For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching some bird cams which are situated in various parts of the world. Most, if not all, of the birds are incubating nests and hatching chicks. Getting an up-close look at all of this is soothing my nervous system while also giving me hope and lending some perspective. The tabs stay open on my computer and have brought me immeasurable joy!
There’s a peregrine falcon cam in my home state of RI.
A bald eagle cam in California.
A barred owl cam in Indiana.
A kestrel cam in Wisconsin.
Red tailed hawks cam at Cornell University.
Osprey in Montana.
A northern royal albatross in New Zealand.
I can even watch a hummingbird feeder in Panama!
As I’ve been watching and learning, I’ve also been thinking. A lot. About the natural world and everything in it. And, since birds are largely migratory creatures, I started thinking about migration.
Countless living things migrate to survive. To perpetuate their species. Birds do. Mammals do. Even the plant world makes adaptations when seeds blow in the wind and land somewhere entirely new to put down roots. Humans, however, are the only living things that CRIMINALIZE migration. We’re the only species that dehumanizes migrants. That vilify them. We manufacture borders and territories and then we use military force to “protect” those places. It’s actually pretty ridiculous, when you truly stop to think about it.
What the hell are we doing? Seriously. And at what cost?!
Most of the time, humans are *forced* to migrate due to MAN-MADE catastrophes. War. Famine. Violence. Any manner of natural disasters like wildfires and floods and drought and earthquakes (caused by climate change because we treat this planet like shit). The human migrants, just like the bird and butterfly and whale and shark ones, are simply trying to survive. To sustain their own species. To relocate somewhere safer. More hospitable.
I can’t understand how we can gawp and ooh and aaah when the hummingbirds return to our feeders, but we hire masked men with guns to keep the human migrants off our streets. Whether traveling by wings, on two feet, or in a crudely made raft, every migrant creature has a heartbeat. A capacity to love. A family they’re trying to care for. A desire to feather their very own nest and to be safe while doing so. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation—we need to take more of our cues from the natural world that we’ve become so morbidly disconnected from.
Part of the reason I get so upset about global events (and how poorly colonizing countries, like ours, treat the planet and everything in it) is because I know in my soul that everyone and everything is inextricably connected! And I also know that at some point in many of our lifetimes WE are going to be forced to relocate. Either because the tides climbed too high. The air and water around us became unsafe. Or because wildfires ravaged the land or a tornado swept everything away or a bomb was indiscriminately dropped.
I think we should be giving more grace. Thinking big picture. And taking bigger, more deliberate steps to protect the planet (and the living organisms that inhabit it) from greed, waste, violence, and destruction.
A friend of mine, who has also been glued to the eagle cam, sent me this article. It talks about how developers want to swoop in and level the land and the breeding ground that the eagles have been nesting in for decades. All for some garish condos and boat slips. Let me rephrase this: the land that these bald eagles—the raptors that are the literal emblem of freedom and strength in this country—call home might be leveled for condos. It’s preposterous!
WE DON’T NEED MORE CONDOS AND BOAT SLIPS.
We don’t need to be putting up some shoddily built time shares on every available patch of land, just so some greedy bastards can make a few bucks.
We need to stop thinking so dispassionately about things that truly matter.
We need to be preserving our natural resources.
We need biodiversity.
We need to care more about the living things that might not directly do anything for us but are part of the interconnected heartbeat and lifeblood of the planet we live on.
We need to recognize that when one system starts to collapse, they ALL do. And we need to pivot accordingly.
If you’re reading this, and you care about healthy ecosystems, I would like to ask you to take action in honor of Earth Day:
- ***Please donate to protect the eagle habitat and the shoreline at Big Bear Lake in CA. There is a deadline to this fundraising initiative and they have a long way to go, so please spread the word! Once you see the eaglets, it should be an easy choice to make.
- You can also make a donation to help keep all these birds cams operational and the nesting sites monitored (cams gives access & access = education & education = interest).
- If you’re local, you can donate to the RI Audobon Society (or find your local chapter and donate there).
- Go outside and connect with nature in some meaningful and deliberate way.
As I’m finishing up this blog post, I can hear the crows cawing outside. There’s the occasional squabble of a seagull flying by. And the robins are trilling non-stop. It’s beautiful background noise for this work-from-home day. We could, all of us, probably tally up hundreds of tiny miracles that happen right under our noses each day, if only we paid attention.
Happy Earth day, folks. Let’s treat her better, shall we?
XOXO
Jenn