All right, here you go:
Thinks he’s a damn hummingbird
Right about now is when the orioles return. Bullock’s oriole, or western oriole, that is. We have scads of them mooching off the hummy feeders during May. They compete with western tanagers — a spectacular bird — for the same sugar water that brings the black-chinned and broadtailed hummingbirds.
This is something of an issue for me, and maybe an ecological lesson for the rest of the country. New Mexico has just about the cleanest air of any state (which must be why loot-crazed death freaks are pushing another coal-fired generating plant up near Four Corners). Maryland, where we used to live, has some of the worst in terms of carcinogens and other pollutants, as well as one of the highest cancer death rates in the nation. When we first moved to our old house near Still Pond, MD in ’89, we saw several eastern (Baltimore) orioles nesting in the high elm trees that first spring, and there were also ruby-throated hummingbirds all summer. The second spring we saw fewer orioles. Heading into the mid-’90s, we hardly ever saw one, and each year there were fewer and fewer ruby-throats. By the time we left in ’99, there were zero orioles and no hummingbirds either. In the space of less than a dozen years, they all flat-out disappeared, at least from our location, and I guarantee the habitat was there. I saw other birds disappear in that time, like indigo buntings, but that was more likely due to the destruction of the hedgerows in that corner of the Eastern Shore. Could be what mattered in Kent County was the air, and that would mean it’s almost everywhere.
This is absolutely terrible. And yet, we come out West and bingo, similar birds all over the place. No doubt the situation will get worse here too if current trends continue, but it hasn’t happened yet. That means the rest of us can say OUR AIR IS FUCKED AND WE ARE BREATHING IT. No reason to be civil about this, it’s a real catastrophe in our lifetimes, and you’d think that might sink in.
Connectedness, connectedness. It’s all about connectedness. You start to cut things up, you lose it.
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It’ll sink in as we’re practically gagging en masse. I really think so, terrible to say.
You think that would do it?
The quality of the air here is just outstanding, except on afternoons with 30 mph winds after it hasn’t rained for a couple of months.