Subject: Re: Local fledging successes
Date: Jul 23 10:47 PD 1995
From: Michael Price - michael_price at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweeters

On July 23, Mark Freeland said:

>Thought the tweeters community would be interested to hear about a few local
>successes, and one failure, from the Dash Point area.
(snip)
>It has been a wonderful summer to watch all this activity.
(snip)
>was very sad to think that this pair of beautiful birds was robbed of their
>opportuniy by such a beastly creature.

Important not to demonise here, Mark. In the cowbird parents' scheme of
things, this summer was just as successful as for the other species you
mentioned. Nature is not an entity that cares: nest or brood parasitism is
just as valid a form of reproduction as the four-eggs-to-a-nest style of the
Wilson's Warbler and other songbirds.

As I understand it, cowbirds evolved on the Great Plains as a species which
followed the huge migrant herds of buffalo and other ungulates of pre-human
North America. To keep up with the herds, they developed the technique of
dropping their single eggs into other birds' nests, then moving on with the
herds.

Now that we humans have killed off all the herds on the Great Plains and
destroyed the vast forests which covered most everything else except the
deserts, mountain-tops, and tundra, the cowbirds have not only adapted to
our destruction of the great herds but have taken further advantage of the
ecological opportunities we've provided them.

>I have a mind to purchase a pellet gun and take care of a few of these
>undesirable invaders next season, but then that may not be in the true
>spirit of birding.

Ecologically, we're the invaders. In continuation of a process we began
thousands of years ago, we're the ones inflicting major changes on the
natural world. Some species--e.g., cowbirds--have adapted to those changes,
some other species have adapted to the cowbird's techniques. Not to say that
there's no justification for conservation of other native species
(Kirtland's Warbler in Michigan as the type example) when their local
populations are hit hard by cowbird parasitism, but that's a value-neutral
choice. As someone once pointed out dispassionately, we're not destroying
the world, only changing it. Those alterations are to the benefit of some,
the detriment of others.

In the scale of things, though, after what we've done and are doing to the
world, fingering the cowbird as villain is like arresting someone for
dropping a candy wrapper onto the streets of Hiroshima the day after Enola
Gay's visit.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
michael_price at mindlink.bc.ca