Out in the open Nebraska countryside in October, clouds of
birds are easy to follow. I've been marveling at how big groups come together
and fly one way and then another with each member of the flock synchronized with
the others. When the birds are starlings – as the groups I see forming near
cornfields often are -- these groups are called ‘murmurations’.
This video of some huge murmurations, shot over the River
Shannon in Ireland, shows the same sorts of dramatic turns and formations I’ve
been marveling at in Nebraska:
Many of us are fascinated by birds. Their behavior, their
songs and calls, their colors and forms bring delight and wonder. One of the
joys of winter, when there are so few signs of living things in the landscape,
are birds that appear at feeders and other protected places. An early flock of
robins in a still snowy yard is a delight of early spring.
No
fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.
"In
years gone by I'd gotten used to all the birds and their noises," he said.
"They'd
be following the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again.
You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the distance,
feeding on pilchards."
But
in March and April this year, only silence and desolation surrounded his boat,
Funnel Web, as it sped across the surface of a haunted ocean.
No birds, only “silence and desolation”. The “brokenness” of
the ocean described in this article is from a combination of overfishing,
plastic pollution and other debris, and the effects of climate change. The
silence is ominous, a sign not only of the damage done to the oceans but of the
damage being done to our entire biosphere.
The absence of “all the birds and their noises” reminded me
of “And no bird sang”, something the choir at St. Stephen’s in Grand Island has
sung several times for Holy Week services.
