Subject: [Tweeters] More Fill
Date: Aug 14 15:28:44 2007
From: Constance Sidles - csidles at isomedia.com


Hey tweets, the Fill seemed quiet this morning but all that changed
when I plunked my camp stool down in a natural blind on the east side
of the lagoon that borders the south end of the dime parking lot. This
little pocket lagoon was stuffed with birds, including:
Pied-billed Grebe
Canada Goose
Mallard
Gadwall
Green-winged Teal
NORTHERN PINTAIL
Northern Shoveler
Blue-winged Teal
Cinnamon Teal
Wood Duck
American Coot
Killdeer
Lesser Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
BAIRD'S SANDPIPER
Glaucous-winged Gull
Belted Kingfisher
Barn Swallow
American Crow
Red-winged Blackbird

Twenty-two species in an area smaller than the average-sized McMansion
is pretty amazing. The birds all seemed very calm, despite the fact
that dump trucks kept rumbling back and forth along the gravel road
that borders the west side of the lagoon. The drivers seemed oblivious
to the wondrous birds just a step away, but then, the birds seemed
oblivious to the people.

It was a discombobulating juxtaposition of industrious human activity
just 50 meters away from the peace and quiet of a Thoreauvian pond. I
didn't know whether to be sad that human activity has decimated the
natural landscape to the point where birds literally have to step over
each other to feed; or whether to be glad that nature is robust enough
that it survives in such profuse diversity. My sadness is tempered by
the fact that although humans mess up the world, humans can also fix up
the world. My gladness is tempered by the fact that although the Fill
hosts so much diversity, the number of individual birds is small. It's
great to see a spotted sandpiper bobbing its rear end while it stabs
its beak to catch insects that fly up from the mud. But I saw only one
spotted sandpiper today. Spotties used to breed here commonly. I felt
thrilled to see a Baird's sandpiper, down here on migration from the
tundra, but populations of northern-breeding sandpipers have plummeted
in our lifetime.

The Fill is both wild and domesticated. The wild birds show up on their
own schedule, uncontrolled by us. The landscape, though, is heavily
managed. Gardeners from the CUH are constantly at work modifying the
landscape. When a director is in charge who likes formal gardens, the
land near the CUH building gets filled with exotic flowers and shrubs,
while the rest of the Fill is left to grow what it will - even when
that means letting it get overrun with Himalayan blackberries and
purple loosestrife. When there is a director who favors native plants,
the gardeners fan out to uproot the blackberries, bugify the
loosestrife, and plant native plants to create native prairie, riparian
habitat, and marshes. In either case, the Fill feels the hand of homo
sapiens almost everywhere.

According to a recent Science Magazine article, the Fill is no
exception. The whole planet is feeling the weight of our intervention.
"As of 1995," write the authors, Peter Kareiva, Sean Watts, Robert
McDonald, and Tim Boucher, "only 17% of the world's land area had
escaped direct influence by humans, as indicated by one of the
following: human population density greater than one person/square km;
agricultural land use; towns or cities, access within 15 km of a road,
river or coastline; or nighttime light detectable by satellite." (To
read the entire article, you can download it for free at
http://www.nature.org/tncscience/science/art21687.html)

The authors go on to make these points: For all practical purposes, all
nature is or soon will be domesticated. Since this is so, we have to
decide how we should manage this domestication. The authors define
success by listing three paths to domestication: "Some paths of
domestication will result in improved ecosystems both for people and
for other species; other paths of domestication will result in
ecosystems that are clearly better for humans but not for other
species; and some paths of domestication will result in ecosystems that
are too degraded to benefit people or other species." I imagine the
authors would choose "Door Number One." But nowhere on this list is
domestication that will result in preservation of the wild for the sake
of the wildlife, regardless of whether that benefits humans. Indeed,
the authors quote Raup, who "cautioned against the romantic
glorification of 'wilder is better.'"

I guess that makes me a romantic. I do believe that we should manage
some of our wild lands for wild life, not for people. I do believe that
sometimes we should put the needs of wild life above the needs of
ourselves. I do believe that wild things have a right to existence. I
believe these things passionately, spiritually, idealistically,
romantically. The authors sneeringly dismiss romantics, we poor,
deluded Don Quixotes who can't see reality for the windmill arms. But I
see romantics differently. I see us as people who care passionately
about making the world a better place, and for me, that place includes
the wild. The dictionary defines the Romantic Movement as a movement
characterized by "freedom of form and spirit." To me, that is the
wild. More important, it is the meaning of wild.

The authors conclude by wishing for a new science that focuses on
tradeoffs rather than impacts when we make ecological decisions. They
say that when we can weigh tradeoffs scientifically, we can make the
best decision for stewarding nature in perpetuity for people. Fair
enough. But let us then put into the equation a very human value, and
let us set that value as among the highest: the very human love of wild
nature. E.O. Wilson called this yearning for nature "biophilia," the
love of living things. He said it was a basic human need. I think we
all need to see Baird's sandpipers dipping their bills elegantly to eat
insects on a patch of mud in the middle of lagoon. I think we all need
that whiff of the far north, that messenger from a vast, unknown
wilderness who tells us that there still exists a place that is free. I
may never get to that place bodily. I may never see with my own eyes
the tundra where the Baird's sandpipers make their nests. But I can go
there every day in my imagination. As I do.

Also at the Fill today:
Great Blue Heron
Osprey
Rock Pigeon
Vaux's Swift
Anna's Hummingbird
Downy Woodpecker
Willow Flycatcher
Violet-Green Swallow
Cliff Swallow
NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW
Steller's Jay
Black-capped Chickadee
Bewick's Wren
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
Common Yellowthroat
Spotted Towhee
Savannah Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
American Goldfinch
House Finch

On the way home, I stopped off at Ravenna Park and found a WESTERN
TANAGER. - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com