Birds on the Move

Last night as we slept, countless millions of birds passed overhead in waves, guided by stars or magnetic fields or some mystery we have yet to unravel. Some were traveling long distances. Shorebirds like godwits and red knots and curlews fly nonstop for days on end, covering multiple thousands of miles without rest or food.  Even tiny species of warblers and hummingbirds find the energy to stay airborne day and night, fueled by a few grams of fat and muscle and raw determination. They fly with incredible accuracy and can land within yards of where they nested the prior year. 

My wife is a lover of wildlife and a dedicated bird feeder. Among her offerings is grape jelly, which she dobs on a small plate attached to our deck rail as soon as the first oriole arrives. If this year is typical, on a day in late April or early May we’ll hear the song and find the bird perched on the rail eight feet from our patio door. And here will be a bird which has just flown from as far away as South America that has not only found its way back to our yard but remembers with pinpoint accuracy where there was something to eat a year ago. Rested and fortified, it will fill our days with song and flashes of flaming orange as it feeds, pursues a mate, and rears its young.  And then in August it will feel a restless wanderlust and disappear beyond the southern horizon as if nothing at all spectacular were happening.

About 40 percent of the world’s birds migrate. We might assume it’s because their nesting grounds become inhospitable in winter but that’s not always the case. There are seasonal movements of insignificant distance, a hundred miles or less, with no obvious difference between summer and winter digs.  And the majority of birds don’t migrate at all but stay in a given area year round. It doesn't always make logical sense but who are we to question an animal that’s been around since the Jurassic era?  Birds have had plenty of time to sort things out and find their place. 

We’ve come to appreciate the role birds play in providing environmental services. Their contributions in seed dissemination, pollination, nutrient cycling, scavenging, and pest control are well documented.  Beyond their ecological value, they give us a sense of environmental wellbeing wherever diverse and abundant populations are found. They sing, lift our spirits, color our days.

We’ve seen the number of orioles that liven our summer landscape drop by more than half over the past 25 years. Across the globe there are far fewer birds than fifty years ago, fewer still than fifty or a hundred years before then. Their decline has been driven by our propensity for clearing and draining and fouling land that had been prime habitat. Ridding ourselves of so many birds was never a stated objective but a predictable outcome, and it continues today in the name of growth or dominion or some misguided sense of what we consider expendable.  We are slow to give up old methods and behaviors even when we know or suspect they have damaging consequences.  Ecological systems show remarkable tolerance for abuse but they have limits and we’re exposing them. 

Across the US and Canada more than three billion birds have been lost over the past 50 years, with populations plummeting in almost all habitats. More than 90 species not yet recognized by the Endangered Species Act have declined by half or more in the same period.  If these trends continue, more extinctions are inevitable and every bird species will eventually be impacted.  Losing birdlife is both a part of and a contribution to a larger environmental calamity. 

This morning there is a literal symphony outside our window— a riot of birds. We live in a state known for agribusiness and manufacturing, a state that has drained over 85 percent of its wetlands, cleared the majority of its forests, led the nation in toxic air emissions and been recognized for having the most dirty waterways.  Yet, the birds!  If ever there was a testament to the resiliency in nature it is here, for the time being, on a bit of midwestern wildland at the dawning of a spring day. 

Like the canary in the coal mine, bird varieties and their densities are a litmus test for environmental quality. In the night skies a migration has commenced, an age old event filled with determined and admirable and essential participants. They will carry on as long as we let them. 

A Watchful and Responsive Mother

On a mid afternoon in January we watched a bobcat stroll nonchalantly across the headlands of the North American continent. Its belly apparently satisfied, it soon sat down and began grooming itself on a bluff overlooking the rocky Pacific shore.  Oystercatchers, godwits and curlews fed on a reef a hundred feet below, among dozens of harbor seals that were sprawled on the exposed shale during low tide. Nearby, burrowing owls perched outside underground digs, highly attuned, I suspect, to the cat’s proximity. A white tailed kite soared overhead, western bluebirds flitted over open pastures, brush rabbits moved from the cover of coyote brush to nibble succulent greens. Within a square kilometer was life in abundance, wild and relatively unchanged over hundreds of years. And from our vantage point we could see the city of San Francisco and pick out its downtown, its culturally distinct districts, Golden Gate Park. The city known for tech superstars, master artisans, and eclectic spirits lay a mere 15 miles distant but seemed a world away. 

Life in the city and on the headlands and in every nook and cranny is linked by a thread, and it moves beyond the living and winds its way through rock and water and branches into the atmosphere so everything is connected. The Gaia principle, first proposed by English scientist James Lovelock and named for the Greek goddess of earth, says the living interacts with the nonliving to form a self-regulating system that maintains life. It’s a perspective that views the entire planet as a living organism, having the tendencies of a nurturing mother. Indigenous societies recognized the principle long before science.

Stephan Harding, a former student of James Lovelock and a deep ecology research fellow at Schumacher College in England says, “It’s our natural humanity to feel the earth as alive and as a mother… (But we) don’t relate to Gaia with our aboriginality; we relate to her through our greed and our desire for more stuff and more money and more prestige…We’ve pushed nature back, evoking feedbacks… (and if) we don’t do anything about greenhouse gasses and the destruction of biodiversity, which helps us control greenhouse gasses amongst other things, we haven’t got much hope, really, not in the long term. That’s the science.”

Such dire warnings might raise an eyebrow but convictions and behaviors are slow to follow. The majority of us don’t take environmental threats seriously enough to modify our actions or spending habits. We have friends whose wealthy neighbors express heartfelt concern for the environment even as they shop for bigger sailboats and plan yet another European excursion, and when given a choice between a rooftop solar array and an updated bath, a new jacuzzi is the sure winner.  This isn’t to say we deny ourselves nonessential travel or reasonable home improvements, but the true costs of our activities should be weighed against personal efforts to lessen our environmental impact. It’s a matter of respect and gratitude, where carbon neutral or carbon negative living is the goal and extraneous indulgences are earned. 

The predicament where we find ourselves— questioning the earth’s ability to continue its support of human life—  is not helped by an economy and GDP formula in serious need of updating. Canadian scientist David Suzuki points out that essential services such as those provided by soil-building mycorrhiza, pollinating insects, and aquifer-replenishing wetlands are viewed as “externalities” in our quest for wealth and given no monetary value at all, yet without these we’re subscribing to an economy better suited for Mars.

Home and building valuations are also behind the times, at least in some states. Not long ago I met a home appraiser and asked what price he put on insulation or improved energy efficiencies. “None at all,” he said. “Banks and lenders are only interested in general building conditions, number of beds and baths and total square footage. Besides, 75 percent of owners don’t even know if their homes are insulated and there’s no easy way for me to measure it.”

Aldo Leopold warned of two spiritual dangers: one is supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery and the other that heat comes from the furnace.  Both are pleas to understand our deep connection to the earth and the need for a land ethic rooted in sustainability. Today there’s a third danger: supposing that humanity’s greatest environmental threat is for someone else to fix. 

The bobcat stood up and yawned and stretched and began a meander southward. The kite stopped mid flight and hovered, scanning the grasslands for errant gophers.  Small bits of fractured rock broke free from the bluff and rained onto the reef below. A coyote appeared on a rise to our east, an exceptionally handsome specimen unconcerned by our presence. We looked south towards the great City on the Bay, thought about its long and colorful history, the talent and spirit of its people, the risks it faces from rising seas and storms that grow ever stronger. 

And standing by was a watchful and responsive mother, prepared for any outcome.