After the Goldrush

You might not know (or care) about this to look at me, but I'm a nature freak, in a relentlessly pragmatic way. I admire fall foliage though I am always saddened by what the autumnal color changes portend. I can enjoy the beauty of a spring sunset, admire freshly fallen snow (as long as I'm not shoveling it), and have wandered barefoot across more than my fair share of sandy summer beaches (and to the dismay of the search party, have always returned again). 

I don't wear hiking boots or have a beard and watch cap like Yukon Cornelius nor do I make my own jerky but I do see our various flavors of the great outdoors as a respite and recharging station in our crazy and complex lives.

So when I encountered Bill Reid's column a couple or three Sundays ago in The Bulletin, Exploring the Last Green Valley: A Summer of Wonder and Concern in Birdland, I was ready, as always, to enjoy but then grew increasingly alarmed at his always thoughtful observations.

We have been engaged in an eighteen-month or so struggle with COVID-19, what I call a frontal lobe concern (not having any medical training makes it easy for me to throw these terms around), where we've had only mixed success in attempting to contain and eradicate a contagion that poses a major threat to our existence on the planet. 

There have been countless conjectures on origins (which always seems like arguing about who caused our boat to dash against the rocks when the issue should be fixing the leak). I have no clue and I refuse to add to any of that noise except to suggest that Reid's column on the accelerated spread of a mysterious and fatal illness affecting all manner of wild birds throughout the Northeast (and spreading rapidly) is just another consequence of our (too often negative) impact on our planet.     

Reid's relaying of the Connecticut Audubon Society's recommendations to help contain the spread of this unnamed disease includes STOP the feeding of all birds and providing water in birdbaths and bring all feeders and birdbaths inside and clean them with bleach, to include hummingbird (my wife's favorites) feeders.

What does that remind you of? Think COVID Containment: Social and physical distancing, masking, and other personal protective equipment. But like those precautions and their flaunting, I still see feeders and birdbaths, because I guess, so what, right? 

When I go to Howard T. Brown Park or walk around Spaulding Pond, I encounter people feeding the ducks, geese, seagulls, and any other birds often right beside the DEEP signs pleading with them to NOT do that. 

Seriously?!? To me, Reid's column is yet another alarm bell warning all of us about how we are impacting the world that's home for so many other-than-us species. 

Every selfish. uncaring/unthinking action (or inaction) of ours creates ripples that produce tidal waves of problems for others with whom we share this planet, whether we choose to believe that or not. Our beliefs are inconsequential; our actions however have consequences. 

We need to truly see the Earth as our home and to treat where we all live better than we are, especially since we don't have a Plan or Planet B.
-bill kenny