I Heard You. What’s For Dinner?

NOAA and USDA have issued an early drought warning that includes all of our state.  I prefer exceptionally wet conditions to drought.  Even in times of flooding I can usually catch moments between downpours and walk barefoot across cool, soft grass and feel soft earth and have a sense that plants and bugs and birds have had more than enough water but will be just fine.  In drought there is widespread anguish, the parched grass is like walking on sea urchins. If plants had teeth they'd be gnashing them.

“We’ve had droughts before,” he said, “don’t make it more than it is.”

It’s a long term forecast, speculation based in science but with a significant probability of error.  It might get dry, it might not.  And if it does, it's happened before, countless times, and here we are, and here are the birds and plants and insects, living proof of our perseverance and adaptability.  We endure.

My wife is an ardent feeder and observer of birds, keen to recognize when things are amiss.  She commented yesterday that she has seen only two chimney swifts over the pond this year where they are usually frequent, searching the sky for insects.  On her trips to town she likewise notes an absence of swifts, that like to nest in chimneys, and nighthawks, that like to nest on flat rooftops.  “Populations do have ups and downs,” I say, and she responds with a litany of species that seem fewer this year: goldfinches, yellow warblers, vireos, buntings, tree swallows, and I have to agree.  In our speck of universe it seems so. And given that most songbird species are in steep decline, seeing fewer birds sooner or later is, sadly, a realistic expectation.

“They’ll be back,” the old timer said. “I remember a year we hardly had house wrens, and look at them now!”

We have a gig doing bat surveys for the DNR. We fit the car with a microphone and GPS-linked computer and drive predetermined routes through the countryside at 18 mph, commencing about an hour after sunset.  Apparently, bat numbers are declining everywhere. In Indiana, of the 13 known species, five are endangered, six are of special concern.  This survey is part of a federal program to monitor populations across the country.

“Bats carry rabies,” she said, “and they’ll get in your hair and give you lice!”

“They make a mess in the barn”, he added, “Filthy animals. They’re responsible for the coronavirus, aren’t they?”

The surveys present a great time to be out in the hinterlands, poking along at a time when nocturnal life is on the move.  We see deer and raccoons and opossums, occasionally foxes, owls, skunks, coyotes.  We see fireflies, sometimes few, sometimes many.  We record a few bats.  But what we find blatantly obvious is the lack of insects in the headlights.  I wasn't counting, but last night, over a 20+ mile distance, the number of moths flitting across the road certainly totaled less than ten.  I specifically remember three.

“Maybe someday we won't have to call the exterminator,” she said.  “I’ll keep the bug zapper plugged in,” he said. “Say, when’s the yard guy coming?  Pretty sure we have grubs.”

Remember the days when a drive through the country at night left your windshield, bumper, grill and headlights splattered with insects?  Remember when bats were a given in a twilight sky?

Fishing is a popular pastime enjoyed by millions across the globe.  In Florida, charter boats load up with hopeful anglers and head to offshore reefs in pursuit of grouper and snapper and amberjack.  They are often successful, and the catch is hung against a board advertising the charter service and happy participants gather around for a photo.  The biggest fish gets special recognition. But what is not recognized is that the biggest fish is dwarfed by the biggest fish in a similar photo taken decades prior, and the overall catch is pitifully small, comparatively, in both size and total caught. 

“What a great day on the water!”, they smiled and said, “What a tremendous resource!”

What we accept as normal, whether it be weather events, bird sightings, insect numbers, fish caught or a thousand other observations, is changing.  The old farmer can accurately recall all the drought years but enlightened farmers now expect them more often, as they expect episodes of frequently wetter, hotter, and cooler weather.  Normal is no longer. 

“The weather’s gone topsy turvy,” they say.

Insect numbers worldwide are crashing from chemical poisoning, climate change, and habitat loss.  Up to 40 percent of all species are in decline and a third are endangered, according to a global scientific review. Fewer insects necessarily leads to decreased pollination, fewer bats and birds, and ultimately, fewer people.  It takes 6000-9000 caterpillars to rear a single brood of chickadees.  A bat needs to eat about the same number of insects each night.

“It's a hoax,” they said.

“It's a conspiracy,” some countered.

“Only God can control the climate.”

“I’ll be happy when things are back to normal.”

“It’s all overblown.”

“It's out of our hands.”

“What's for dinner?”

A Creek, A Dead Congressman, Everything’s Connected

There is a fine little creek that runs over a quarter mile through our property.  It's a bit of a rarity in these parts both because it's a bonafide creek, not a constructed drainage ditch, and because it's substantially spring fed.  It originates a long mile upstream and builds volume quickly with water from springs and field tiles along its course. Aptly named Spring Creek, it gurgles and pools it's way through a respectably wooded watershed as it begins its grand journey to far away places.

Decades ago a prior owner of the property, one Thurman Crook, refused to join with landowners north and south in an effort to straighten the creek’s meandering course.  It was an era when land managers held a strong objective to move water quickly downstream so land could be effectively drained and put to wise and prosperous use.  It was a merciless effort, completed with great ingenuity and efficacy, and potholes and marshes and a splendid assortment of associated wildlife met their demise.  

North of us the Grand Kankakee Marsh once occupied more than 1500 square miles as it sprawled beyond the main channel of the Kankakee River.  Over an 81 mile straight line distance, the river snaked its way through 2000 twists and loops, extending its overall length by three times.  With countless waterways threading off in all directions it surrounded vegetated spits of sand and was speckled with thousands of muskrat and beaver lodges. Eye witnesses spoke of waterfowl in numbers that would blacken the sky. The Grand Kankakee was placed among the most extensive and impressive marshes east of the Rocky Mountains, second only to the Everglades. Today it’s essentially gone. 

Thurman Crook, Indiana congressman,   school teacher, carpenter, horticulturist, and sheep farmer preserved Spring Creek’s delightful serpentine course through his land, so today the north and south extensions of the creek are arrow straight, its natural, historic loops still visible beyond the spoil left from the dredger.  Nowadays, with some semblance of logic discovered, we recognize the value in those loops and in wetlands overall for collecting sediment, purifying water, restoring aquifers, providing habitat.  What farmers were once paid to drain they are now paid to restore.  

When our boys were young we might head to the creek on hot summer days to build a dam of rock and mud and create a pool of refreshment.  Floating there, we were irrefutably linked to all that lay downstream, the river and the greater rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, and every ocean of the globe.  We were, in that moment, tangibly connected to the lifestream of the planet, and could close our eyes and see the deciduous woodlands bordering the lazy Ohio and Mississippi, the giant cypress of Louisiana bayou country, the white sands and palms rimming the Gulf, the aquamarine Caribbean, the blending of oceans east and west. Ultimately, we might reach up and lay our hand on polar ice.

It’s a lesson in connectedness, of everything intricately tied to everything else. It’s a powerful notion, extending beyond our own planet. Astrophysicists have us linked with the stars, sharing essential elements that allowed life to form. Within our biosphere there are innumerable strands binding everything together, all of it, and even the tiniest of interruptions have consequences. 

Back in the creek on that hot summer day we take a different look at our connections. We see the rivers filled with topsoil forever lost due to poor land use. We see industry and municipalities dumping refuse, destroyed habitats, game fish replaced by species adapted to low oxygen levels. We see the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an area 6000 to 7000 square miles at the mouth of the Mississippi, where few species survive. We see beaches plagued by red tides, destined to be inundated with rising seas from melting polar ice. 

Beavers moved into Spring Creek 25-odd years ago bringing change that could not be overlooked. They built a lodge on the bank of a pond on our property that lay 30 feet from the stream. Then they dammed the stream, creating wetland to the east and opposite the pond. When water levels behind the dam precisely matched the adjacent pond level, they bore a canal three foot deep and four feet wide, connecting the pond to their newly established impoundment. Over the years they have added to and improved the dam, totally inundating the canal and the strip of land separating the pond and creek. 

Young beavers tend to move upstream, which they have done here, and continue to build more dams. Today some of the original serpentine loops left from the dredging days are filled once again with water, and the main creek channel in places has been totally relocated. It’s a remarkable achievement. I can’t help but notice in periods of torrential rain how the water raging in the straightened stream above  suddenly slows and spreads and calms as it meets the beaver engineered floodplain.  This is not to mention the appeal the new habitat has to both migrating and resident waterbirds, to minnows and crawfish, to aquatic insects and furbearers. 

There have been accommodations. The beavers have effectively taken trees, sometimes within feet of our house, which we had planted and planned to enjoy for decades. They have made donning boots a necessity in reaching portions of our property.  They have totally inundated an old travel trailer once used for weekend escapes. But thus far we have given them free reign and view their presence of far greater value than their absence. They are plugging along, living life as beavers do, putting the meander back in streams, improving water quality, providing flood control, creating living conditions suitable for a host of unrelated species.  They are contributing mightily to the grand web connecting it all. 

A Christmas Story In June

I am often reminded of a scene from A Christmas Story where Flick has his tongue stuck to the flagpole.  His friend, Ralphie, is heading back to the classroom after hearing the bell signaling the end of recess. Flick, talking the best he can with his tongue frozen to a pole, says, “Ahhhh, don't leave me! Come back!”  Schwartz, who instigated the whole thing with a triple dog dare, turns to Ralphie and asks, “Well, what are we going to do?”, and Ralphie responds, “I don't know. The bell rang!”.  

It’s a great movie, and almost daily I think of that bell ringing. For Ralphie, hearing it was an opportunity to walk away from an uncomfortable situation, to avoid having to act or make a decision, to leave the outcome to others. We hear the bell everyday, and most of us impulsively follow Ralphie’s lead. Our plates are already filled with financial concerns, work obligations, domestic chores, so when the news of social unrest or environmental warnings or government corruption reaches us we might be tempted to hear the bell and defer involvement. Besides, seriously, how likely will one person affect the outcome?

The DC administration has drafted a proposal that would scale back a century-old law protecting wild birds, and billions of birds could die as a result.  This, when a recent study found that in North America alone there are 3 billion fewer birds than in 1970.  The proposal would amend the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which dates back to 1918 and is one of the country’s first major federal environmental laws. Among other protective measures, it holds that industries can face potential criminal violations if their actions or practices result in accidental bird deaths.  In 2017 the current administration ended criminal enforcement of the Act, so the purpose of the new proposal is to cement an interpretation of the law into regulation, making it harder to reverse by subsequent administrations.  The White House is saying the deaths of waterbirds that fly into toxic waste pits, for example, should be treated as accidents and not subject to prosecution.  To migrating shorebirds and waterfowl, a toxic pit can appear a pristine lake to stop for rest. The federal proposal declares that a bird setting down on such a pit is an accident.  A mouse putting its head in a baited trap rings of similarity.

“I don’t know. The bell rang!” 

The country and our world is reckoning with a new virus, the true impacts yet unknown.  There are warnings from CDC and WHO that we are reopening too quickly.  It seems most everywhere the masks are coming off and it’s full steam back to the future.  The economy teeters.

“I don’t know. The bell rang!”

Top climate scientists in Australia just announced we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse of civilization, which may now be inevitable.  Globally, the month of May was the hottest on record, and the past decade was the hottest in recorded history.

“I don’t know. The bell rang!”

Tonight we took a walk around the pond on the dog’s insistence.  At the north end we paused and surveyed the land.  It was an ag field when we bought it, and we shifted its use to ornamental plant production.  That action, while contributing to our livelihood, bore exotic plants that appealed to customers but were largely useless to native insects and, by default, the local ecology. Looking back, we played the fools, but in our retirement the land has been released, no longer controlled.  Beavers have dammed the adjacent stream.  The soil has grown mesic and now supports willow and equisetum and sycamore, native species that play host to native insects that feed native birds.  This smidgen of land shows intent and determination and an effort to return to something timeless and balanced. It illustrates that the web connecting all living things lies at the ready, and it’s humanity’s decision in land use to either attempt a forced submission or establish a partnership designed for mutual benefit.

Not everyone follows Ralphie. In our Midwest community the county commissioners have approved the construction of a zinc recycling facility which independent expert testimony assures will be a major emitter of toxic mercury, lead, carbon monoxide and particulate. Effects on the health of our environment, residents and wildlife is assuredly not good, but dangerous. A growing number of residents are showing their discontent— organizing protests, writing letters, gathering signatures, filing suits— and might just bring a halt to construction. We're hopeful.

Protesters are gathering in streets worldwide, demanding racial justice. Bell? What bell?

Civilization’s definition of normality is out of sync with natural processes. We’ve built an economy and a standard of living based on unsustainable resource extraction and consumption, lacking the oversight to assure it complies with ecological rules. We’re destroying and losing our soil.  We’ve altered our atmosphere, acidified oceans, contaminated or disrupted living systems everywhere on the globe in the process of creating a normality we now defend and are determined to maintain.  It’s a dead end.  We can't look at history-- epidemics, economic recoveries, stock market behaviors-- for hope or inspiration because the world is different now.  Our life support systems are stressed to the point of collapse and there are more of us than ever clamoring for the support. 

So we stand at a crossroads not seen in the history of the world, where the earth’s human population is uniquely united by a strange virus, giving us a moment of pause, an opportunity to reflect, to realize that so many injustices, economic divisions, industrial enterprises, were born or nourished on greed and principles that disregarded environmental consequences.  We are staring at an opportunity, perhaps our last, to get it right.

“I don’t know. The bell rang!”  Sorry, Ralphie. The time to heed its call has passed. 

Race in the Wild

I was in the yard this week and saw a group of cedar waxwings in a hawthorn tree, feeding voraciously on flower petals.  I didn't know they liked petals. Such spectacular birds, always dressed in their finest, sharply colored, carrying the air of polished professionals.  Male and female are nearly identical, and I wondered how they identified their own mates. And that made me think of penguins and how mated pairs find each other in nesting colonies that might consist of tens of thousands of birds standing shoulder to shoulder, and how the young pick out the call of a parent in the midst of tens of thousands of squawking neighbors. And that made me think of squirrels for no other reason than sometimes they’re black.

It's a sequence of thoughts that might only happen when the reality of racial prejudice, discrimination, and injustice is headlining the news.  Breaking down a population into racial divisions applies only to humans.  Races don't exist among waxwings or penguins or squirrels or anything else in the wild.  Subspecies do, but humans lack the genetic variation to earn subspecies classification.  We use race to categorize people according to where they or their ancestors lived, skin color, or certain anatomical or cultural characteristics. We all come from geographic regions where particular genetic traits became apparent once proven advantageous to local living conditions.  Squinted eyes protected against snow blindness in northern climates.  Dark skin lessened the damaging influence of ultraviolet light near the equator.  Lighter skin allowed more sunlight absorption and vitamin D production in regions of less sun intensity. These are all positive responses to environmental stimuli, the result of remarkable selective forces that increased the odds of survival for our ancestors.  They are no less impressive than the snowshoe-like paws of a lynx that allow it to travel across deep snow or a catalpa sphinx moth’s gray mottled wings that perfectly match the bark of a tree.

Black color phases of both gray and fox squirrels are most commonly found in the northern portions of their range.  It's believed to give the animals an advantage in cold climates where the dark color absorbs more heat from the sun. Both black and typically colored squirrels can occupy the same woodland. One is not superior to the other. They are the same species with differing color. They commingle, raise families and exist as all squirrels exist.

Humans no longer face geographic barriers with world travel being what it is, and with the development of artificial environments, sunscreen, and vitamin supplements we can now live safely wherever we want regardless of ancestral adaptations.  With enough time and genetic blending, skin color and other environmentally induced differences among us will become less and less evident.  It’s how biology works. Integrated cultures, too, meld with time. Our high tech civilization has not ended the mechanisms of adaptation. 

I am a white Caucasian of European descent. I grew up in an all white town, went to an all white school, and don’t pretend to understand what it’s like to be judged and classed and discriminated against based on color, physical features, or cultural preferences.  I don’t suggest that an understanding of the origin of environmental traits will wash away centuries of prejudice and injustice. I’m just baffled that superiority based on color, geography, or culture ever became the illogical, disgraceful, inhuman thing it is; baffled that the most intelligent animal on the planet might benefit from mimicking squirrels.