BYE BY BIRDIE

   It's not easy being a golden-crowned

kinglet in Bolinas, California. One minute you're weaving though the woods, then WHAM! 

You're caught in a huge nylon net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately you will not be eaten today. "Hope", the young scientist, will untangle your tiny feet, place you in a pouch and walk you back to the Point Blue Conservation Station.

 

                        

    She will show people like us how to measure a diminutive songbird. 

We watched it being   weighed ( 6.1 grams, a little more than a nickel), and perused it in every possible way (I''ll blow its crest feathers apart so I can see her age by cranial development").

When its stats were recorded and a leg was banded she let it fly away.

 

 

 

      That's how scientists collect bird information. We walked by 16-foot nets strung through the woods. Every half-hour they're checked for catches.

      I asked another birder if the aluminum leg bands (they're covered with tiny numbers) made it difficult to fly. Naomi held up his decorated wrist and said, "Oh no, its just like wearing bracelet, just 3% of their body weight".  "Gosh", I thought, "If they put one on my leg I'd be a seven-pounder. I couldn't fly anywhere".

      That's okay, I can't fly anyway. 

    I asked Hope what research like this has revealed. She told me we've lost billions of birds due to increasing human population, declining habitats, climate change, and hungry house cats.

      That's sad and shocking but not surprising. Greed, ignorance, and the never-ending quest for power are unraveling North America's ecosystems at an alarming rate. 

   Still, we can help birds. Here's how,

 

    After considering these seven simple actions, consider the most un-simple one, limiting the growth of human population.

We are destroying bird habitats every time we build another mall or housing development. We increasingly erect the windowed buildings that birds slam into. And one last numbers check, since 1970 our population has increased be 2.3 billion while the bird population has decreased by 2.9 billion.

We're not just killing birds but almost every other specie of plants and animals so there can be more of us. 

Welcome to the road to Nowhere.

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