Two months ago, my wife and I welcomed our secondborn into our home and onto this grand Earth. It’s been a mild whirlwind of adjustment, sleeplessness, and a dire lack of birding.
My son was born on May 7th. That’s peak spring migration here in Nashville. A couple of weeks before he came, I did get out for an 8-warbler day. But the 13-year cicada brood and parenthood have since conspired against me and my passion for birds. It’s… been a bit.
I haven’t stepped outside with my bins in over a week. I haven’t photographed a bird in more than two. When I do go birding, I’m consciously choosing not to do something that I probably should do (e.g, my job, cleaning the house, eating food).
Sometimes, you can’t go birding. It stings a bit, especially when the band of birdwatching buddies who share your local patch text you about the new Yellow-crowned Night Heron nest or the colony of Cliff Swallows that have built their own little Mesa Verde under the overpass. You’re stuck at home with ReSpOnSiBiLiTiEs while your bird friends accumulate a miniature aviary onto their life lists.
But you know what? It’s okay.
Because the birds will be there.
If you’re in a phase of life like me where you can’t go out and see the birds as often as you want, remember two things:
1. Your best birding is still ahead of you.
There’s always next week. Next season. Next year. The birds will be there, and they’ll be just as awe-inspiring as they always are.
Birding is a lifelong passion. Birds have flown this earth since long before we stood upright and self-righteously declared human dominion over the earthly order, and they’ll likely outlast our meager attempts to out-engineer our demise.
Or maybe not.
Maybe we’ll take them down with us.
This is one part comfort, one part call to action.
2. Birds are fragile.
The apparent abundance of birds cohabitates with their quietus. As tired and overplayed as it is, the fact is worth repeating: 1 in 4 birds have disappeared from Earth in the last 50 years. An insignificant tick on the timeline of life’s evolution has hosted one of the most dramatic loss-of-life events since the prehistoric era.
It’s an extinction epidemic, largely unnoticed and untreated.
You, me, and our generation will avoid catching the worst symptoms. But our kids? Their kids?
Will my newborn son get to gaze upon the ghastly grandeur of a California Condor? (Will I?)
Will his kids know the Kirtland’s Warbler? Will they spot a Scarlet Tanager?
How many generations before Southeastern birders twitch for a Yellow-billed Cuckoo?
For the moments when you can’t go birding, remember that - at least for now - the birds will still be there when you get back.
And when life does lengthen your leash a little, remember to also be there for the birds.