Life is about repetition. Every day, you wake up at some point. Every day, you eat breakfast at some point. You spend your time doing something, and then you eat again. You spend even more time doing something, and then you eat again. Finally, at some point, you close your eyes and go back to sleep.
Then, the cycle starts anew. If you are employed, it is likely that your repetitions are sufficiently consistent as to be called a routine.
These repetitions are not identical, however. The sun rises every day, but it does not rise at the same time — we are constantly losing or gaining a minute or two every day, and the changes are so subtle that we really can’t tell that one day is different from the previous. Yet, after a while, the change accumulates to a sufficient degree that we suddenly notice.
Biology works the same way. At some point, you realize that you need a shave. At some point, you see that you must tend to your nails. Eventually, you acknowledge that it’s time to get a haircut. Inevitably, you look in the mirror and suddenly wonder how you got so old. Human existence is filled with such realizations, and some of them can be disturbing.
Today, I find myself stuck on this idea of repetition. As a naturalist, I tend to keep track of seasonal changes more closely than others. I am careful to record the timing of what might otherwise be invisible events, like the singing of the first peepers, the blooming of the first flowers or the falling of the first snow.
And, of course, I am riveted by the lives of birds — when they sing and when they stop singing, when they arrive and when they leave. If you are a bird lover, you know of what I speak.
So, with all of this in mind, I ask a very simple question: Where have all the birds gone? Over the past weeks, I have noticed a precipitous decline in the numbers of birds that visit my feeders. Where once I had to fill my feeders twice a day, I now find myself coming home to feeders that have barely been touched. And, I am not the only one to have noticed this change.
Several of you have contacted me with similar observations, which means even more of you have noticed it. Where have all the birds gone?
Well, I can’t help but find myself thinking that this is yet another example of repetition. Don’t I ask myself this question every year? Doesn’t this pattern play out again and again as part of the normal seasonal cycle? Is it possible that I’ve even gone so far as to write this article before? Am I crazy, imagining things, or just remembering actual events? Or, perhaps, it is all of these things happening simultaneously.
In 1962, a book appeared on the shelves of bookstores around the country. This book took a hard look at the manufacture and use of chemical compounds. Some of the chemicals were intended to protect us from insects, while others were meant to protect our crops from insects. Many of them worked well, but had properties that made them extremely dangerous to keep using. The title of the book was “Silent Spring.”
The book’s author, Rachel Carson, chose that title to try to provoke a powerful, visceral response to her concerns. Imagine the silence of a world without birds. Carson reinforced this idea further in a chapter entitled, “And No Birds Sing.” In it’s opening paragraph, she wrote, “This sudden silencing of the song birds, this obliteration of the color and beauty and interest they lent to our world (has) come about swiftly, insidiously, and unnoticed by those whose communities are as yet unaffected.”
In 1989, another book hit the market, and I happened to buy a copy while perusing the shelves of the UMass bookstore. This book, again, looked at the disturbing decline in bird populations, and attempted to provide a scientific explanation for the observations. The author, John Terborgh, focused on habitat destruction as the culprit, and the book started with powerful observations from his own life. The title of Terborgh’s book was, “Where Have All The Birds Gone?”
I just asked that question four paragraphs ago, and I did it on purpose. The loss of birds is an event that no one can really ignore for very long. The decline may be gradual, but eventually one of those sudden realizations kicks in and you notice that something has changed.
Birds have been featured prominently in books that focus on environmental concerns. You and I are not the first to ask this question. Yet, there is that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that this particular question is one that gets asked every year. Where have all the birds gone? Haven’t I answered that question before?
Haven’t the birds always reappeared? So far, the answer to that last question has obviously been, “yes.” I have never known a world without birds, but the world I live in is not the same as the world was in the past. There are birds here, but they are not the same birds in the same numbers that might have been seen 50, 100, or 500 years ago. Things have changed.
Perhaps this most recent dearth of our avian neighbors can be explained by the odd weather we’ve been having. Doesn’t it seem warm for October? Is it possible that the birds are just off doing other things?
I am confident that the birds will show up again, once it gets cold, but even I am starting to notice that they seem to have disappeared somewhat. So far, this autumn feels a little different.
I don’t want to get bogged down in the deep thoughts here. I don’t want to raise an alarm of any kind, and I most certainly don’t want to start offering explanations for hypotheses that I haven’t even put forth. I just want you to know that you are not the only one who has noticed the quiet.
All of us, we lovers of nature, must keep our eyes and ears open. Sometimes, we may pick up on changes that only seem new because so much time has passed since a predictable cycle has repeated itself. But other times, we may detect changes that are novel things. Just because you may not be paid to work as a scientist does not mean you aren’t one. You may be attuned to things before the official scientific world gets wind of it.
So, this is what I propose: buy yourself an inexpensive composition book like the ones you may have used in school, with a speckled cardboard cover and pages ruled with light blue lines. You can probably find one at your local grocery store for about a dollar. Then, get yourself a pen or pencil and commit to taking notes. This may be largely a weekend project, but it can be immensely fun. It may also turn out to be immensely valuable — feelings are one thing, but feelings paired with data are altogether different. Write down your observations and keep track of your feelings and impressions in writing. Then, next year, we will reconvene and compare notes. I have already marked it on my calendar.
Bill Danielson has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and the Massachusetts State Parks. He has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 19 years and he also teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.