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Saturday, January 29th, 2022

Birds are remarkable and beautiful animals – and they’re disappearing from our world

Author:     Kim Heacox
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Fri 28 Jan 2022 09.10 EST
 Link: Birds are remarkable and beautiful animals – and they’re disappearing from our world
Stephan:   Human activity based on the exploitation of resources and profit as the only social priority is destroying the balance of the earth's matrix of life, and we just don't seem to get that this destruction will destroy our civilization as well. Bees are dying at an alarming rate, butterflies are disappearing, the ocean ecosystem are collapsing,and now birds are disappearing. Will we wake up to what is happening before it is too late to reverse it? I don't know. But one thing you can do is put out a bird seed feeder and a hummingbird liquid feeder and keep them well stocked year round. What is stopping you from doing that? What's your excuse?
How diminished our world would be without birds, those dinosaurs with feathers and songsmiths with wings.’ Credit: Robin Loznak/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

When the poet Mary Oliver wrote “Instructions for living a life,” she reminded us: “Pay attention. Be astounded. Tell about it.”

This past autumn, wildlife officials announced that a bird, a male bar-tailed godwit, flew nonstop across the Pacific Ocean 8,100 miles from Alaska to Australia in just under 10 days. Fitted with a small solar-powered satellite tag, the godwit achieved “a land bird flight record”. But of course godwits have been doing this for centuries. Come next April-May, all things well, determined godwits will make the trip in reverse, bound for Alaska to nest and raise their young.

They won’t be alone.

Northern wheatears, songbirds less than six inches long, will arrive in Alaska from sub-Saharan Africa. Arctic terns will return from Antarctica, with each bird flying the equivalent of three trips to the moon and back in a single lifetime. Bar-headed geese will fly over the Himalayas at altitudes exceeding 20,000 feet.

PT Barnum was wrong. […]

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4 Comments

  1. Lori on Saturday, January 29, 2022 at 9:00 am

    “Honey birds” as my granddaughter calls them, are incredibly intelligent beings. My hummingbirds greet me when I get home from work. They hover in front of my kitchen window, or whiz by close to my head if their feeders start to run low.
    I can actually call them to me with a kissing sound – which is both mind blowing, and heart expanding.
    This year I knew somehow that they would stay through winter, so I bought jute wrapped hummingbird nests online ,and put them in the orange bell bushes and trees that they love. Sometimes I make a heart shape pile of seeds for the other birds.
    When I come home for lunch they are gone – and the birds are so sweet with their song for me.
    It’s time we all recognize the intelligence and love of our Earth, and all its creatures – and return both to them.

  2. Rev. Dean on Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 10:48 am

    I love birds. I used to have three Starlings who came down my chimney and my wife and I got them cages and fed them for years.