Woodcock or Woodpecker

“The woodcock is a living refutation of the theory that the utility of a game bird is to serve as a target, or to pose gracefully on a slice of toast.  No one would rather hunt woodcock in October than I, but since learning of the sky dance I find myself calling one or two birds enough.  I must be sure that, come April, there be no dearth of dancers in the sunset sky.”  --Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac 1949

I have been pondering the short-sightedness of our kind, realizing that I am no different in most respects, despite our plans for the future and exploration beyond our current realm to space and beyond, whatever that might ultimately mean.  We read of prehistoric woman and man, who may have contributed to the extinction of the megafauna of their time.  The arrival of humans on each continent preceded extinction of many large mammals. Although attributing these extinctions to humans is debatable since those times also coincided with large climatic shifts that may also have played a role or have been solely responsible, one only has to look our actions today and wonder if that doesn’t indicate our capacity in times past, even if unwittingly.  Wild turkeys, the first animal I did research on, were extirpated from large parts of North America, as were the currently abundant white tailed deer.  Without external control initiated by the forward thinking few, we could have lost these now common animals as we have lost so many of the top predators.  Although I ultimately choose optimism, I do wonder if we can overcome our tendency to take now from the sea and from the earth with the expectation that these resources are without end, as generously supplied as the sunshine that we expect without fail, although that too will one day end. 

Aldo Leopold may have had the answer over 60 years ago.  Watching the sky dance of the woodcocks on many evenings and mornings seemed to have diminished his thrill for the hunt.  We love what we know, and we protect what we love.  It is an argument for getting us all outside, even if only into our own backyards to see the world that still moves around us.  It is getting outside early for my morning walks that I have come to see the hairy woodpecker that frequents our feeders crawl into a hole in a dying tree that we had considered cutting down this spring.  And now, what was dying has new life and will stand for as long as it stands. We will be the tenants beneath the woodpeckers’ homey lookout, happy that our eyes have learned to see.