Posted on

For The Birds

It’s the day after Christmas and I am asking myself why I am so dumbfoundingly optimistic.

It is no longer illegal to negligently kill migratory birds. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits killing migratory birds without a license. Up until recently, the law was interpreted to mean that birds killed as a result of oil spills, destroying their habitat, or otherwise interfering, resulted in federal prosecution and fines.

No more. You can still be prosecuted if you intentionally kill a migratory bird without a license, but not if the bird happens to be killed in the pursuit of some other goal. For example, an eagle killed by a wind turbine used to be subject to a $15,000 fine, oil spills that killed thousands of shore birds resulted in massive fines, projects that destroyed nesting grounds were subject to fines and injunctions without some mitigation such as providing an alternative nesting environment. Today none of that applies if you are operating a wind turbine, shipping oil, or paving nesting grounds into parking lots but your goal is making money rather than killing birds. (Detail here.)

This saddens me because seeing eagles turning circles over Ferndale, snow and Canada geese in the fields of the Nooksack valley and flats, and ducks in almost any body of water in Whatcom County all remind me that the world we have all been given is magnificent.

I’m not squeamish about killing birds. My dad encouraged my cousins and me to shoot English sparrows and starlings when I was a kid. He was not sympathetic toward invasive species, although we immigrant Germans and Dutchmen were invasive tribes ourselves.

Duck and goose hunting were all part of the grand tradition when I was in junior high (middle school.) In the fall, a bloodthirsty knot of boys would gather before first period and talk about who shot what that morning out at Tennant Lake and the innumerable ponds that surround Ferndale. I wished I were among the guys who were out wading in the cold and wet while hunting game birds, but my dad wanted me helping with milking, not messing with exciting and dangerous weapons.

He hunted himself when he was young. The few times I saw him fire a gun, he hit his target accurately. He was not sentimental about animals, but he was always on the watch for signs of wildlife around the farm and I suspect that, all things equal, he was on the side of the ducks, geese, and pheasants.

Think about the law for a minute. Who kills birds intentionally? These days, almost entirely sport hunters. I have nothing against hunting. It’s no longer my choice for recreation, but sport hunters guard our wildlife more carefully than a lot of sentimental enthusiasts who only think about wildlife occasionally. Hunters cull herds and keep them healthy, unlike massive collateral damage from industrial ventures that destroy habitats and wipe out entire species. The law now only limits folks who care about birds and gives free reign to industries who destroy species pursuing profits.

There’s a pond close to our house in Ferndale. Albert, The Border Collie, and I walk around the pond every morning and evening. I don’t know the history of the pond, but I suspect that it didn’t exist in my junior high school days. It has the look of a bulldozer sculpture, built for runoff control rather than a naturally occurring resting place for migrating geese and ducks. Nevertheless, I am happy to see the number of birds, raccoons, possums, deer, rabbits, and squirrels that Albert and I encounter on our walks.

The pond would have been in Allen Gardiner’s backyard. I haven’t seen or heard from Allen since high school, but I owe him a debt. One day in the Frank Alexander Junior High library, he pointed me toward a shelf of books by Robert Heinlein, the science fiction author, and started me on a science fiction binge in the seventh or eighth grade that I haven’t quite shaken yet. I wouldn’t be who I am today without Allen’s prompting. Not that I’m anything special, but I just wouldn’t be who I am.

Getting back to the pond. A few days ago, night and morning, I counted twenty-three geese, maybe two dozen mallards, three drake mergansers and I’ll bet three female mergansers were lurking and diving, a blue heron perched in a tree, and a seagull bobbing on the water. The following afternoon, I saw maybe a dozen mallards, one merganser drake, and Albert spotted a squirrel. (He keeps an exact tally of squirrels.) The heron and geese were gone.

I haven’t seen as many geese as last year this fall; I miss those noisy honkers and prolific poopers. I am not about to say that the changes in migratory bird regulation has had immediate effect, but this temporary paucity reminds me of what I will miss as wildlife disappears.

Until the community takes a stand, wildlife of all forms will become rarer and harder to experience. When there is money to be made, there is always someone willing to grab a buck and trash what other people care about. Practically, sometimes a small sacrifice may be justified, but a balance must be struck. When something dies, money can’t buy it back or fix it. Lose too much and we all have nothing.

We once cared. Raptors were rare in the skies over Waschke Road when I was growing up, but after DDT and other pesticides were regulated, the hawks and eagles returned.

So. I am optimistic. If we once cared, we can care again.

Posted on

Geese and Travelers

The Waschke Homestead is no stranger to long-distance travelers. My grandparents and great-grandparents were immigrants. Grandma Waschke was born in Pomerania, Germany. Grandpa Schuyleman was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My great grandparents were all born in Northern Europe. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries they all travelled to Whatcom County. I went to college and graduate school in Chicago. When I was in the computer industry, I had customers all over North America and the globe whom I visited occasionally. Most of my career, my office was on the Seattle Eastside and my boss was in New York.

Canada Geese and assorted ducks on Gardiner Pond, 20 Jan 2019.

But the human inhabitants of the Homestead are as sessile as oysters compared to the geese grazing in the cornfields this time of year. Most of the geese that graze on the farm now are Canada Geese. Fifty years ago, I remember more white Snow Geese than gray Canada Geese. At my Schuyleman grandparents’ farm in Lynden on the Nooksack River, I often saw Trumpeter Swans in their fields.

Before I retired, I flew to New York at least once a month, sometimes more often, around 70,000 miles a year. Canada Geese, Snow Geese, and Trumpeter Swans travel from the arctic of Alaska and northern Canada to the southern U.S. and Mexico each year. Each goose probably flies 5,000 miles a year, so I had each goose beat for distance. But if you consider the number of geese, they win. I have often counted flocks of four dozen geese in the cornfield. Collectively, each of those flocks flies 240,000 miles a year. In my most traveled years I had a gold frequent flier card. The birds would be a step above platinum.

I understand that both Canada and Snow Geese are more populous now than they used to be. I haven’t seen many Snow Geese on the Waschke Homestead lately; they are around but I see them closer to the Nooksack. Canada Geese certainly are more common now on the Waschke Homestead than they were in the 1960s. According to the ornithologists and wildlife experts, the goose population, especially Canada Geese, has increased in the last decade or so for several reasons, including a decline in predators and hunting.

Canada Geese prosper among humans. One summer, fifteen years ago or so, I found myself eating lunch regularly in the executive dining room of the Allstate Insurance data center and office complex in a northern suburb of Chicago. That summer, a pair of Canada Geese hatched and raised a handful of goslings on a rooftop patio next to the dining room. They appeared to thrive on a diet of executive table scraps tossed out by the lunching actuaries.

Last summer, on the pond close to our new house in Ferndale, another pair of Canada Geese raised five goslings. My border collie, Albert, and I watched them parade to the water and paddle gracefully around the pond. When fall came and the goslings were nearly indistinguishable from the parents, they disappeared, presumably flown off to feeding grounds to the south. Obviously, these geese know how to live in small towns.

The flocks of Canada Geese on the Waschke Homestead arrive after fall harvest and graze in the fields until spring. I assume they fly north to their arctic breeding grounds. I imagine the geese on the pond follow the same pattern, but their northern breeding ground is the southern wintering territory of the Waschke Homestead geese. The southern wintering ground of the summer pond dwellers may be Mexico.

There were ten geese on the pond this morning. They’ve been paddling around for three days now. The morning they arrived, Albert and I visited them a few minutes after sunrise. All but one of the geese were resting in a cluster on the pond with their heads tucked under their wings. One goose was awake and watching, either an insomniac or designated sentry. Albert and I only visit the pond twice a day, so those wily geese could be switching places on us, but we expect this group will be gone in a few days, to be replaced by another clutch after another few days.