I came upon this bird in the middle of the road, and if there ever appeared to be a fowl attempted suicide, this was it. It wasn't a busy street, but it was inevitable that a car would eventually drive down the road. He was square in the middle of the lane. I moved into the street with hopes that he would fly off. But he refused, or he wasn't capable of moving. I couldn't see an apparent injury or sickness. Except for his emotional state, he looked fine.
Fortunately, there was some litter (ugh), and I was able to pick him up and move him into a safe protected berm where he could recuperate or die in peace. Or did I just prolong his painful, drawn out death, when he could have just gone in one quick whack under the tire of an SUV. What is a bird capable of thinking? Of doing?
I love birds as most people love birds. I don't use pesticides, herbicides or poisons in my yard. On any given morning, I can look out my window and see different species of birds land and take off from the deck. As I walk through the garden, bluebirds pull worms or a woodpecker shuffles around a trunk. My backyard feels like a bird sanctuary.
Scientists have shown (hypothesized, proven?), that the sound of birds has an effect on the garden. The sound waves enhance a plant's ability to grow. It is our job as humans to coexist and be a part of and contribute to, not detract from, this symbiotic environment.
My friend reminded me of Mao Zedong's Great Sparrow Campaign in the late 1950s. It was part of the Four Pests Campaign and just another one of the Chinese dictator's blunders. Mao ordered all sparrows to be killed. When Mao ordered, China acted and sparrows were almost completely extinguished. The grain eaten by sparrows was miniscule compared to the grain eaten by the locusts who now had, without the predator sparrow, free reign, or free lunch in the grain fields. Mao's call to eradicate the sparrow resulted in the 1958-61 famine that killed an estimated 30 million people. The Chinese eventually had to import sparrows from Russia.
Perhaps the bird in the street was old or sick. Perhaps the bird ate a worm or an insect poisoned by pesticide. Maybe that one bird doesn't matter, but maybe it does.
