Autumn came and went in only a day, and this morning our feeders are scenes of frenzied fluttering as chickadees, titmice, finches and woodpeckers race to find food. It must be horrifying for a youngster “bird of the year” to awaken to a world suddenly cloaked in white and a temperature dozens of degrees colder than anything it’s ever felt. Cold, so cold… penetrating… draining tiny feathered creatures of the very warmth that only massive inputs of food can sustain.
And so this morning out I trudge, pajamas and overcoat, slippers and gloves, dipping not once but three times in the metal can filled with mixed sunflower seeds and other goodies and make the first “snow run” to the feeders in the far maple, the near magnolia, the window feeder and the hanging basket until everything seems full. Much is sprinkled on the ground this morning too, my “carelessness” a function of learning who prefers hanging feeders and who would rather forage in the snow. Several hands full of shelled sunflower chips find their way to the floor of the porch, the spaces under the main feeder, and over to remnants of Kim’s English garden, where the resident juncos can forage and find cover and food all at the same time.
When I was young and foolish, I was educated as a wildlife biologist. We were taught that wildlife was a crop to be harvested, much like corn or oats, and that while it was a good thing to consider all species of wildlife in our management practices, it was mostly our job to manage land for a sustainable harvest and that with proper habitat management, wild species pretty much took care of themselves.
This was years before “modern agriculture”, before the advent of megafarms and the death of the 40-acre field. There were “fencerows” and “farm lanes” in those days, long strips of weedy places that provided food and shelter for rabbits, pheasants, quail and songbirds. All that is gone now, and with it, much of the wildlife that lived-in harmony with the family farm. These days, farming and wildlife are almost polar opposites…where one exists, the other is absent. There are exceptions, of course, but even they grow less frequent every year.
I heard an otherwise well-educated young fellow the other day say “We have to let nature take its course”. Nature can never “take its course” again, not in today’s overpopulated world. We have so altered, so changed nature that we can never “let nature take its course” again, for the wild unfettered course of nature is as extinct as the dinosaurs. It will be our task to forever observe, note, care for, and manage wildlife populations far into the future, until the unlikely day that human population density once again shrinks to a sustainable level and green space, forests, grasslands and human habitation reach something close to equilibrium again.
And so tonight I retire with slip on boots and a warm pull-over jacket nearby, ready to head out again in tomorrow’s promised snow storm to refill the feeders. The little ones are frantic again. They’ve never seen snow, and food seems scarce until they learn to find wild seeds nearby. Until then, my mornings are called for. Do we feed birds for their sakes, or for ours? I’ve pondered that question for more than a half-century now. I no longer care about the answer. I’ll greet the morning with a bucket of seed and hungry feathered friends. And we’ll both be grateful.
And so this morning out I trudge, pajamas and overcoat, slippers and gloves, dipping not once but three times in the metal can filled with mixed sunflower seeds and other goodies and make the first “snow run” to the feeders in the far maple, the near magnolia, the window feeder and the hanging basket until everything seems full. Much is sprinkled on the ground this morning too, my “carelessness” a function of learning who prefers hanging feeders and who would rather forage in the snow. Several hands full of shelled sunflower chips find their way to the floor of the porch, the spaces under the main feeder, and over to remnants of Kim’s English garden, where the resident juncos can forage and find cover and food all at the same time.
When I was young and foolish, I was educated as a wildlife biologist. We were taught that wildlife was a crop to be harvested, much like corn or oats, and that while it was a good thing to consider all species of wildlife in our management practices, it was mostly our job to manage land for a sustainable harvest and that with proper habitat management, wild species pretty much took care of themselves.
This was years before “modern agriculture”, before the advent of megafarms and the death of the 40-acre field. There were “fencerows” and “farm lanes” in those days, long strips of weedy places that provided food and shelter for rabbits, pheasants, quail and songbirds. All that is gone now, and with it, much of the wildlife that lived-in harmony with the family farm. These days, farming and wildlife are almost polar opposites…where one exists, the other is absent. There are exceptions, of course, but even they grow less frequent every year.
I heard an otherwise well-educated young fellow the other day say “We have to let nature take its course”. Nature can never “take its course” again, not in today’s overpopulated world. We have so altered, so changed nature that we can never “let nature take its course” again, for the wild unfettered course of nature is as extinct as the dinosaurs. It will be our task to forever observe, note, care for, and manage wildlife populations far into the future, until the unlikely day that human population density once again shrinks to a sustainable level and green space, forests, grasslands and human habitation reach something close to equilibrium again.
And so tonight I retire with slip on boots and a warm pull-over jacket nearby, ready to head out again in tomorrow’s promised snow storm to refill the feeders. The little ones are frantic again. They’ve never seen snow, and food seems scarce until they learn to find wild seeds nearby. Until then, my mornings are called for. Do we feed birds for their sakes, or for ours? I’ve pondered that question for more than a half-century now. I no longer care about the answer. I’ll greet the morning with a bucket of seed and hungry feathered friends. And we’ll both be grateful.
- Bob Hinkle