Why Birds?

In my job as a naturalist, I am known as the bird man. This is my nickname with the students and teachers who visit my park on field trips. Parents know me as such through their kids, and adults who attend my other programs are quickly catching on to this name. I feel honored to be given a name that has also followed such iconic conservationists and bird lovers as Roger Tory Peterson and Noah Strycker.

With this name, I am often asked “Why birds?” My answer to this question has taken a few different iterations through the years as my thoughts around why I chose birds has matured.

In the beginning, I answered the question by pointing out that birds are all around us and therefore easy to see no matter where you go. Their diversity can be amazing just in your backyard, but even more so when you travel. They are beautiful as well, so why not look at something beautiful and listen to their amazing calls.

The next version continued along those lines but then also pointed out how birds can make you feel connected to a place. Going somewhere new can feel uncomfortable at first, but if you learn the birds in a place and start to notice and identify them, you begin to know the place as well. The birds become your comfort zone and can help you to meet new people in the community as well.

I still think that all of these answers are very good and accurate in explaining why I chose birds, but my reasoning continues to grow. I am currently finishing up the book, The World of Roger Tory Peterson, by John C. Devlin and Grace Naismith and learning about Roger has lead me to learn more about why I am so enthusiastic about birds as well.

Birds are a great indicator species in an ecosystem. Part of the reason for this is mentioned in the first version of my answer above, they are easy to see everywhere. We know that if we find a Grasshopper Sparrow among a tallgrass prairie stand that there is a certain level of healthiness to that particular patch. There are enough insects for it to raise young, enough cover for it to feel safe nesting, and enough space that it feels the urge to call that patch home. And this is just one bird.

If we then find Dickcissels, and Eastern Meadowlarks, this tells us a little more about that patch. There is now enough food resources for three different species. There must be some nice grass clumps for the Dickcissels to make their nests in. Meadowlarks don’t feel the pressure of having their ground-dwelling dome nests trampled by foot traffic or plowed over by machinery.

Now we find a Henslow’s Sparrow and our story grows even more. Maybe a Bobolink or an Upland Sandpiper. The health of this tallgrass patch can be told in the birds that call it home.

Say the management of that prairie begins to fall behind. Rough-leaf Dogwood and Sumac begin to encroach on that prairie patch. The bird-life begins to shift. No longer are the open prairie species like Henslow’s Sparrows, Grasshopper Sparrows, and Dickcissels nesting there, but instead we get Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Eastern Kingbirds, and maybe even American Robins.

At least these species are still natives, if the management falls even further behind, we might begin to see more House Sparrows and European Starlings move into our patch. Even worse, imagine that it gets plowed and cropped. Now the landscape becomes mostly silent of birdlife. Plants are treated with insecticides and the land sprayed with herbicides and we begin to lose more of the movement and life that once covered our prairie patch.

Unfortunately, this tends to be the story more often told here in the midwest than the one full of Dickcissels and Meadowlarks. All of this is just for one particular ecosystem type as well. Imagine the stories of loss being told by birds throughout the world.

Birds are a great indicator of healthy landscapes and right now they are suffering. More species keep being added to the endangered species list and conservation statuses continue to decline. I chose to highlight the tallgrass prairie here because it is an ecosystem of the midwest, but also because it is one of the fastest shrinking types of landscape. Grassland birds are in steep decline, telling me that we do not have a healthy landscape here.

There was a quote in my book about Roger Tory Peterson that hit me hard and is becoming part of my answer to why birds. Roger said, “If we create the political, chemical, and moral environment that other forms of life cannot survive-by what insane arrogance do we think we could survive? The animals use the same air, the same water, the same space. Animals use protein, carbohydrates-and if the animals around us are dropping dead we had better take a look-a careful look.”