Read: A Wing and a Prayer

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Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal bring us "A Wing and a Prayer: The Race to Save Our Vanishing Birds," a book I thoroughly enjoyed.

Another bird book? Yep. Get over it. You are NOT too cool for birds, contrary to what you might think. Most of you, well, I know you better than you imagine. And even those convinced of their cool might want to tone it down a notch. Your primary passion, photography, is viewed by most as something that doesn’t even require study. You just do it. Anyone can, and anyone can do it well right from the get go.

Birding on the other hand.

Superficially simple, but if you want to go deeper you realize you are swimming in a pond in which you can’t see the bottom. What we CAN see is the reality we’ve lost one third of all birds here in the Americas. Roughly three billion feathered friends. I was never much of a math guy but I think that’s a sizable number. Birds, as you may have heard, are a pretty decent bellwether of future events, and what they are telling us is, “Might want to brace yourself.”

Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal are former journalists who bring us “A Wing and a Prayer: The Race to Save Our Vanishing Birds,” a book I thoroughly enjoyed. Effortless to read and so laden with links and people and organizations.(And photographs.) If I just mined potential photo-essays from the groups in this book I’d have the rest of my life mapped out for me. In short, there are a lot of smart people who are invested to in trying to save what’s left of bird life. Will these battles be won? No one knows, but you have to admire the effort.

There was a chapter at the back that summed up some of the things we can do as civilians. (One link.) Many of us are already doing many of the things on the list, but there is also a call out for birders to do more. Anders and Beverly highlight a point that rarely gets enough press. A sizable portion of birders don’t really want to get involved. There is the competitive set who just wants to add birds to their list, people who won’t play nice when those new to birding arrive on the scene. I’ve run into quite a few of these mutants on the trail, but you know me, once I’ve identified the culprit I’m a master a pushing buttons. You know the types, overly serious people in camo who refuse to say hello from two feet away on a remote trail. Game on.

They point out that many birders want their hobby to be relaxing. No payments and no politics. I get it, but I also think this is OWT. Old World Thinking. These same people say “I don’t want to talk about anything that isn’t happy,” as the world implodes around them. Heads in the sand. Hoping to outlast their savings in isolation. Birders are the most focused, driven, educated subculture I’ve ever encountered. We should do more. Plain and simple.

As a species we seem to know so little about so much. America has lost 90% of it’s tall grass prairies. Does anyone know? Does anyone know what that means? Does anyone know Hawaii is about to release millions of male mosquitoes in an attempt to save remaining bird species? Did you know that many of the species you see in Hawaii now are already replacement birds that were brought over after the first total annihilation of bird life on the islands? (Avian Malaria.)

I’m a realist, which means most people would see me as a pessimist. I’m not. Will we win this game in the end? The bird game? Or the whale game? Or the wetlands game? Nearly everything is stacked against us. Ignorance and greed, not to mention more and more generations brought up with zero connection to the land doesn’t bode well. But what are you gonna do? Quit? Get it, read it, give it to a kid.

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    I had heard that there were fewer insects around, but the stark reality of it hits home when you do the same highway drive you did 15 years ago, 20 years ago, and instead of being absolutely plastered with dead bugs, there are less than 30 splats. Likewise, the massive amount of logging that has been done in BC between the mid 80s and now is terrifying and visible in the patchwork landscape viewed from an airplane window. I was not used to seeing bare squares of land in the mountains. As we encroach on bear territory with housing going further up into the local mountains, the bears become habituated to prowling for food in the streets where there used to be forest. This time of year, before hibernation, bear poop everywhere in local lanes and parks. Sadly, “nuisance bears” are often shot, as relocation has not proved effective.

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      It’s unchecked “progress” as we like to call it here. Just keep building with little regard to landscape or water. And depending on who wins in 30 days, it could potentially get exponentially worse.

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    It’s insane, isn’t it!? I’m reminded of the phrase, “don’t shit where you eat”. I think most of us keep our homes in some semblance of order. Why wouldn’t that extend to the planet that is also our home? It really doesn’t make any sense to me. Meanwhile, hurricane Helene decimated wester NC and other places in FL, SC, GA and TN. We got a little flooding here but some people saw their entire homes swept away. There are literally some small towns in western NC that are gone and they won’t come back. It’s been heartbreaking to see. And moving to see how people have come together to help. All the bullshit that divided them forgotten as neighbors are helping neighbors. I wish we didn’t have to endure a tragedy to inspire people to realize we are all in this together and we either work together or lose it all.

    Anyway, thanks for the heads up about this book. You might find this interesting…
    https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-collapse-is-coming-will-humanity-adapt/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFvqpRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHa2lXaxis8hwZjWIfuZNvk3coAfJqOsUXlYaYlFNKEnuE55pjwlV0BfyRQ_aem_U3t_zhKDTYFnW_OPMiad3g

    1. Yikes, that book is scary. Yet I can smell the burning forests every summer now and see the dead trees on the mountainside for the first time in my lifetime, and I live in a temperate rainforest, and that is changing too.

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