From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/29
by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez
Published on Sunday, April 29, 2012 by Common Dreams
Lately I have been sitting with the brooding knowledge that at least 7 million migrating songbirds were killed this spring running the gauntlet of 84,000 American communication towers that rise as high as 2,000 feet into the sky, braced by invisible guy wires that garotte the birds right out of the air.
This is actually just a fraction of the number of birds killed each year by running a collision course with human activity.
This spring has been more silent than ever. The traditional dawn chorus of birdsong has ebbed to a few lonely little souls, most belonging to non-migratory species like cardinals, bluejays, chickadees and sparrows.
They say that when Europeans first arrived on this continent, the migration of the passenger pigeons would literally darken the sky for minutes on end.
I have never seen a living passenger pigeon, and it seems that my grandchildren will not know what I mean when I talk about the dawn chorus of riotously busy, happy birdsong, any more than they will be able to imagine an apple orchard in full bloom buzzing with the diligent harvest of a million droning bees.
Knowledge like this makes me sick at heart. My rational side is aware that mourning is not productive, but another side of me knows that it is one of the special gifts of us humans to feel grief; to locate particular sadnesses in the larger landscape of suffering; and to use our sadness and anger at injustice as a lightening rod for change.
Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/29
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