This is for the birds

Photo credit: @tomkirvela via Upsplash

My mother has a theory that everyone becomes a gardener at some point in their lives. My windowsill plants beg to differ: I will forever have thumbs that are anything but green. Bird-watching, however? That’s a different matter.

If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I might have told you that birdwatching is, well, for the birds. Now? I am not so sure. I find House Sparrows endlessly fascinating, and geuninely love watching the Mourning Doves in the tree outside my window. This past week, I traveled approximately 8,000 km south (as the crow flies) and was elated to discover that the Rock Pigeon truly is everywhere. I tried to identify the beautiful black bird that had gotten trapped inside Panama City airport, but it escaped before I got a better look.

In short: interests change. That is surely part of it.

But the other part is the knowledge that these creatures in many ways know more than us, certainly about survival. Fossil remains indicate that pigeons have been around for at least 23 million years. As torrential rains wipe out villages and prevent daily life in more and more places, I find it soothing that the birds know what to do.

We are, of course, not birds. We cannot live from the earth, hand-to-mouth, year-round. We definitely cannot propel ourselves off the ground without mechanical help. As animals go, we are naked and weak, dependent for our survival on foresight, problem solving, and opposable thumbs.

But like the birds, we are of and on this earth. Our foresight has long told us this trajectory we are on is treacherous and destructive. It has also given us the solutions to make it out of here.

This is the time to make like the birds and survive.