Shade Tree Wisdom 12/15/09

Lots of winged winter visitors are dropping in. It’s time for flocks of geese to arrive from the north. They spend the winter on the fields from the coastal wildlife refuge near Houston to the fallow farms near Choke Canyon west of Corpus Christi, and the agricultural fields between San Antonio and Uvalde.

They travelled, some of them 2500 miles, from the arctic Tundra and Canada to get here. Snow geese, Canada geese, Cackling geese, and the greater white fronted geese. The last two species come from the Arctic Tundra near Hudson’s bay to as far away as Russia. Probably best known to us are the Canada geese, known as “honkers” because of their call while flying. Experts tell us these calls says “I need help here” from the leader, or “How are things going” to flock members or only “going well”. Interesting, if true.

For Migrating birds Chicago is a deadly obstacle. The city is a sky-scraping, crazy-making obstacle of light and glass and building blocks thrown into the path of their flyway, the air space that stretches from the northern forests of Canada to the rain forests of Peru. So thousands of birds die by flying into glass they can’t see to reach a fountain or tree in a building lobby. The city’s night sky sees them mistaking kilowatts for stars. And Chicago is doing something about it.

These days, building managers by the hundreds are turning off lights during migration. Ever since Chicago’s huge convention center began tuning off its light in 1998, bird-crashing deaths have dropped from an average of 1500 to 600 per year, and when all lights are out, the fatalities drop by 80%.

Besides this, Chicago has a large number of “Chicago Bird Collision Monitors” who are called when a bird crashes. Often they are able to rescue and send the bird on its way. Their phone rings with calls from homeless people to lawyers on their way to a busy day in the office. One security guard who works downtown often finds birds and makes the call. He says they are the most reliable people we know. You call them, they come. Seven days a week, rain or shine.

I find it heartening to learn such things. There are yet people who care, even when all that is involved are birds doing what they have always done, follow their instincts. And that a great city like Chicago stands ready, from Mayor Daly to a homeless person, to show concern.

GPD 12/15/09