For a bird-person, the trip to Circle B was like heaven. There were so many of our feathered friends there that it was impossible to shoot them all or to even take in what was happening all about you.
We needed 360 degree vision to even attempt to witness all the activities and though we tried our best, I am sure we missed a huge portion of what was on display.
There were sounds everywhere too. Chirps, croaks, growls; mostly hidden perpetrators that just wanted to make noise but not willing to be seen.
We got lost in the heron souffle that erupted all along Marsh Rabbit Run, in particular. There were great blues, little blues, green, tricolor and night herons and egrets (yes they are cousins to the herons) and my camera shutter would have repeatedly broken the silence if there had been any.
Yes, there was a whole range of creatures from gators to rabbits. But our mind was awashed with repeated heron encounters. So, by the time we came across the great blue heron nest we already felt saturated. But we needn’t have been. At that stage we witnessed something neither of us had seen before.
You see, there had been two siblings there for a while and we had seen them on the last visit and wondered when they would be strong enough to leave the nest.
I got a bunch of stills and broke for a few seconds of video (which is posted here on youtube. https://youtu.be/ql9EcP9Ywbo )
When you have shot as many herons as I have, you get to the point that you mistakenly feel you have seen it all. But you never have. I even saw one do a one-legged hand-stand lol
Anyway the images are the end of the blog and I hope you enjoy!
It was just after the sibling scene that the thought for today’s blog hit me. I walked away humming the tune to The Hollies hit, “He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother” and it brought into focus a trait in humanity that is waning and fading into obscurity.
Empathy and sympathy for our fellow man was never a strong-suit of humanity. For millennia we have been quick to isolate ourselves from each other by sex, race, creed, and nationality. And this isolation has allowed us to view others as “them” and therefore not one of “us”.
Once we do that, we can take it to the extreme of hatred and discrimination. Just look at what the Klan, right-wing nationalists, and the supreme court do and you’ll see what I mean.
But my main point is one the other end of the scale. The end where passive indifference lives happily behind its white-picket fence and just changes the channel when it sees something that makes it uncomfortable.
There are some that still think that the opposite of love is hate but the true opposite is apathy and when we allow apathy into our lives in a single regard, it creeps throughout our conscience and mutes our sensitivities to the pain of others.
The others here can be simply someone we don’t like or agree with, but quickly extends to our fellow man, and ultimately to all living creatures.
We become the silent majority. A majority that becomes blindly indifferent to what is going on about them. A majority that becomes inwardly focused and allows poverty, pain, and destruction to thrive at the behest of those actively causing it for whatever their own purpose is. Their greed, wants, demands, become driving forces that shape our policies, our lives, our environment and though we may initially be aggrieved, we just change the channel and amuse ourselves with something less bothersome.
I could direct this thought at how we allow discrimination and intolerance to dominate humanity, as indeed it does. But, in truth, it is our apathetic view to environment and the creatures that we share the world with, that really bothers me most.
Voices on the far left decry our treatment of the planet and the destruction of environments but the majority of us pretend not to see it. We drive by roadkill and other than trying to avoid getting any of it caught in our tires, we give it little thought. We never ask about the depleted environment that makes these poor creatures take their lives in their hands and cross a traffic-laden road.
No, we drive home and if we do think about the squished turtle or crushed possum that we saw, it is only softened by the excuse that “at least it wasn’t me that killed him.”
Why is it unusual that I habitually put out food every day for visiting creatures? Why isn’t that the norm? When I say that to people, I often hear “you are wonderful for doing that!” But “wonderful” isn’t me at all. I am barely a decent person. What about all of you who are decent people? Why aren’t you stepping up and taking care of the little bit of the natural world that you come into contact with?
That this isn’t the norm is a clear statement of how far our norm has drifted away from where it should be.
We are not responsible for every creature on the planet. But we certainly have some responsibility to those that are impacted by our activities.
While some of us narrow our definition of the word “brother” to someone who accidentally fell out of our mother’s vagina beside us, we would be better served to understand that all living creatures are our brothers and regardless of how inconvenient it may be to help take care of him, he is never too heavy to do so. Even great blue herons know that one!
… just a thought.
(P.S. brother is a euphemism for everyone, regardless of sex .. before anyone thinks this blog is only for the boys!)
