Feeder Foes

I wrote last time about a sharp-shinned hawk attack on cute little chickadees at the bird feeder. The battle for life often finds one kind of critter killing another for food. Songbirds—when they’re not gorging themselves on the sunflower seeds that I put out—will eat small spiders and other bugs. The insects’ death ensures the life of the bird. In turn, a hawk catches and kills a small bird (or rodent), which ensures the life of the raptor. We humans may rue the death of an adorable songbird, but care far less about the death of a yucky bug.

The chickadee needs lots of fuel in the winter (as does the hawk). Half of all the calories that the little bird eats goes solely into shivering, which generates heat in its tiny body (about a third of an ounce, or the equivalent of two nickels).

Nature has given the songbird an exquisite sense of sight. We humans need binoculars to begin to rival their ability to spot tiny crevices in tree bark, where a bug may be hiding. They can also see into the ultraviolet range—allowing them to spot numerous food items (bugs) that may be tinged with a little UV coloring. These enhanced abilities help keep them alive through a bitter winter. Even so, many of them starve. (That’s why I feel that my bird feeder helps—by offering sunflower seeds loaded with fat.)  

The songbird foe, the sharp-shinned hawk, also has his imposing skills. His eyesight is even better, though not as keen as his larger family members—such as eagles. The “sharpie” is the smallest hawk—about the size of a blue jay. Many people who feed birds hate this small hawk, because it will lurk in a tree or bush—watching “like a hawk”—and suddenly burst out to snatch a cute songbird. Mother Nature’s wisdom, however, exceeds ours. The sharpie is actually useful in culling less fit birds (thus keeping the remaining flock healthier), as well as training them to be alert and wary. Wolves serve a similar function for deer, antelope, and other browsers.

Like other fierce-looking members of the hawk and eagle family, the sharp-shinned hawk has a hooked beak, strong feet, and curved talons, for seizing and killing prey. Its crown and back are a dark, blue-gray color, while its undersides are a beautiful white-and-rufous barred pattern. Its wings are short and wide and its tail is long—giving it the ability to make quick turns in its dash after prey. It is a migrating bird that breeds up in Canada and winters around here and farther south.

I feel constantly torn between the success and well-being of these feeder foes; but the success of one comes at the sacrifice of the other. I can’t have it both ways, nor does it make sense for me to favor one over the other. Nature doesn’t. It’s a balance. Maybe I can come to accept nature’s way, without casting my lot with either?

Romancing Nature—Part 2

Real nature can be scary—rather than cute and cuddly. To our deep ancestors, nature was an awesome place that called for a healthy level of fear—not what is imagined as the “Peaceable Kingdom,” where the lion reposes compliantly with the lamb. Our ancestors understood nature in its “red in tooth and claw” quality. In our attempts to enforce our dominion over the world, we have domesticated it and largely eradicated our fear and awe.

Thus we have people wandering through the wilderness, coming upon a grizzly bear and trying to get close for a photograph. So we read in the news about another person killed by a bear, and wonder if something should be done about it. Many people are unaware of the various kinds of parasites who invade a critter and slowly and painfully kill their host. This is not the kind of nature we want to hear about.

We have done our best to terminate what we perceive to be animal-to-animal cruelty in nature, while at the same time overlooking our cruelty toward it and each other. We have interfered with God’s sacred world and imposed our misplaced values on it.

If, on the other hand, we were to open ourselves to the reality of nature, we could not only see its beauty, but also what’s not cozy out there: the scary predators, the violent deaths, the scavengers who feast on dead bodies, the nasty parasites, etc. We could learn to accept these unpleasant realities, along with the enchanting antics of birds, chipmunks, and other cute critters. When we come to understand that we are a part of the natural world and that it’s a world containing both peace and killing, we can see the wholeness and realize that nature is sacred and beautiful in its own right. We don’t need to romance or idealize it. We don’t need to force it to conform to some fictitious and gentle image that we’ve created.

Our ancestors were in close touch with real nature. They dealt with threatening predators, as they simultaneously felt a sense of peace and awe. It was not a nature stripped of its threats, or of their immediacy and deep connection to it. We can reacquire our ancestors’ awe of nature, as well as thrill to its beauty and serenity. We can learn to appreciate its wholeness—by getting back in touch with it, by dropping our idealized picture and opening to the complete story. It’s both tame and wild.