It is an open secret that I am what British birders would call a twitcher. I will take off for unfamiliar territory in search of a reported bird that I have never seen before. So I was twitching on Patriot’s Day when I took off for Deep River, Connecticut hoping to see the reported Swallow-tailed Kite. This was my third attempt to see this magnificent bird. Unmistakable in flight, with its long forked tail, striking black and white coloring, and its preference for snacking on insects at treetop height, I knew that I would have no trouble identifying this beautiful bird.Thus, I stood accused when the local resident walked up and began subtly chiding the congregation of birders lost in their compulsion to see a single bird. Still, his monologue was fraught with irony. He practically ranted that we twitchers were oblivious to all the rest of the beauty around us, obsessed as we were with a tick on our lists. I’m not sure how he drew this conclusion, especially considering that I had just been wondering about the species of insect that was hatching and providing the food for the kite. Nor did he seek a dialogue during which I could have told him how my first foray in search of this bird had led me serendipitously to witness a fascinating dogfight between an Osprey and a juvenile Bald Eagle. But the greatest irony came when he told me of a close encounter he had had with a fisher while he was hunting. Not only did I have a nearly identical encounter recently, but it happened while I was doing what he was doing, that is, twitching is simply another way of utilizing our nearly instinctual urge to hunt. So he was showing how he too was guilty of what he was accusing me of, not seeing the forest for the trees.
It is a sad reality that it is all too easy to lose perspective when one’s focus is narrow. The current alleged Red State/Blue State dichotomy in our nation is a good example of the danger of a too tight single focus. And when we set our mind on one thing alone, the blinders that we put on can quickly lead us to self-justifications of unacceptable behavior. Birders have suddenly been presented with just such an ethical dilemma with the revelation that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is in fact not extinct but it is possible to score the ultimate twitch in Arkansas. Unfortunately, finding this bird would not be a completely passive activity. The very act of seeking this bird could harm its habitat sufficiently to cause its supposed extinction to become a reality.
Failing to see the interconnectedness of all people, and upsetting the delicate web of all life, are uniquely modern sins that we all too easily and all too often justify or ignore. Let’s commit ourselves to saving the forests, figuratively and literally, one tree at a time.
