I've been walking around these days looking for birds. Where I live is up against the Bitterroot Mountains, surrounded by old cow pastures with rotting tree stumps shot through them, testimony to a time, not long ago, when this spot where our home now sits was forest. Still, it's a relatively-intact ecosystem compared to many places in the country, and there used to be--and should still be--a lot of birds. But for the last few years I've been seeing less and less of the normal residents: chickadees, warblers, bluebirds, Western Meadowlarks. Especially the Meadowlarks.
The lack of our common bug-eaters is scary enough if you're cursed with paying attention. Take a long-haul car trip in late-spring or early summer, for instance, and be amazed at how your windshield doesn't fill up with goobered insects between each fill-up anymore. This phenomenon is as recent as it is in-your-face. It's therefore no stretch to merely observe that there's something seriously wrong with the insect population you've just driven through, which is the definition of scary-enough. But the lack of ground-feeding birds like the Western Meadowlarks in areas where they used to be common but that are now infested with non-native California Quail should add the spice of anger to your fear.
These quail are the result of sportsmen and women buying chicks and eggs from suppliers all over the country (Iowa, for example) for release into ecosystems that didn't previously have them for the sole purpose of shooting them, for pleasure. Each pair has two, sometimes three huge broods a year which, being birds, grow into adults very fast and become a moving carpet of eco-pox on the land, devouring whatever ground food remains in our compromised landscape that would normally help keep the native bird populations stable. Quail and Meadowlark habitat overlap. Is paying attention the specialized domain of "experts" then? I'm certainly no expert, so you tell me. I'm just sayin' what I see.
I'm sure there are studies by now, although I won't look for or site them here. This paucity of (mostly) winged creatures is a personal observation on top of decades of personal observations in my Northern Rockies home, and is, more to the point, a deep and personal pain. How can I rejoice in the paradise within which I live when I know how very sick She is, possibly dying, because of our collective selfishness, neglect and, maybe most deadly of all, our inattention.
Let those who either know better or are addicted to putting a positive spin on catastrophes prove me wrong. I'd be glad if they would, because I dearly don't want to be right any more than I want to put in the work of being an "expert". I only want to write these lines and share what I think, which is this: too many of us who have been paying attention long enough to feel uncomforted by platitudes-with-no-visible-means-of-support are not angry enough about what we see unfolding in our beloved Land. I further think that too many of us are over-worrying the factoids and truisms which seem to be pedaled so cheaply, bought so blithely and bind our minds so thoroughly that no solution except more of the same seems possible.
Remember bugs on your windshield? Meadowlarks singing from every other fencepost?
Here's an expert question then. What have we done to our beloved home?
