Category Archives: Nature

Nighthawks

ll week I’ve been hearing Nighthawks calling as they fly over downtown Geneva. Loud, too. Sometimes their nasal “peent, peent” call sounded so loud they must have been just a dozen feet over my head. But somehow I never saw one.

Then last night, Carol and I went walking down toward the river at about seven o’clock. By the time we got to Second Street, I could hear that “peent, peent” overhead, but I still couldn’t see them. Carol was patient with me, even though I stopped every fifty feet or so — “That one was really loud! But I still can’t see it.”

She was patient with me, that is, until we got onto the State Street bridge, and I walked into her because I was looking up at the Nighthawks. “That hurt,” she said. I apologized, and then looked up again. Now I could see them everywhere.

Swarms of insects were rising up from the river — maybe Mayflies doing their mating flight, but I don’t know much about insects — thousands of insects, anyway. Hundreds of Chimney Swifts were flying over the river, chittering and flitting to and fro, feeding on the insects. And there were Nighthawks among the swifts, twenty or more of them, with their wings crooked back, fluttering back and forth, up and down the river, chasing insects and calling out “peent, peent!” No, more than twenty of them. Lots of Nighthawks.

Don’t ask my why I got so excited about Nighthawks last night. Maybe because of the flittery way they fly. Maybe because they only come out at dusk, or because they’re close relatives of Whipoorwills. Or maybe because they are one of the last migrants to come north, a sign that spring is coming to an end.

The sun set amid white and gold clouds. An hour later, the moon rose in the cool evening air, orange and huge on the horizon. Summer’s almost here.

Spring watch

With the warm weather of the past two days, some things have suddenly changed. The long spell of cool weather kept a forsythia in the next block blooming for three weeks; suddenly it is covered with small green leaves and the blossoms are at last falling off. Tulip blooms that had stayed fresh for weeks curled and withered in the past twenty-four hours.

Swallows are everywhere over the river now. Rough-winged Swallows have claimed the space around the State Street bridge. I saw a few Purple Martins over the river downstream of the railroad bridge. Tree Swallows seem to be everywhere.

Tree Swallows strike me as utterly alien beings. You can pretend that some birds and animals have vaguely human characteristics — Cardinals seem cheerful, Racoons seem smart and sly, even frogs can seem to take on a human character. But when I look at the bright round, slightly protruding eyes of Tree Swallows, I can’t imagine any human expression there. Whatever thoughts or feelings they have are wholly their own.

An eco-theological celebration

The recent article published in the peer-reviewed journal Science reporting the sighting of a male Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, long thought to be extinct in the United States, is more than a feel-good story for eco-freaks. It’s also a religious story for some of us.

First of all, how often do we get good news about ecology? Mostly the news brings us a litany of ecological disasters. I’m a Universalist, so I know everything is going to turn out all right in the long run — but it’s nice to know that good things are happening right now, as a little encouragement for those of us who are trying to make the world better now, rather than waiting for some kind of afterlife.

There’s more theology than that involved. Those of us who are interested in ecological theology find a religious significance in bio-diversity. We ecological theologians hold that individual religion, individual salvation for individual human beings, is not enough. By extending religious principles to all species, and to eco-systems in general, we are saying that the category of evil also includes destruction of species and of eco-systems — that we can’t create the kingdom of heaven here on earth without rich bio-diversity. (For those of you who are theology geeks, yes, we stole most of this from the Social Gospelers.)

But the heck with theology — let’s just celebrate. Check out the news coverage on NewScientist.com, which includes a copy of the primary evidence involved — the five-second blurry video showing an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker flying — http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7319. Yes, it’s a blurry video, but I’m just enough of a birder to know that ain’t no Pileated Woodpecker flying along through the swamp.

It will take time for the scientific community to go over the data. In the mean time, the Nature Conservancy has received a multi-million dollar gift to protect more potential habitat of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Check out their report of their efforts to save this habitat at http://www.nature.org/ivorybill/habitat/saving.html — and click on the link in the upper right=hand corner of this Web page to make your own contribution towards saving the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker’s habitat. Heck, you were just going to spend that money at the mall, anyway. Give it to the crazy-looking woodpecker instead. What better way to celebrate?

Sky drama

Carol and I were walking down Hamilton Street towards the river this afternoon, and just as we crossed First Street a small drama was enacted in the sky above us.

The first thing I noticed was three or four pigeons wheeling above the State Street bridge, and then flying low and fast upriver. Then a larger bird wheeled above us — it looked like a small hawk.

Twenty or so pigeons came from under the bridge, flying very close to one another, dropping quickly back down to cover by the bridge. The larger bird flapped twice, wheeled into the wind and soared for a second. As it turned above us, I could see it was a small hawk, an accipter, probably a Cooper’s Hawk.

The hawk wheeled twice more, and drifted downwind, towards the south. Suddenly another bird appeared close behind it — a Crow — then two more. The three Crows began mobbing the the hawk, driving it west away from the river. Half a dozen smaller birds broke cover and headed north, away from the hawk. Crows are just about the same size as a Cooper’s Hawk, so it hardly seemed a fair fight — three Crows mobbing the one Hawk.

The last I saw, the Cooper’s Hawk had dropped down to treetop level, still followed by the Crows. My guess is that it wanted to take advantage of its ability to dart and fly swiftly through trees, so it could get away from the Crows. I wondered if it is the mate of the Cooper’s Hawk that is sitting on a nest a few blocks from our house.

Nature and a creator

Liu Zongyuan (773-819) is considered one of the great prose writers in Chinese. I was in an odd little bookstore over the weekend and happened to find a paperback titled Poetry and Prose of the Tang and Song (translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, published in 1984 by Panda Books, the English-language publishing arm of the Chinese government). In this book is a wonderful short essay by Liu Zongyuan, in which he describes climbing Stone Town Mount, past a small stream, scrambling up rocks that “look like a city wall,” and arriving at the top to be greeted with a view into the far distance. But more fascinating than the distant view is the summit itself:

“Although there is not soil, the fine trees and slender bamboos which grow there are more curiously shaped and firmly rooted than most. Some are high, some are low; some grow in clumps, and others stand apart as if planted by a skilful hand.

“Indeed, I have long been curious to know whether or not a Creator exists; and this sight made me feel that there must surely be one. It seems strange, though, that such wonders are set not in the heart of the country but in barbarous regions like this, where hundreds of years may pass before anyone comes along to appreciate them. This is labor in vain, which hardly befits a god, so perhaps there is none after all!”

In this short passge, I think Liu Zongyuan raises some good issues for those of us trying to do ecological theology. Liu says we can probably neither prove nor disprove the existence of a creator from Nature. We like to think Nature is set up for our especial benefit, but that is open to question. We like to think whatever a god does is for our especial benefit, but that too is open to question. Liu goes one to finish his essay thus:

“Some say, ‘This [the beauty of the summit] is done to comfort good men [sic] who are sent here in disgrace.’

“Others say, ‘This climate does not produce great men, but only freaks of nature. That is why there are few men south of Chu, but many rocks.’

“I do not hold, however, with either view.”

In other words, Nature does not exist for the pleasure of human beings. Nor can we judge Nature solely by human standards.