A thoughtful essay from Albatrossity.

It’s sometimes hard to process our relationships with the natural world, and I was reminded of that, brutally, this week. The midsection of the continent has endured an intrusion of Arctic temperatures when the polar vortex weakened and then herniated. Here in my part of Flyover Country we had a week and a half of intermittent snow showers, steadily dropping temperatures, and cloud cover that eliminated our normal solar daytime heating cycle. We watched the thermometer as if it were an oracle, and it emitted increasingly ominous pronouncements.

All through the week the overnight lows crept ever lower, and the daytime highs never really lived up to that name. The birds in the neighborhood responded, as they usually do, by ramping up their feeding and foraging activities all week long. Seed-eating birds were happy to find the feeders, stocked with sunflower seeds and dried berries. Our five winter-resident woodpeckers gobbled down the suet. And the acres of buckbrush, cedar, and honeysuckle behind the house set the table for the frugivorous waxwings and thrushes.

We have a heated bird bath on the back deck that hosted ever-increasing flocks of robins and waxwings, as well as the occasional Hermit Thrush and Eastern Bluebird. Their honeysuckle-heavy diet was glaringly obvious, as piles of orange poo accumulated in rings around the water tub. We added a second water bowl; it immediately attracted customers and its own ring of poo.

For all the winters that we have lived in this house, we have had Hermit Thrushes as fellow travelers. We see them early in the morning at the bird bath, sporadically through the day, and at night occasionally spot one heading down below the deck, where we suspected it might be roosting in that relatively warmer microclimate. This year we had at least three, one with very dark breast spots and two with lighter spots. All three were frequent visitors at the bird bath, even scrapping with the much bigger robins for a space at the trough, as the week went on and the temperatures became more frightful. We hoped that they were getting enough to eat; we could provide water, but they were skeptical about the raisins and other dried fruit bits we put out for them. So the food they found on their own was the food they depended on.

The night of February 14-15 was the killer. On the deck our thermometer registered -14 F; the official temperature at the local airport about 4 miles away was -21 F. Dawn came, and I saw a couple of robins and one of the light-spotted Hermit Thrushes already at the bird bath, not drinking but simply warming up in that micro-space that was not -20. I was hopeful that they had made it through, and the forecast said that warmer temperatures were on the way.

But the day went on, and the numbers of robins dropped to 2 or 3 at a time (compared to 20 or 30 the day before), and no more Hermit Thrushes were to be seen. Same for the next day. They might have moved on (but to where?), and that is the story I kept telling myself.

Today, with outside temps in the mid-20s (double digits above zero!), Elizabeth investigated under the deck. The worst fears proved true. Huddled in dry leaves, against the side of the house, was a Hermit Thrush. It was the dark-spotted one, who had arrived in mid-November and cheered us nearly daily. Cold, stiff, and nearly weightless; it was feathers, skin, and bone but not much else.

This killing weather doubtless took many birds, and this was just one. But it was personal, and I felt it more keenly because of that. But I also understood, at a level slightly removed from the gut-wrenching sight of that pitiful carcass, that our fellow travelers on this planet are paying a very high price because of us. Our usurpation of spaces and resources makes it ever more difficult for other species to find space and resources. Despite all we tried to do to help this creature, and others like it, we (all of us) killed it.

Most of us have precious few tangible, emotional connections to the world around us these days, even though we depend on that world. The planet that provides food, water, shelter, and space to our fellow travelers does the same for us, but we’d rather not think about it too much. We’d prefer to think that we are special. Moments like this, where that dependence is intellectually and emotionally in-your-face obvious, are increasingly rare, and perhaps that makes them increasingly painful. This hurt.

One bird. What difference does that make?

A world of difference.

 

Guest Post: Albatrossity – From the Heart(land)Post + Comments (51)

At the end of a long week that has seemed to last forever, it’s hard to step back and even begin to process it.  For me, at least.  I thought Albatrossity might be able to help with that, and this thoughtful post is the result.

As you can see by the image below, he has a lot to say!

Pictures. I can do those.

Pictures can describe a moment perfectly in most cases, even if the moment is disturbing. Describing right now with a picture is so simple you can do it with a phone.

Words to describe right now are nearly impossible, however. A pandemic, a recession, a vacuum of any leadership at the national level, fear for your community, your kids and yourself.  All wrapped in a raw outpouring of pent-up rage at decades, nay centuries, of oppression, broken promises, and needless deaths. There may be a word for that, from some other time or some other universe. But I don’t know it, nor do I want to.

Here’s what I do know, and it’s a short list.

I know that I am incredibly privileged.

I had a solid education and a stable family during my childhood years. I have the proper pigmentation and chromosomes (white male) to take full advantage of that education and make a good life for myself and my kids. I can travel or go birdwatching without thinking once that I might be in danger from others who are offended by my pigmentation or chromosomes. I can understand, at an intellectual level, how it feels to not have those privileges, but I will never understand it at a visceral level. And that is also a privilege.

I know that the natural world not only unites us, it encompasses us.

We are part of it, and even though many of our species have forgotten that, or prefer to ignore it, it is a solid undeniable fact. That unity is more tangible to me right now because there are so many forces fostering division. The toddler in his basement bunker is only one of those; he is supported by many others who profit from division. They are enriched by inequity and want no part of unity, either with the natural world or with their own species.

I know that the world will go on without us.

Although that might sound defeatist, it is oddly comforting to understand that we, as a species, are tiny, and that our time on the planet is probably short. I know that we seem to be doing our damnedest to make it even shorter, even though we may be the first species ever to understand how living things appear and disappear from the planet. A conundrum, for sure.

I know that politics alone cannot save us from the terrors of this moment.

The recent protests acknowledge that traditional political processes and politics-as-usual has not saved us from this uniquely evil sociopath. Even impeachment, the most serious remedy in the political realm, was just a speed bump for him. Our faith in our institutions, norms and laws has been shattered. We need to rebuild, and the beating heart of that rebuilding is to reassert that our government is by the people and for the people.

I know that people have been awakened.

The young people who are taking to the streets to protest racism, fascism, and inequality are not just taking charge, they are taking back the power that we the people still have. I’m guardedly optimistic that we have turned the corner, but politicians who want to lead us will have to follow first.

I know that truth matters.

The single most damaging thing that the bunker boy and his owners have done to us is to lie, incessantly. Science, my chosen profession, cannot function with lies or liars. I know that the quickest way to professional oblivion for any scientist is to be caught in a lie. Obviously, those standards do not apply to politics or politicians or think tanks or oil companies or fake news sources, but it is still breathtaking to see and hear the volume of lies coming at us these days. This firehose of bullshit is part of the reason we can’t breathe. I know that lies hurt all of us.

I know that I am frightened.

As bad as 2020 has been, it is likely to get worse. As the criminal sociopath in the White House slowly becomes aware that he is indeed his favorite insult, a loser, he will continue to tear down the things that actually did make America great. He will continue to pick at the wounds of past injustice, and ensure that no progress can be make toward healing. He will continue to be enabled by the complicit profiteering invertebrates in the Senate and the judiciary, and egged on by talking heads at Fox. And the pandemic and climate change loom beyond all of that.

I know that hope matters, and that letting the bastards win is not just a personal defeat, it is a loss for the entire planet.

Hope is better than fear in any calculus except that of the sociopath.  Hope comes from time in the natural world. It comes from an unfamiliar bird song in a thicket, or from seeing a migrant shorebird with thousands of miles still to go before it can nest.  It comes from #BlackBirdersWeek, raising awareness and fostering connections within the birding community and beyond. But it is not just the thing with feathers; it also comes from a plant blooming where it bloomed last season, or a bison calf, or a firefly. The long memories of our fellow travelers, oblivious to our concerns, are hope-inspiring. I know that we need hope, and even though time in the natural world may not be your chosen avenue, my hope is always regenerated by nature. Hope has many faces; find what gives you hope and nourish it.

I know that President Obama is right when he says we must make this moment a turning point for change.

The powerful frustration, and the genuine loathing for the genuine criminals in this administration are real. Moral momentum is on our side, but we, for once, need to keep our knees on their throats, metaphorically speaking. Organize. Canvass. Vote. This is a critical time for all of that.

Pictures of blue-clad racism, oppression, death, and destruction are telling the story of our times far more eloquently than my words can.

Perhaps words can give us something else, however.

Hope. And breath.

Guest Post by Albatrossity: Truth Matters, Hope Matters, Action MattersPost + Comments (78)

We have another treat tonight in the form of a Guest Post by Albatrossity.

There may have been tears in my eyes as I read this haunting essay; it’s quite beautiful.

All winter long I’ve been haunted by dark hawks. Not in the spectral sense, but in the familiar. I’ve spent time looking for them, photographing them, thinking about them, wondering about them, and even hanging out with hawk researchers to trap them and learn more about them. I’ve dreamed about them, which is unusual, since I usually never remember my dreams! Maybe I’m haunting them rather than the other way around.

I live in a part of the North American continent that has an abundance of Red-tailed Hawks in the winter. Harlan’s Hawks, the darkest subclass (dubbed the “Black Warrior” by no less an authority than John James Audubon), come from the far northwest reaches of the range for this species, northern Alaska and the Yukon. That’s a one-way flight of nearly 3000 miles if you take the shortest flight path, and even longer if you dawdle along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains like these birds probably do.

We really don’t know much about how they get from Alaska to Kansas and back every year; that’s some of the research yet to be done by some of the folks I worked with this winter. But we do know that after they make that journey in the fall, many of them end up in exactly the same place where they spent last winter. For example, I have watched a small dark Harlan’s Hawk (probably a male) claim a winter territory about a mile from my house every winter for the past 7 winters. This year he showed up on October 7; as I write in late March he is still there, although his departure could be any day now. He is so familiar that my kids gave him a name, Harley, and he is a fine representative of the Black Warrior class (see photo).

All Red-tailed Hawks show variability in pigmentation patterns in every part of the body, but Harlan’s Hawks are even more variable. One of the hawk researchers who visited here this winter is studying the genetics of pigment patterns in Harlan’s Hawks. That’s a daunting assignment. The tail of each Harlan’s Hawk is unique. The distribution of colors in Harley’s tail – mostly white, mottled with black and just a hint of the eponymous red – changes little from year to year, and I would likely know him anywhere. But he returns here.

There are a dozen or so others that I have haunted this winter and last winter and the winter before, each finding the same territory every fall and relinquishing it to the local hawks only after the snows start to retreat across the northern plains. Interestingly our summer-resident Turkey Vultures, also a dark shadowy presence soaring above the plains, return here just about the time that the Harlan’s Hawks move out. These birds likely winter no farther away than Oklahoma, though no one knows for sure. (Somehow, working with vultures is even less popular than studying hawks.)

We always have dark birds in the sky here, even if they are different characters every season.

This winter the departure of our dark northern hawks coincides with another, even darker, arrival. Coronavirus. The stealthy migration of this wingless pathogen, hitching rides in passengers on airplanes and cruise ships, has changed the world in a very short time, with more changes yet to come. The non-human world will probably not detect this arrival in the short-term, other than perhaps noting a decrease in human traffic as they go about their daily business. But humans, and their insatiable needs, influence much of the natural world today; there will be consequences, foreseen and unforeseen, that other creatures will deal with in the coming months and years. There are always consequences, and change is the only constant.

Our consequences, at least for the short term but probably longer, include hunkering down and avoiding other people who could potentially transmit the virus to us, or us to them. Social distancing is the newest oxymoron (coincidentally, the recommended 6-ft distance is approximately the wingspan of a Turkey Vulture). Everything is on hold, and time seems to have warped so that it seems to move both very quickly and very slowly these days. News comes at us in waves with no troughs.

And even if we want to shut our eyes and plug our ears to the unpleasant new reality, it remains reality.

Our social media world, often discordant even at the best of times, seems both newly fractured and cohesive. I have virtual friends who live in Alberta, and we are linked by these hawks as much as by social media. They await the spring hawk migration eagerly, and I will get news from them when “my” hawks become “their” hawks as they pass through to the Yukon and become their own hawks, which really is what they have been all along.

Connectivity comes at multiple levels, and even though hawks might seem to be excellent at distancing themselves from humans, these birds have helped us make connections despite the distancing edicts we now live under. On a globe that has not only shrunk with air travel but also expanded with nationalism and hubris, the international journeys of “our” hawks bring us together, adding to our appreciation of distance and, paradoxically, connections. We prepare for a time of unknown duration where we must stay at home while these birds are starting on a 3000-mile migration back to their natal ground. They have been there before, and know the way. I envy them, since I seem to be both at home and adrift at the same time.

The arrival of this mutated virus, which may have made the leap from an illegally poached pangolin to a human being, is a stark reminder both of evolution and the destruction of the natural world at the hands of our species. We are ever so conscious of the movements of the virus in our world, but the underlying reality of our own invasion into the world of pangolins and their viruses is the background music we strain to hear. That music will only get louder. At the same time, this new coronavirus has no consciousness and no awareness of us. It only needs our movements to keep going, and our bodies as new hosts and new evolutionary laboratories. We are very obliging about those needs, even as we gain consciousness of their dangers.

Consciousness is a blessing, but also a plague. The lack of attention to human concerns by those in the non-human world is almost enviable right now; we yearn to return to that blissful nonconcern that the rest of nature has for us.  In a 1969 song entitled “Eskimo Blue Day,” Grace Slick and Paul Kantner summed it up brilliantly:

Consider how small you are
Compared to your scream
The human dream
Doesn’t mean shit to a tree 

But consciousness also means that we can pay attention not only to this unique and devastating springtime, but also to the unconcerned natural world of birds, their travels and their lives. My delight in birds and glancing involvement in their daily rhythm has not changed in this plague year. Haunting hawks gives me hope, as well as another social network where the distancing tomorrow will be followed, inevitably, by reunion and reconnection next fall.

Godspeed, Harley. Stay safe in your summer haunts, and we’ll see you on the other side.

~Dave Rintoul

 

Guest Post by Albatrossity: Haunted by Dark HawksPost + Comments (109)