Wednesday, August 29, 2001
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Wednesday, August 29, 2001 |
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What's so interesting about ... ? By
SALLIE
SATTERTHWAITE
It was one of those pleasant evenings when we intended to get to know a young lady who will be part of our community for a year of professional internship. She's a remarkably well-rounded young woman, an athlete and a scholar, well-traveled. It was refreshing to see just how much living a person can cram into 25 years. Before she came, Dave said, "Now let's not spend the whole evening talking about ourselves. I want to hear from her. Seems like last time we did this, we prattled on about ourselves and never did find out much about our guest." Hmm, I thought, not even pausing as I rolled out pizza dough. You should talk. You get started on your boat or the kids or our travels, and no one can get a word in edgewise. But we did try to keep turning the conversation back to her, until I was afraid the poor child thought she'd been summoned to an inquisition. She held her own. She did better than that. She asked me a question that stopped me cold and still pops into my mind at the most unexpected times. We were eating on the screened porch, where inevitably our attention is drawn to the steady stream of birds that come and go at our feeders. We're used to it, but it must be disconcerting to guests when our eyes leave theirs to follow the flight of a hummingbird, or we look past them to watch a thrasher balancing on the suet block. This distraction, of course, required an explanation that birding is one of our favorite activities and we build it into our lives at home and as we travel. "Why?" asked our guest. "What is it about birds that you find so interesting?" This was absolutely not an impertinent question. She seemed genuinely to care. I don't know whether she was nonplused as to how anyone could possibly give a flip about several ounces of feathers and bone, or if some wise adviser had taught her that this was a way to get people to open up about themselves. In either case, it stopped me in mid-prattle. Seldom speechless, however, I took only a moment before answering insightfully, "Well, uh, I guess, uh, er, well, they're pretty." Then I elaborated: "They're really pretty." So I learned more from our pizza supper than just that this young woman once lived in Finland and that she has two older brothers and loves bicycling. I learned that it's a good thing occasionally to examine what matters to us, to invest time in understanding why we like the things we do. To do so is to understand ourselves. What is it about birds that we find so interesting? Their vulnerability, for sure, their blend of fragility with remarkable strength and resilience. The mystery of birds: How do they navigate from continent to continent? And why? Who wouldn't marvel that a hummingbird with a brain the size of a BB can leave her mother's nest in Georgia, fly to Central America a few weeks later, then in the spring, reverse her path and come back to the backyard she was hatched in, perhaps to the very tree, with neither electronics nor instruction? And who wouldn't ponder the economics of this astounding expenditure of energy? The climate in Central America varies little from winter to summer. Once you're there, why not stay and nest there rather than fly all the way back to the eastern United States? Then there's the application of bird-watching to ecology. Hundreds of thousands of birders, like Dave, participate in ornithological studies by observing their backyard visitors. Their findings are pooled, and researchers use them to develop snapshots of the health of the planet. We often marvel at how birds have adapted to whatever niche they've found success in. It's not hard to understand that the heavy striping and the coloring of a song sparrow a perfect match to the leaf-litter where they find food provide camouflage for his protection from predators. Yet the brilliantly colored cardinal thrives equally well in an environment where virtually nothing is red. And how each species in a given geographical area has adapted to finding food. A duck isn't going to pick larvae out of the bark of a tree any more than a woodpecker is going to dive for fish. I was going to say that their respective feet keep them out of each other's territory anyhow until I thought about wood ducks. They perch in trees like blue jays. Bird song: Not even Mozart moves me like a wood thrush in the spring, although Bach comes close. Their variety in size, from the tiny calliope hummingbird to the soaring eagle. Their endearing personalities: the curiosity of the wren, the incredible airmanship of the falcon, the tenacity of crows mobbing a hawk, the playfulness of swallows dropping feathers to swoop under and catch, or young robins in the bird bath. But you get my drift. What is it about fill in the blank! Quilting, genealogy, bridge, model trains, jazz, cycling that interests you? If it's worth investing yourself, it's worth thinking about.
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