Fading Thrushes

I have written before (“Wood Thrush Encounters,” 7/19/08 and “Foreign Bird Call,” 10/31/12) of how thrilled I get when the wood thrush sings out from the forest. Most species of thrush have beautiful songs, and of the handful of thrush varieties we are blessed with around here, the wood thrush is clearly the winner. Its call is melodic, inventive, artistic, and exquisite—like a Bach étude.

The bad news is that wood thrushes are on a steep decline. Their habitat—both in the summer in the US and over the winter in Central America—is dwindling, along with their population. I am keenly aware, as their gorgeous songs become scarcer in our woods, that the days we may listen to their melodies are limited.

Maybe the dwindling process is even going on very locally now. The last couple of years we have heard their calls much less often. We once were regularly regaled in early morning and after sunset with their repeated songs—never once tiring of them. Now we seldom hear them. I caught the old familiar call a few nights ago, for the first time in weeks. How it thrilled me! I stopped in my tracks and gratefully tuned in.

I wonder what will happen on the nature scene, after the wood thrush is gone—as seems rather inevitable. For a few million years the bird has filled its niche—fulfilling many more functions than simply singing for human pleasure. How will its disappearance upset the exquisitely balanced ecosystem? It will leave a hole—one that undoubtedly will be filled by an opportunist, who I'm sure will not be able to sing nearly as beautifully.

Nature, over the eons, has attained a robust yet fragile equilibrium; a sacred stability that we only barely understand. In the process, a divine natural art has been created. We blundering humans are defacing that scared art—for no good reason. We will wake up someday and face the results of our devastation—but how much will we have permanently lost by then?