Look, it was not a big deal. I got a phone call from an office worker who had a bird in her hands and it could not fly. My questions elicited the fact that it was an adult bird, but not what species or what was wrong with it. The lady wanted the bird to live.
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It happened that her office was about six miles from where I live. The only wildlife rehabilitation centre anywhere nearby (and it is not really near at all) was closed for the night. I was at a meeting. So I told her what to do for the bird overnight and agreed to meet her at her office first thing next morning, thus saving her a very long drive.
When I arrived she was at a meeting, the box was in her car, and the receptionist was hesitant to call the lady from an important staff meeting.
“What,” she asked, “is this all about? Is there something I can do to help?”
I think she was a tad suspicious of me; this was a business office and I was obviously no business man. But as soon as I explained the situation her demeanor changed, and she was happy to go and get the lady I was seeking.
“I want to know,” she said, “what kind of bird it is?”
Outside, I saw the bird, a Brown-headed Cowbird. That is a species the rescuer had never heard of, but it didn’t matter. I transferred the bird to a special container in my own car, and just then the receptionist came outside (the front door adjoined the small parking lot) and asked what the bird was. I told her.
“Oh,” she said, with a snort of contempt, “a cowbird. Why not just let it die?”
“Why did she say that?” asked the rescuer as the receptionist went back inside.
I explained that the cowbird always lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, of other species. Cowbirds make no nests, and never raise their own, or any other, babies. When the baby cowbirds grow, they do so faster than the other, smaller birds in the nest. The other babies, the ones hatched from eggs laid by their mothers, are either shoved out or perish as the unwitting foster mom wears herself to a frazzle trying to satisfy the greater hunger of the young cowbird. Thus, every single cowbird you see represents the complete loss of the brood of some other, usually smaller, species. Some birds, like the robin, are not deceived, and eject cowbird eggs, but most, usually smaller species, raise the cowbird as their own.
She shrugged. “I don’t care.”
Nor did I. It seems odd to me that we, with our much vaunted intellect, should judge another species for doing what comes naturally. I have known hunters who think nothing of a bacon and eggs breakfast for themselves shoot crows for “stealing” the eggs of other birds. It’s a weird double-standard.
The cowbird weakened and did not make it. Without the kind of investigation I can’t afford I could not determine cause of illness, but here is what is almost certain, whatever it was, it was anthropogenic: something that happened as a result of human endeavor, such as pesticide poisoning.
We are, by far, the greatest threat other animals face, and the receptionist who hates cowbirds undoubtedly, by the very virtue of her existence, at least indirectly causes far more animals to suffer and die than does any mere cowbird.
Had she waited, I might have tried to explain that cowbirds only ever find a portion of the nests out there, and thus the existence of the cowbird is proof of significantly greater numbers of the species whose nests they seek when it is time to lay eggs.
They are, unlike us, totally and absolutely dependent on their “victims.” There is no moral choice here; it is simply nature being natural. To hate that, to condemn it, is to manifest the kind of arrogant hubris and stupidity that we must all daily face, and try, with compassion and facts, to challenge.
Blogging off,
Barry