an act of mercy believed to bring good luck.
This year, however, the trappers say war has driven many of the skittish birds away.
“The sound you heard now, compared to gunfire, was quiet, but what about bombs or explosions?” fellow trapper Khalas Tasin said after he and Ibrahim gather up their empty nets. “They will flee from the entire area. They are scared of noise and explosions, so if they hear anything they will fly away.”
The front line in the war between the Islamic State extremist group and the Kurdish forces defending northern Iraq is less than 50km away, and warplanes from the US-led coalition circle overhead.
There are no reliable statistics on the number of birds in the region, but trappers whose families have been catching them for generations said that the flocks have thinned.
“Every year at least 3,000 to 4,000, sometimes up to 7,000 or 8,000 birds can be caught if you are in a good spot in the two-month season,” Ibrahim said. “This year, in my opinion, if I can catch 2,000 to 3,000 I’ll be lucky.”
Every afternoon from December through February, the trappers bury their nets in fallow winter fields on the outskirts of the Kurdish regional capital, Erbil, careful to conceal the ropes under the rust-colored soil.
They sprinkle a mixture of sesame seeds and grain over the traps and then sit in nearby tents waiting for the birds to take the bait.
If successful, they will send the caged birds to market, where they sell for about US$0.85 each.
A single customer might buy 200 birds just to set them free in an act of clemency.
These days, families stop to admire the birds — whose black feathers are mottled white and lit with traces of green, purple, and red — but not many people are buying them.
“Because of the situation and the lack of money, people are freeing fewer birds,” said bird-seller Mohammed Jamil, 20.
The diversion of a few thousand starlings is hardly the most devastating consequence of a war that has claimed thousands of human lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Also.the idea of holding birds for ransom might strike outsiders as a bit absurd.
However, when passer-by Anwar Waleed saw the caged starlings, he felt moved to perform a small act of kindness.
“It is like someone held prisoner, held captive and you are coming to free them. Those poor birds. The feeling comes from my heart,” the 65-year-old said after purchasing five starlings. “They could have chicks.”
Then one by one, he lifts them up, opens his hands and watches them spiral away into the sky.
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