Friday, May 13, 2022

Advice for the birds

 I think that this weekend we’ll reinstall the bird feeders. We’ve read the advice from the Raptor Center and also from the Cornell Ornithology Lab. As of the most recent data, our county has identified only domestic birds as being infected. We have no reason to suspect misinformation or disinformation from any of the organizations cited, but there are, we suspect, different priorities. The Raptor Center is focused on raptors. Cornell appears to place more emphasis on song birds. Raptors appear to be more susceptible, possibly from eating waterfowl?

We have no domestic poultry nor, to the best of our knowledge, do nearby neighbors. Although it appears to be a fairly limited risk, feeding birds on our deck is not without risk, but then life itself is not without risk, n'est-ce pas?

an occasional May visitor at the feeder
an occasional May visitor at the feeder
Photo by J. Harrington

We’ll probably ponder this question over the weekend and see if we can gain any additional insight or information. We’d be less inclined to think about this if the storms of this week hadn’t also brought about a notable rise in local trout streams we’re familiar with, thereby presenting us with additional risks to ourselves if we were to go wading. All told, we seem to have done a remarkably good job of screwing up both the climate and what used to be normal spring weather. The advice and guidance available about bird flu and feeders is less confusing than that from federal and state governmental entities regarding cautions to be followed to protect US from COVID. All in all, we seem to have created a number of systems that don’t function as well as they should and, what’s at least as bad, we seem as a society unable and unwilling to consider alternatives for fear it may give someone with whom we don’t fully agree and advantage. I don’t think this is a sustainable culture / society / political system, do you? I think what we have now is strictly “for the birds.” Aren’t we supposed to be a different taxonomic class (Mammalia vs. Aves)?

If you have a different perspective, please share it in the comments.


Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)


Constantly risking absurdity
                                             and death
            whenever he performs
                                        above the heads
                                                            of his audience
   the poet like an acrobat
                                 climbs on rime
                                          to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
                                     above a sea of faces
             paces his way
                               to the other side of day
    performing entrechats
                               and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
                               and all without mistaking
                     any thing
                               for what it may not be

       For he's the super realist
                                     who must perforce perceive
                   taut truth
                                 before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
                                  toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
                                     with gravity
                                                to start her death-defying leap

      And he
             a little charleychaplin man
                                           who may or may not catch
               her fair eternal form
                                     spreadeagled in the empty air
                  of existence


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