The Birds and the Beasts Were There by Margaret Millar

Author:Margaret Millar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2018-06-14T18:13:42+00:00

10

Mnemos

The bird arriving here in the spring is dominated by one great purpose. He must find a place to breed, a nesting site safe from predators, with food and water available and suitable singing posts to announce his identity and intentions, his charm and vigor and the fact that he has title to a nice piece of real estate. The bird arriving in autumn to spend the winter has only himself to consider and is less affected by changes in his environment. The Krigers’ Baltimore oriole and red-breasted sapsucker have returned to the same willow every winter for six years, though there is now a large house practically on top of the tree and a lively family with a dog and cat in the yard.

The land bird population of our area in the winter remains fairly constant in spite of the encroachments of people. This is due partly to the emerging adaptability of the birds themselves and partly to the fact that every new development, whether it’s an apartment complex, a housing tract, a shopping center or even a parking lot, must be appropriately landscaped. This is, of course, done for the sake of people, not birds, but the birds get the benefit. It is a happy example of serendipity.

If similar arrangements could be made which would indirectly benefit shore birds, their future would look less dim. Every year some wetlands disappear, more sloughs are turned into marinas, more beaches become parking lots, more lakes and rivers are pol­luted with wastes and pesticides, yet California must provide win­ter food and sanctuary for thousands upon thousands of shore birds. The hummingbird who has lost his favorite patch of wild tobacco to the bulldozer can easily settle for the fuchsias in the garden of a condominium or the melaleucas planted along a new street. But the egret, deprived of his pond, cannot switch to a swimming pool.

The concept of green belts has been widely accepted, at least in theory. The concept of wet belts, however, is a different matter. We have no local ordinances which guarantee the preservation of a certain percentage of each wet area for the benefit of wildlife, and proposals for such an ordinance have not been seriously consid­ered. To the person blinded by ignorance and fear, a slough is not a place of wonder, it is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, a source of odors and a temptation for children to get their clothes muddy. To the birder a slough is where the great blue heron stands motion­less, waiting for a minnow, where the kingfisher rattles from a tree stump and the Forster’s tern hawks for dragonflies or dozes on a piece of driftwood. It is where the snowy egret shuffles through the mud on his big yellow feet and the phalarope spins for her supper like a hungry ballerina; where the black-necked stilt and the greater yellowlegs fold up like jackknives to rest, and the sora rail, silent as a shadow, tracks a frog through the salicornia.

With

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