For Whom the Bird Calls

i tried to find you.

in vain, did i scan the treetops and the underbrush

having researched your favorite berries,

your morning and evening songs,

your profile both perched and with wings fully expanded,

your shadow, even.

i waited for you but you never came.

i was ready:

locked and loaded

(my binoculars).

"Visionaire dodo Army" by *SHERWOOD*

     Things proceeding unchecked, animals are finding themselves changing status: not from "Single" to "In a Relationship" to "It's Complicated," but from threatened to endangered to extinct.  As human beings, we are left with a painful exclusion from our experience of the world's potential biodiversity and much more pragmatically, an irreversible break in the ecosystem...potential effects often unknown until more damage is done.  If you get a chance, watch Last Chance to See (irony always intended).  It's a documentary follow-up of the 1989 BBC radio series of the same title where Douglas Adams travels the globe in search of endangered species in their natural environments. 

     I had the privilege of seeing Todd McGrain's sculpture collection of extinct North American birds (The Lost Bird Project) and I found myself struck by the poignancy that the only existence these birds now had was as art...as representations.  More sobering still was the word that The Lost Bird Project uses to refer to these representations: memorials.    

     I never could find the white-crowned pigeon despite searching relentlessly last time I was in the Keys.  And most certainly did I miss the ivory-billed woodpecker, now the stuff of legends.

An artist's rendering, unfortunately

     In light of these dark reminders, I find myself watching birds with a bit of restraint and uncomfortable pause, wondering if it might be my last chance to see.