Wings and Words:
A Field Guide to the Birds
of North American Environmental Literature
A Senior Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the Environmental Studies major requirements
at Skidmore College
Jenna Gersie
Class of 2010
Advised by:
Michael Steven Marx,
Associate Professor of English
March 3, 2010
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Table of Contents
Preface……………………………………………………………………………………..2
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..3
Chapter One: Pigeons……………………………………………………………………..5
Chapter Two: Parakeets………………………………………………………………….21
Chapter Three: Hummingbirds…………………………………………………………..32
Chapter Four: Herons and Egrets………………………………………………………...41
Chapter Five: Geese……………………………………………………………………...61
Chapter Six: Owls and Nightjars………………………………………………………...75
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….89
Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………92
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………...98
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Preface
I would go to the bay in late morning,
at low tide, the sun high in the sky,
the air hot and still. Dozens
of great white egrets would wade
in the muddy sands, picking at crabs
and small fish that the water left behind
when it receded to the other shore.
Little blue herons scattered
when I came close, flying
toward the water or walking, long-legged,
under the dock to search for feed
beneath the shadows. Large brown pelicans
sat on the surface in the distance,
silhouettes resting between shades of blue.
My mornings were filled with birds.
I admired them. They were so quiet,
so dignified, so austere in their daily duties
of wading, drinking, feeding
in the Florida sunshine. I was alone
with them there, along the shores of the bay.
I looked only outward to the horizon,
the sky, the steady blue of the still water at noon.
Once, sitting on the dock, my feet hanging
over the side, my gaze forward, I saw
out of the corner of my eye
a great blue heron as it landed to my left
on the grassy shore. It stayed there, poised
in silence for a brief moment,
for an eternity. I did not move. It did not move.
And then suddenly, and all too soon,
it left me alone in my own quiet, and flew.
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Introduction
I grew up with a bird feeder in the backyard, a pair of binoculars on the coffee
table, and field guides to birds on the bookshelves. Birdwatching was a passive hobby of
my father’s, and though it never caught my interest when I was young, I always
appreciated his love for the small, winged creatures that flew into our yard. After my
father’s death, birds began to symbolize his life for me. His love for the Great Blue
Heron, in particular, caused my family to attribute symbolism to the tall, elegant birds.
For other friends, the Scarlet Tanager represented a walk in the woods with my father; a
Bald Eagle brought to mind a canoe trip on the Delaware River.
My own interest in birds has grown as I have developed this project. My attention
to birds has not been aided by binoculars; rather, my birds have been observed through
eyes focused on environmental literature. My original idea for this project came from
reading texts such as Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie
Dillard, and A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold—all replete with sight and sound
imagery describing birds. These texts sparked my interest, and I aimed to continue
reading about birds, from historical, scientific, and literary perspectives. While grounded
in environmental literature, this project also explores the historical and ecological factors
affecting the livelihood of birds in North America. An eco-critical analysis of
environmental literature investigates the connections among birds expressed in nature
writing, the birds found in our natural world, and the humans who observe these birds.
The concept for this project was originally modeled on Roger Tory Peterson’s
Field Guide to Birds of North America. The project is intended as a field guide to the
birds of North American environmental literature. Each chapter presents a different bird
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species or family of birds; the chapters can be read individually or continuously and
contain descriptive information on the birds as well as a literary analysis of the texts that
incorporate images of the birds. If readers have a specific interest in a particular bird,
they can flip to that chapter to learn about that bird specifically. Or, they can read the
text in its entirety to reflect on what birds, in general, represent for humans within
environmental literature.
Chapters One and Two describe the extinctions of the Passenger Pigeon and the
Carolina Parakeet, respectively. Chapter Three details the colors and energy of
hummingbirds. Chapter Four portrays the elusive and solitary nature of herons and
egrets. Chapter Five describes the migrations of Canada geese, harbingers of the
changing seasons. Chapter Six explains the mysterious and haunting qualities of owls
and nightjars. After the Conclusion, an Appendix is included to provide more
information on the literary sources used for this project.
Through this project, I hope to allow readers to explore ideas of how humans
relate to nature through experiences with birds. Readers should question what birds tell
us about our natural environment, what they mean for ideals of conservation in our
society, and what they represent in terms of human connections to the environment. I
hope this project also encourages readers to wonder what place birds hold within
environmental literature as well as what birds symbolize to humans and individuals on a
personal level.
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Pigeons
Family Columbidae
“Plump, fast-flying birds with small head and low, cooing
voice; nod their head as they walk. Two types: (1) birds
with fanlike tails and (2) smaller birds with rounded or
pointed tail. Sexes mostly similar. Food: Seeds, waste
grain, fruit, insects. Range: Nearly worldwide in tropical
and temperate regions.”
-Roger Tory Peterson
Field Guide to Birds of North America
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Passenger Pigeon
Ectopistes migratorius
“Their body is formed in an elongated oval, which they
steer with a long, well-plumed tail and propel with well-set
wings, the muscles of which are very large and powerful
for the size of the bird. A bird seen gliding through the
woods and close to the observer passes like a thought; and
the eye tries in vain to see it again, but the bird is gone.”
-John James Audubon, Passenger Pigeon
“One generation comes and another generation passes
away, but the earth abides forever. But what if the earth
itself is passing away? And what if the animals, which we
do not reckon as individuals but as ever-renewing species,
should disappear along with it? What if the birds could
never be seen again—by me or anyone else? What if the
watcher and the watched disappeared together?”
-Jonathan Rosen, The Life of the Skies
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Chapter One
Referred to as “the most prolific bird on the face of the earth,” (Steinberg 67), the
Passenger Pigeon was the most abundant land bird on Earth at the time of European
conquest of North America. With more Passenger Pigeons on the North American
continent than all other bird species in the world combined, historians and biologists
estimated populations of the bird at 3 to 5 billion (Cokinos 198). The birds, also known
locally as wild pigeons, formed seemingly infinite flocks and dominated the air “in a skyblackening mass” (Rosen 34) as they migrated from region to region, looking for food in
the form of nuts and acorns.
John James Audubon observed the pigeons in the early 1800s as they flew over
forestland and fields in Kentucky. The birds were nothing short of beautiful; Audubon’s
descriptions of the birds include terms such as “graceful,” “beautiful,” and “powerful,”
and when describing their flight as a “beautiful spectacle,” Audubon writes of a
“glistening sheet of azure” turning to a “rich deep purple” (34). Christopher Cokinos, in
Hope is the Thing with Feathers, also describes the beauty of the birds. He notes that the
pigeons, 16 inches long and slate-colored with violet, gold, and green around their necks,
appeared to observers “as if the feathers had been sprinkled with a metallic rainbow dust”
(200). Henry David Thoreau was also inspired by the beauty of the Passenger Pigeon,
and in his journal from 1859, he wrote that their “dry slate color, like weather-stained
wood…[was a] fit color for this aerial traveller, a more subdued and earthy blue than the
sky, as its field (or path) is between the sky and the earth” (328). Despite the beauty of
the species, humans often harvested the birds as a food source or simply killed the
pigeons to prevent them from destroying grain crops or eating all of the nuts in the
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forests, on which domestic hogs depended (Steinberg, Rhodes). In his essay “Passenger
Pigeon,” Audubon writes of these killings in relation to the abundance of the Passenger
Pigeons:
Persons unacquainted with these birds might naturally conclude that such dreadful
havoc would soon put an end to the species. But I have satisfied myself by long
observation that nothing but the gradual diminution of our forests can accomplish
their decrease. They not infrequently quadruple their number yearly, and always
at least double it. (37)
In Audubon’s eyes, the extreme abundance of the Passenger Pigeons would certainly
outweigh the effects of human slaughter. Because the Passenger Pigeon was the most
abundant bird on the planet, overshadowing the American Robin by fifty to one,
Audubon could not imagine a world without them. Witnessing the migrations of the
Passenger Pigeon in the early nineteenth century, he could not have known that Martha,
the last Passenger Pigeon, would die in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the birds were being pushed to extinction. Farmers
continued to kill the birds to protect their crops, and deforestation destroyed habitat and
limited the availability of food resources such as nuts. In addition, Passenger Pigeons
produce only one egg each breeding season, severely limiting their reproductive potential
(Steinberg 67). The northern Midwest became a refuge for the last flocks of Passenger
Pigeons in the late nineteenth century, and in April of 1886, “on a single, bloody
afternoon,” the last surviving flock of Passenger Pigeons, numbering about 250,000
birds, was shot by a group of Ohio hunters. The last Passenger Pigeon living in the wild
was shot in Ohio in 1900 (Koeppel 51); the six pairs of Pigeons purchased by the
Cincinnati Zoo in 1878 slowly died off without successfully reproducing (Stratton-Porter
203).
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A century earlier, however, the birds’ numbers were still astoundingly high, and
Audubon observed the Pigeons with wonder and amazement. “Passenger Pigeon” is
filled with sight and sound imagery of the birds, showing Audubon’s fascination with the
creatures, as well as their pure multitude. When describing the force of the birds passing
overhead, Audubon writes “It was as if the forest had been swept by a tornado, proving to
me that the number of birds must be immense beyond conception” (35), and “the flapping
of their wings produc[ed] a noise like the roar of distant thunder” (34). This noise
reminds Audubon “of a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close-reefed
vessel. As the birds arrived and passed over…[he] felt a current of air that surprised
[him]” (36). By comparing the flock of birds to a violent storm, Audubon is able to
describe the impact the birds have on the landscape. Due to their great numbers, the
forest is altered, with branches breaking where the birds decide to roost. The birds create
noise loud enough to make an impression on bystanders below. Audubon also describes
the darkening of the sky as the birds fly overhead: “The air was literally filled with
Pigeons, and the noon-day light was obscured as by an eclipse. The dung fell in spots not
unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continuous buzz of wings tended to lull my
senses” (32-33). In this passage, Audubon continues his description of the birds by
comparing their arrival to weather; it is as if the birds came from the sky as unexpectedly
as a winter storm whose clouds darkened the landscape. By using storm imagery to
describe the arrival of the Passenger Pigeons, Audubon shows the force, power, and
magnitude of the flocks. The birds are able to make an impression both on the people
standing below and on the landscape beneath their wings.
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The Passenger Pigeons also impress Audubon with their beauty, especially when
in flight. He begins “Passenger Pigeon” by describing the flight of the birds and the
migration patterns they follow when searching for food. As the essay moves on and
Audubon’s observations continue, he writes:
I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions when a
Hawk chanced to press upon the rear of a flock. At once, like a torrent, and with
a noise like thunder, they rushed in a compact mass, pressing upon each other
towards the center. In these almost solid masses they darted forward in
undulating and angular lines, descended to the earth and swept close over it with
inconceivable velocity. Then they mounted perpendicularly so as to resemble a
vast column, and, when high, they were seen wheeling and twisting within their
continued lines, which resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent. (33)
Audubon’s attention to detail in this passage, describing the angles and directions of
flight, shows that he was a dedicated observer of the birds as they traveled through the
air. Despite his astute observations, however, Audubon finds the beauty of the birds
indescribable and impossible to portray through words. The beauty of the spectacle is
something that can only be understood when witnessed. Both the grace of the birds’
movements and the size of their performance, based on sheer numbers, leave Audubon in
awe of the species.
Though Audubon powerfully expresses the beauty and the enormity of Passenger
Pigeons in the wild, he also includes evidence of their devastation in his essay. In tune to
both nature’s processes and human interference with them, Audubon uses his descriptive
language to depict the destruction wrought on the birds. A tremendous number of birds
in the sky brings an equally great number of hunters to the fields and forests to shoot the
birds as they arrive. Audubon writes, “It was a scene of uproar and confusion…Even the
reports of the guns were seldom heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing
the shooters reloading” (36). In this passage, the thunder-like roar of the Pigeons’ wings
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is accompanied by the loud reports of the guns with which the farmers and hunters shoot
the birds, resulting in a deathly cacophony of chaos. Then, Audubon writes, “the authors
of all this devastation began to move among the dead, the dying, and the mangled,
picking up the Pigeons and piling them in heaps. When each man had as many as he
could possibly dispose of, the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder” (37). What
Audubon depicts is a battlefield, littered with dead and mangled bodies, which the victors
take as prisoners or bounty. In this passage, the devastation is wrought by humans in a
war against nature; the birds have been killed to protect the farmers’ fields of grain and to
feed the domesticated hogs. The Pigeon has become both a pest and a commodity; while
the birds were beautiful and graceful only moments before, they now provide food for
both man and beast. “Here again,” Audubon writes, “the tyrant of creation, man,
interferes, disturbing the harmony of this peaceful scene” (38). While Audubon is in awe
of the beauty of the Passenger Pigeon, he is also in awe of man’s ability to destroy their
livelihood. Audubon becomes observer both of nature in its most wild element and
humans in their most frenzied destruction of it.
Despite the carnage that Audubon witnesses, he claims in “Passenger Pigeon” that
he cannot imagine the species ever declining, let alone vanishing. A century later,
however, the “astonishingly swift collapse of the passenger pigeon population added
impetus to the calls for conservation…It was the first time most Americans read about a
new and disturbing concept: extinction” (Weidensaul 136). One of these Americans was
Gene Stratton-Porter, a naturalist, photographer, and writer who grew up with Passenger
Pigeon populations living on her father’s farm. In “The Last Passenger Pigeon,” written
in 1925, a decade after the death of the last Passenger Pigeon, Stratton-Porter describes
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the conservation ethics her father instilled in her and her brothers: “One of the things
Father never would allow our boys to do was to shoot or to trap the Passenger Pigeons”
(196). Her father practiced conservationist principles on the farm, such as monitoring the
number of quail so as not to hunt too many. He also noticed when the lakes dried up or
the streams and rivers were running low, and often attributed environmental problems to
human causes. Even though the Passenger Pigeon was widely more abundant than the
quail, Stratton-Porter’s father insisted on the bird’s protection.
Like Audubon, Stratton-Porter witnesses giant flocks of the pigeons in her youth.
The birds “came in such flocks that we frequently found places where they had settled so
thickly on the branches of trees having brittle wood, such as maple and beech, that quite
good-sized limbs had been broken down from the weight of the pigeons that swarmed
over them to brood by night” (196-197). In addition to noticing the great numbers of
birds that are present, Stratton-Porter also notes the effects of the innumerable birds on
the environment, who are large enough in number to alter the forest ecosystem. It is no
surprise that the birds are also large enough in number to attract the “thoughtless and
brutal hunters” (198) that Stratton-Porter witnesses. She continues:
I was shocked and horrified to see dozens of these beautiful birds, perhaps half of
them still alive, struggling about with broken wings, backs, and legs, waiting to be
skinned, split down the back, and dropped into the pot-pie kettle. I went home
with a story that sickened me, and Father again cautioned our boys not to shoot
even one wild pigeon. (197)
The carnage that Stratton-Porter refers to is no different from the one Audubon reported;
however, Stratton-Porter’s tone when writing about this subject is much different from
Audubon’s. Perhaps because Stratton-Porter is writing with the knowledge that the bird
has since been extinguished, she is more disgusted by the slaughter of the birds than
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Audubon, who was not as horrified at the destruction of nature. He likely thought that
the birds’ populations would quickly replenish themselves; he viewed the pigeons as an
inexhaustible resource for humans. Stratton-Porter, however, is “sickened” by the events
that took place at the hands of the hunters and saddened by the death of the birds she
finds so beautiful.
Affected by the deaths of the pigeons, Stratton-Porter takes note when the pigeon
populations began to decrease: “Soon it became noticeable that the pigeons were not so
numerous. We missed their alert call notes, their musical wings, their small clouds in
flight” (198). The absence of the Passenger Pigeons on the farm and elsewhere is striking
for Stratton-Porter. She misses their presence, their noise, and their appearance. Years
later, when visiting the Cincinnati Zoo, Stratton-Porter hears a small cry from her
childhood: the Passenger Pigeon’s “See? See?” The sound causes an excitement in
Stratton-Porter, and “throwing up my head, I saw…a male wild pigeon, and…a female”
(198-199). Though the Zoo had obtained several pairs of Passenger Pigeons,
reproduction of the species failed, and Stratton-Porter sadly reports:
A few years after this the papers recorded the fact that the male had died, and a
few years later I read of the female having been sent, on her death, to the
Smithsonian Institution in order that a dead bird might be preserved for future
generations; while in one of our magazines at that time (I think the National
Geographic) there was printed a photograph of this bird after she had been
mounted. (199)
Stratton-Porter notes the importance of preserving the bird to be viewed by future
generations while also commenting on the end of an era. In no other part of her essay is
the actual extinction of the Passenger Pigeon more obvious and shocking than in this
passage. The finality of the event is understood as the very last bird is sent to be
preserved.
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After the death of the last Passenger Pigeon, Stratton-Porter goes outside one day
to photograph birds. While outside, a bird flies straight toward her, calling “See? See?”
and bringing with it memories from her childhood. The bird rests on a telephone wire
above Stratton-Porter, who is “left in nearly a dazed condition” (201) by her surprise.
The bird, who arrives “with whistling wings and questing eyes” (202) is none other than a
Passenger Pigeon. Stratton-Porter swears she cannot be mistaken, and though she has no
way of catching the bird, she knows that the $1,000.00 reward for presenting a live bird
to the Cincinnati Zoo would be worthless. In fact, she describes the reward placed on the
bird’s head as “a blasting accusation” (204). The reward could not possibly bring the
species back from the dead. Instead, Stratton-Porter’s brief moment with the bird before
it flew away was a small piece of hope, as well as a warning. She concludes her essay
powerfully:
It was no wonder that strained ‘See? See?’ came to me as the best interpretation
of its call note. The bird might very well have been crying ‘See? See? See what
you have done to me! See what you have done to your beautiful land! Where are
your great stretches of forest? Where are the fish-thronged rivers your fathers
enjoyed? Where are the bubbling springs and the sparkling brooks? Why is this
land parching with thirst even in the springtime? Why have you not saved the
woods and the water and the wildflowers and the rustle of bird wings and the
notes of their song? See what you have done to me! Where a few years ago I
homed over your land in uncounted thousands, to-day I am alone. See me
searching for a mate! See me hunting for a flock of my kind! See what you have
done to me! See! See! See!’ (204)
Stratton-Porter takes on the voice of the Passenger Pigeon, lamenting the death of its own
kind at the hands of human destruction. The bird laments not only his inability to find a
mate or a flock of his own species, but also deforestation, parched land and dried-up
waters, and other environmental problems that humans did not prevent. The bird’s call
becomes a reprimand for humans who did not care for other species or for the land.
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Instead of Stratton-Porter lecturing those who were not raised with the same conservation
ethics as she, the author lets the bird do the talking. And no statement could be more
powerful than the extinct bird’s mocking “See?”
While there are no Passenger Pigeons left to lament the destruction of their
species, authors continue to write about the extinction event that took place at the hands
of humans. While Audubon and Stratton-Porter describe the extinction of the Passenger
Pigeons in literal terms, later authors describe the extinction metaphorically and use
descriptions of the event to caution humans about the way they treat nature. In 1963, half
a century after the death of the last Passenger Pigeon, Robinson Jeffers wrote the poem
“Passenger Pigeons” which begins with a short stanza about the species.
Slowly the passenger pigeons increased, then suddenly
their numbers
Became enormous (lines 1-3).
Jeffers then continues with imagery similar to that of Audubon’s, describing how the
birds would “flatten ten miles of forest” (line 3) and “the cloud of their rising / Eclipsed
the dawns” (lines 4-5). With this imagery, Jeffers illustrates the tremendous scale in
which the flocks of Passenger Pigeons alter the landscape. Using the word “cloud” calls
to mind storm imagery, much like Audubon’s descriptions of the thundering crowds of
birds. The term “eclipse” is one that Audubon also uses to depict the way the flocks of
birds darkened the sky with their numbers. But Jeffers writes,
They became too many, they are all
dead,
Not one remains (lines 5-7).
Jeffers separates the word “dead,” placing it alone in a line separate from the rest of the
text, emphasizing the finality of the word. His short and simple conclusion of the stanza,
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“Not one remains,” also emphasizes to the fact that the birds are permanently gone.
However, through these lines, how or why the Passenger Pigeons are all dead remains a
mystery.
After describing the extinction of the pigeons, Jeffers continues:
You, Death, you watch for these things,
These explosions of life, they are your food,
They make your feasts.
But turn your great rolling eyes
away from humanity,
Those grossly craving black eyes. It is true we increase (lines 13-18).
In these lines, Jeffers addresses Death, noting that Death took away all of the Passenger
Pigeons despite their large numbers. When Jeffers admits that humans are also
increasing in number, he dismisses the fact as if it is of little importance. By telling
Death to look away from increasing human populations, Jeffers creates a distinction
between human populations and animal populations. He places humans above pigeons
by accepting Death’s “feast” on the birds but not allowing Death to “crave” humans in
the same manner. He continues:
It is not necessary to take all at once—besides that, you
cannot do it, we are too powerful,
We are men, not pigeons (lines 41-43).
Jeffers implies that men are greater than pigeons and that men are invincible, unstoppable
by Death, while the pigeons were not. Jeffers’ scornful tone, however, becomes clear
when he writes of the “achievements” (line 47) of humans, including inventing the “jetplane and the death-bomb,” (line 81) as well as “annihilation” (line 53) and the ability to
“explode atoms” (line 55). Human achievements, as Jeffers writes about them, “have
snatched the live thunderbolt / Out of God’s hands” (lines 50-51). By writing of the
power of human achievements, particularly in terms of death and destruction, Jeffers
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sardonically places humans above other species, such as the American bison, dinosaurs,
and most importantly, the extinct Passenger Pigeon. He concludes the poem with the
question “What could exterminate you?” (line 84) making the point that there is no power
that could destroy humans the way that humans destroyed the Passenger Pigeon.
Throughout the poem, Jeffers questions why the Passenger Pigeon went extinct. He
contrasts their death with the eminent survival of the human race. The sharp undertone of
the poem reproves humans for being so careless with other species, and the reader is
asked to question: if we are as careless with earth and the rest of our resources as we were
with the Passenger Pigeons, will we also be exterminated?
Similar to Jeffers’ poem, Mary Oliver’s “Showing the Birds,” published in 2008,
also reprimands humans for being careless with avian species. The short but powerful
poem reads as follows:
Look, children, here is the shy,
flightless dodo; the many-colored
pigeon named the passenger, the
great auk, the Eskimo curlew, the
woodpecker called the Lord God Bird,
the…
Come, children, hurry—there are so many
more wonderful things to show you in
the museum’s dark drawers.
In addition to the Passenger Pigeon, Oliver recalls other birds that have gone extinct. The
poem is a call to the children who will never see these birds in the wild. While the first
lines of the poem makes it seem as though the children are being pointed to birds in the
sky, the poem ends with a sharp conclusion: the birds can only be seen in a museum,
where they have been preserved. Oliver describes the museum’s drawers as “dark,”
indicating that they hold a great sadness or something lost. This poem shows the
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audience that humans have said goodbye to more than one bird species, including the
“many-colored” Passenger Pigeon. Specimens of Passenger Pigeons have been preserved
and mounted in many natural history collections and museums, and similarly, this poem
serves to preserve the birds for future generations. The poem also serves as a lesson for
those generations. By understanding the finality of extinction and the names of the bird
species who have fallen to that finality, readers of Oliver’s poem are warned to protect
the life of avian species, as well as other flora and fauna, on Earth.
The Passenger Pigeon, preserved in museums, manuscripts, and memory,
“symbolizes our sorrow” (Leopold 108). In his short essay “On a Monument to the
Pigeon,” a section of A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold commemorates “the funeral
of a species” (108). A bronze monument, erected in Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin,
memorializes the extinct bird. Though the monument symbolizes human reverence for
the vanished bird, Leopold is not settled by its presence. The monument is not so much
an honor to the bird’s life as it is a reminder that no Passenger Pigeon will ever fly across
the sky again. Leopold writes:
There will always be pigeons in books and in museums, but these are effigies and
images, dead to all hardships and to all delights. Book-pigeons cannot dive out of
a cloud to make the deer run for cover, or clap their wings in thunderous applause
of mast-laden woods. Book-pigeons cannot breakfast on new-mown wheat in
Minnesota, and dine on blueberries in Canada. They know no urge of seasons;
they feel no kiss of sun, no lash of wind and weather. They live forever by not
living at all. (109)
Though flocks of pigeons fill the pages of nature essays and poems, they will never again
fill the “free sky” or the woods of “bursting beechnut” (112). Leopold writes, “To love
what was is a new thing under the sun, unknown to most people and to all pigeons”
(112). To understand the implications of a species’ extinction and to commemorate such
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a loss is something that few humans contemplated until the last Passenger Pigeon died.
However, the loss is not of the pigeons, who will never again “ply their wings” (112), but
of humans, who will never again witness their large migrations block the light of the sun.
There are no Passenger Pigeons left to suffer the destruction that humans impose on
them; instead, humans are the only ones who will suffer the consequences of their actions
against nature.
The end of the Passenger Pigeon came rapidly. As their populations decreased
and finally disappeared, humans became detached from the wild nature the birds
represented. This detachment was a result of both the limited opportunities to observe
the birds in nature and the separation that was formed when humans no longer saw the
birds as a part of nature, but merely as a disposable resource. When Audubon wrote
“Passenger Pigeon,” humans had already begun to ignore the beauty of the Passenger
Pigeon and view them as an object to be hunted and destroyed. The bird went extinct
during Stratton-Porter’s lifetime, but a detachment from the bird formed when it began to
disappear from her father’s farm. The detachment between the Passenger Pigeon and
Jeffers, Oliver, and Leopold is clear simply by the fact that the bird no longer exists and
the two authors cannot witness its presence. Their poems and essays, lessons for
humanity, describe the forced detachment between humans and nature as a result of the
extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. Because these authors write about the sadness at the
lost of the bird, readers glean that “…no diminishment of species was more powerful
than the loss of the Passenger Pigeon” (Koeppel 50), one of the first species to concern
Americans with the concept of extinction. The bird, whose colored feathers once filled
20
the skyscape, will never fly again. Humans have only the powerful descriptions of the
Passenger Pigeons by which to imagine them.
21
Parakeets
Family Psittacidae
“Noisy and gaudily colored. Compact, short-necked birds
with stout, hooked bill. Parakeets smaller, with long,
pointed tail. Feet zygodactyls (two toes fore, two aft).
Range: Worldwide in Tropics and subtropics. Several
exotic species have been released or have escaped,
especially around Miami.”
-Roger Tory Peterson
Field Guide to Birds of North America
22
Carolina Parakeet
Conuropsis carolinensis
“Their beige mandibles, their crowns kissed with orange,
their yellow head and necks, a yellow like the yellow of
some roses, and their bodies of such various greens. Even
in death the parakeets have a stunning beauty, even the
grayish brown of the underside of their tails.”
-Christopher Cokinos, Hope is the Thing with Feathers
“My dictionary defines exotic as ‘foreign; not native,’
something that is ‘strange or different in a way that is
striking or fascinating; strangely beautiful, enticing.’ In a
way, America’s Carolina Parakeet became an exotic
in its own home range.”
-Christopher Cokinos, Hope is the Thing with Feathers
23
Chapter Two
Carolina Parakeets, Conuropsis carolinensis, once “abundant beyond description”
(Rhodes 424) according to John James Audubon, were “…eastern North America’s only
native parrot, a green-and-orange dazzler that ranged as far north at Illinois and New
York in large, screeching, spectacular flocks” (Weidensaul 13). John Lawson, a
naturalist and early explorer of North America who published A New Voyage to Carolina
in 1709, describes the birds as “of a green Colour, and Orange-Colour’d half way their
Head” (Weidensaul 15). In his essay “The Carolina Parrot,” written to accompany his
painting of the birds, Audubon describes the behavior of the parakeets. The flight of the
bird, he writes, “is rapid, straight and continued through the forests or over fields and
rivers, and is accompanied by inclinations of the body which enable the observer to see
alternately their upper and under parts” (103). Such rapid flight over various
environments indicates that the flocks of bright green birds could be viewed by many
observers all over eastern North America. However, the beautiful parakeets became
victims of human capture, guns, loss of habitat, and the introduction of European species
brought to the North American continent. The Carolina Parakeet went extinct in 1918,
and accounts such as Audubon’s and Lawson’s are all that remain to remember the birds.
In Hope is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds,
Christopher Cokinos narrates the extinction of the Carolina Parakeet. The last Carolina
Parakeet, a bird named Incas who was held at the Cincinnati Zoo, “flew into oblivion in
1918” (Rosen 56). An observer once described the Carolina Parakeet as “a bird of
uncommon beauty” (Cokinos 31), and descriptions of the bird are filled with beautiful
color imagery, focusing on the vibrant and unique appearance of the colorful birds.
24
Carolina Parakeets are so uncommonly brilliant that Cokinos was surprised to learn that
such a bird was native to North America. He first learns about the extinct birds after
witnessing a pair of Black-hooded Conures flying over a field in Kansas. These birds
were not native to the area, but their brilliant green color among the Kansas fields
brought Cokinos’ attention to Carolina Parakeets, which he began to research. He writes:
As I looked up descriptions of foreign parrots and parakeets that had escaped into
skies they didn’t originally belong to, I found references to a native bird just as
green as the conures I saw. I read, for the first time, of the Carolina Parakeet—a
North American parakeet whose green, yellow and reddish-orange plumage
appeared vivacious and altogether quite wonderful. As stunning as I found the
hawk-chased conures, this bird astounded me even more. That the Carolina
Parakeet was extinct simply added to my amazement. (12)
Cokinos’ emphasis on the words “native,” “North,” and “this” confirm his surprise and
amazement that such a bird lived in North America. The bird’s appearance—“vivacious”
and “altogether quite wonderful”—includes a variety of colors that Cokinos considers
out-of-place in the North American environment, and he is therefore “astounded” by the
bird’s plumage. Because of the Carolina Parakeet’s unique appearance, Cokinos is
interested in the bird enough to research its natural history and extinction. His research
quest, which begins the composition of Hope is the Thing with Feathers, is a pursuit by
which Cokinos seeks to answer how such a beautiful native bird was moved to extinction.
Cokinos, who never had the chance to observe these birds, bases his descriptions
of the parakeets on previous written accounts and preserved parakeets he views in
museums. Despite the morbidity of viewing birds that have been long dead, Cokinos
uses vibrant color imagery to describe the parakeets. He writes, “the Carolina Parakeet’s
neck and head shone yellow, like the sawtooth sunflower, and its forehead shone the red
of blood-oranges, the red of distant, slowly dying stars” (16-17). Cokinos intensifies
25
simple color imagery. With influence of the knowledge of the bird’s extinction, Cokinos
joins images of death to the brilliance of color used to describe the parakeets. The yellow
of the parakeet’s neck and head is compared to the sawtooth sunflower, which connotes
sharp and dangerous imagery; the red of the parakeet’s forehead is the red of bloodoranges, which the reader recognizes as bright, yet is reminded of wounds or slaughter.
The red of the bird’s forehead is also compared to the red of “distant, slowly dying stars,”
emphasizing that this brightly colored plumage is only a distant memory for readers. The
red stars die slowly, far away; similarly, the Carolina Parakeet died deep in our past and
is slowly fading from memory.
Despite the opposition of Cokinos’ color imagery, which is simultaneously bright
and melancholic, other descriptions he presents of the bird capitalize on its vivid,
stunning appearance. Cokinos writes:
Consider how the Carolina Parakeet’s chest and belly showed a green slightly
deeper and more vivid than the green of an osage orange fruit or a black walnut’s
husk. Its body shimmered greens, like lake water or calm ocean in the cloudshifting, low light of late day. Its back displayed a green like dark, shiny leaves.
A portion of even darker green wedged along the wing, and the wing tips carried
hints of bluishness. Where wing met body—the coverts—a yellow streak
sparked, another announcement of color in the air; the wing’s outer edge tinged in
an orange-reddish tint. (16)
In this passage, Cokinos compares the colors of the parakeet to aspects of its natural
environment. Images of osage oranges, black walnuts, lake water, calm ocean, evening
light, and dark leaves place the bird in a natural setting as colorful as itself. This use of
color imagery makes the bird a part of the natural environment, reinforcing the fact that
the Carolina Parakeet was indeed a bird native to North America, not a house pet that had
been released like the Black-hooded Conures. The variety of color described in this
passage—greens, blues, yellows, oranges, and reds—emphasizes the exceptional
26
vibrancy of the bird’s plumage. Cokinos reinforces this incomparable appearance: “It is
not surprising…that the Carolina Parakeet’s noisy flocks and luminous plumage of green,
yellow and red impressed writers of diaries, letters and books. A stunning bird, about a
foot long from beak tip to tail tip, the Carolina Parakeet shone unlike anything in North
American skies ever since” (16). The bird’s appearance influenced many observers, and
descriptions of the bird’s colors are enough to continue to influence present readers and
writers, such as Cokinos. He is certain that no other bird can be compared with the
Carolina Parakeet because of its uniquely colorful appearance.
Considering how beautiful this bird appeared to observers, it is astonishing that
humans pushed the Carolina Parakeet to extinction. Several factors combined to threaten
the Carolina Parakeet’s survival. A predominant cause was the loss of habitat vital for
the species. Logging of forests for wood fuel and the conversion of swamp habitat to rice
plantations limited the birds’ available habitat. Carolina Parakeets also depended on
native bamboo canebreaks. When bamboo went to seed, the parakeets were triggered to
mate. With the clearing of bamboo, the birds lost this signal, and reproduction rates
decreased (Cokinos 26-27). The introduction of the European honeybee to North
America also threatened the species. Carolina Parakeets, who use the hollows of trees for
nesting, soon found their homes being used by honeybees. Unable to compete with these
stinging insects who posed a new and unwelcome threat, and unable to adapt to new
nesting places, the birds again were limited in their reproductive capacity (Cokinos 28).
While the Carolina Parakeets suffered greatly from changes in habitat and
competition, one cause of the bird’s extinction was the capture of the sought-after birds.
The beautiful natural vibrancy of the Carolina Parakeet turned it into a victim of human
27
capture. Imprisoning the parakeets as cage birds further reduced the genetic diversity of
an already limited population in the wild. Historically, humans collected parakeets to be
caged as pets, and people still enjoy the companionship nonnative bright parakeets today.
In her poem “A Sadness” (2002), Anita Skeen presents emotions which portray the
human need to be connected to nature through relationships with non-human animals. In
this poem, the speaker’s pet was not a Carolina Parakeet, but the connection that humans
felt to birds such as the Carolina Parakeet can be seen through Skeen’s descriptions. She
writes about the death of a pet parakeet “who flashed like green / neon” and “opened the
day with song” (lines 3-4). Today, “no chirping springs / from the cage” (lines 1-2);
however, Skeen writes:
in the cage of my brain she still extends
her wings, leans into manic flight.
Behind my eyes, the whirring
of yellow-green. (lines 5-8)
Though the bird has died, it is still trapped in the speaker’s mind. The bright yellowgreen of the bird and the excited wing movements are sharp memories that illustrate the
importance of the bird in the speaker’s life. Its survival in the speaker’s mind shows how
much the speaker misses the pet parakeet and longs for its companionship. The
memories also prove the value of the speaker’s connection with a non-human animal.
Though the speaker cannot communicate with the bird as she would with another human,
she nevertheless forms a friendship with the pet parakeet. This bond is strengthened by
the bird’s daily presence in the speaker’s life.
The speaker further demonstrates the role of the parakeet in her life when Skeen
writes “Think of the small creatures we take / into our lives, the gift of their non-human /
28
presence” (lines 22-24). Such a gift of companionship is vital for the speaker. Skeen
shows the necessity of such non-human companionship when she concludes the poem:
The unremarkable way, like the air
we inhale, they sustain us,
our struggle for breath
when they’re gone. (lines 30-33)
Though the presence of non-human companions such as Skeen’s parakeet may be
“unremarkable,” such a presence is as vital as air, and the absence of the parakeet is
blatant. By comparing the parakeet to something as necessary as air, Skeen enforces the
connection between the speaker and the bird: the speaker depends on the bird’s company.
Despite the speaker’s closeness to her pet, Skeen does not anthropomorphize the bird.
The descriptions she uses allow the bird to maintain its nonhuman characteristics and
behaviors. However, the speaker “struggles” to live without this nonhuman companion.
Though the bird is brilliant in color and described as “whirring” and in “manic flight,” it
is clear that it is not the bird’s excitement, but merely its simple presence in the speaker’s
life that makes its disappearance such a struggle. The title of the poem, “A Sadness,” is a
simple way to reflect the speaker’s strife. The title is an honest and candid expression of
the speaker’s sorrow at losing a much-loved companion.
Skeen’s poem describes a human desire to be connected to non-human animals,
such as birds, as well as “A Sadness” at the loss of such a connection. However, Cokinos
describes a much greater sadness: the extinction of the Carolina Parakeet. While Skeen
describes the loss of a single parakeet, Cokinos tells the tale of the extinction of an entire
species. One of the greatest causes of the bird’s extinction, as Cokinos notes, was the
prolific hunting and shooting of the parakeets. Hunters often shot the parakeets for sport
29
because they were easy to shoot and made good target practice. Cokinos describes why
they were so easily shot:
Though equipped with formidable feet and beaks, Carolina Parakeets feared
hawks and increased their odds of survival through flocking. But this genetic
proclivity to togetherness—the adaptive need to be as one—proved to be an
important factor in the bird’s demise. When attacked by gunners, the parakeets
would exhibit a behavior that only made the killing easier. The bird swarmed in
disbelief. (29-30)
As much as the birds were in disbelief when they were gunned down, current readers
might also be in disbelief that these beautiful birds were shot to extinction: because they
destroyed crops, because they were eaten by settlers on the frontier, because their feathers
and entire bodies were used as fashion accessories, and because they were collected by
ornithologists and naturalists for display, science, and education (29-35). In Of a
Feather: A Brief History of American Birding, Scott Weidensaul depicts the whirl of
gunfire that led to the Carolina Parakeet’s demise:
…ornithologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were rabidly
interested in acquiring the rarest specimens they could. Among the worst
examples are the Carolina parakeet and ivory-billed woodpeckers, two species
which by the 1890s were clearly in desperate straits. The rarer they became, the
greater the frenzy to get them for museum collections. Roughly 660 parakeets
from Florida were shot and stuffed for collections in the last two decades of the
nineteenth century. (139)
At this rate of destruction, it is hardly surprising that the parakeets were doomed to
extinction by the beginning of the twentieth century.
Though the parakeets were still numerous when Audubon observed them in the
mid nineteenth century, he describes the threat that gunfire posed to the birds in “The
Carolina Parrot”:
…the Parakeets are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in
plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman
approaches them with perfect ease and commits great slaughter among them. All
30
the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes and again alight on
the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten or
even twenty are killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if conscious of the
death of their companions, sweep over their bodies screaming as loud as ever but
still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive that the farmer does
not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition. (102-103)
The parakeets lose all vibrancy, beauty, and value to the farmer who shoots them as pests.
The farmer easily “commits great slaughter” to protect his grain and orchards. The
farmer’s ammunition, an inanimate and replaceable object, has even more value than the
birds; it is not “worth his while” to use any more once the birds are reduced in number
enough to no longer pose a threat to the farmer’s crops. Unlike Skeen’s description of
human love for a parakeet, there is no connection between the human and the non-human
in this circumstance. The lives of the non-human are completely disposable to the
farmer. In his essay, Audubon notes the decline of the parakeets in the wild: “Our
Parakeets are very rapidly diminishing in number, and in some districts where twentyfive years ago they were plentiful scarcely any are now to be seen. At that period they
could be procured as far up the tributary waters of the Ohio as the Great Kenhawa, the
Scioto, the heads of the Miami…” (105). Even though Audubon was a naturalist with a
great love of birds, his tone indicates that the parakeets are a commodity or a disposable
object. Though Audubon is conscious of the decline of the birds, he still speaks of the
parakeets as an object that can be “procured.” He makes no connection between the
scarcity of the birds and human contributions to that scarcity.
It is unclear when the last Carolina Parakeet became extinct in the wild. It may
have been before or after the death of Incas, the male parakeet who died in the Cincinnati
Zoo on February 21, 1918. Some say that Incas “died of grief” (Cokinos 51) after the
death of his mate, Lady Jane, several months before. Incas’ sorrow was not only at
31
losing his mate of 32 years; it was the anguish of the loss of an entire species. To
emphasize this sorrow, Cokinos questions the shooting of one of the last wild parakeets:
“How often do we memorialize these final acts, these last blows in our murder of a
species?” He continues, “…extinction is not some newsbrief from a distant rain forest.
It’s here. It happened here” (57). Cokinos uses words heavy with bitterness: “final acts”
and “our murder” show the brutal conclusiveness of the life of the Carolina Parakeet.
Cokinos’ emphasis on the word “here” shows that extinction is not an event that happens
in the far past or remote places of the world; rather, it is an event that has occurred in the
near past, and continues to threaten many species today. Because the Carolina Parakeet
is a native species, its extinction is an event that has occurred in places many of us have
been. The extinction of the Carolina Parakeet occurred largely due to human influence,
and the result is the loss of a parakeet native to North America, a parakeet that astounded
observers with its beauty. Cokinos writes, “I remembered what the conservationist and
writer Aldo Leopold once said: ‘Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art,
with the pretty.’ I understood that the Carolina Parakeet—Conuropsis carolinensis—
was, by virtue of its beauty and its extinction, more than just a species” (13). “More than
just a species,” the Carolina Parakeet represents a piece of nature that has been lost. Its
death is a warning to humans to protect and conserve the species that remain; its beauty is
a reminder of all that is wonderful in nature.
32
Hummingbirds
Family Trochilidae
“The smallest birds. Iridescent, with needlelike bill for
sipping nectar. Jewel-like gorget (throat feathers) adorns
most adult males; in poor light, however, iridescences may
not show and throat will appear dark. Hummingbirds hover
when feeding; their wing motion is so rapid that wings
appear as a blur. They can fly backward. Pugnacious.
Vocal differences can be important identification aids.
Food: Nectar (red flowers favored), small insects, spiders.
Range: W. Hemisphere; majority in Tropics.”
-Roger Tory Peterson
Field Guide to Birds of North America
“Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of Matter, half-inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.”
- D. H. Lawrence, Humming-Bird
33
Chapter Three
Found only in the Western hemisphere, the hummingbird is the smallest of all
birds. These tropical birds fly north during the summer months but migrate south to
Mexico during the winter, flying at an amazing fifty miles an hour (Caras 197).
Descriptions of these birds by early English explorers such as John Lawson “were
dismissed as moonshine by the learned folk back home” (Weidensaul 16) because those
who had never seen them could not imagine a bird “no bigger than my thumb” (Oliver,
Owls 28). Lawson, whose “greatest enthusiasm” was for the Ruby-throated
Hummingbird, describes it as “the Miracle of all our wing’d Animals” (Weidensaul 16).
Such a perception has not changed over time: many modern writers portray the
hummingbird as a miracle of nature, unique for its smallness and exceptional beauty.
The hummingbird is, as Lawson describes, a “marvel.” Mystifying because of its
miniature size, swift movements, and spectacular appearance, the hummingbird is a bird
that humans love to observe and wish to become familiar with.
The hummingbird, whose wings beat a stunning 70 times per second, appears “as
if he were suspended in a veil of shimmering gauze,” writes Roger Caras in “Endless
Migrations,” an essay that describes the migrations of several bird and mammal species.
Hummingbirds appear in short bursts of flight and leave just as quickly, and writers,
through their descriptions of color and size, note the beauty in these “blurs.” Caras
continues, “His body was distinct, but his wings were only a blur” (194). In her poem
“Hummingbirds,” Mary Oliver also uses the term “shimmering” to describe “their palegreen dresses” (lines 4-5), and Lawson describes the hummingbird’s coloring as “green,
34
red, Aurora, and other Colours mixt” (Weidensaul 16). Though a blur of flight, those
who write about the hummingbird note the remarkable colors and iridescence of the
bird’s feathers. Other descriptions of hummingbirds show how bright the small creatures
are. Oliver describes them as “tiny fireworks” (line 6) with “sea-green helmets” (line 22)
and “brisk, metallic tails” (line 23), and as “tosses of silvery water” (line 33). Such
sketches of the hummingbirds’ marvelous colors are matched by descriptions of their
size, which equally impresses authors. With “dainty, charcoal feet” (line 10), the
hummingbird “is much less than a Wren, and very nimble,” with their eggs “the Bigness
of Pease” and their nests small enough to hang “on a single Bryar” (Lawson, quoted in
Weidensaul 16). The hummingbird is even small enough to be compared to bees, who
live similarly “by sucking the Honey from each Flower” (16). The hummingbird is such
a small bird that in “the larger sort of Flowers, he will bury himself, by diving to the
bottom of it, so that he is quite cover’d” (16). Through their unique appearance, the
small birds attain a sort of perfection. In Oliver’s poem, two hummingbird chicks “fly,
for the first time” (line 21) when “each tulled wing / with every dollop of flight / draw[s]
a perfect wheel / across the air” (lines 24-27). The birds stop to stare at Oliver, but “they
were gone” (line 34) as quickly as they appeared, leaving her with only a glimpse of their
perfection.
With their size, beauty, and movement, hummingbirds are a pleasure to behold.
Appearing in small bursts of energy, the small birds surprise writers, giving them an
experience worth writing about. Lester Rowntree, in her essay “Collecting Myself,”
writes about the importance of gaining knowledge through firsthand experience in nature.
This idea is fundamental to the human desire to witness hummingbirds in their natural
35
habitat and to discover the small intricacies of the birds’ lives. Rowntree remembers an
experience when she witnessed a hummingbird: “Khaki is a color that blends well with
soil, tree-bark and foliage…I have had hummingbirds light on the sleeve of a khaki shirt
containing a motionless arm…” (24). The closeness of the hummingbird to Rowntree is
both surprising and fulfilling. Rowntree’s arm is motionless when the hummingbird
alights, but the hummingbird moves so quickly that it is gone in the blink of an eye. For
the hummingbird to pause on Rowntree’s arm, instead of passing by in a blur, gives
Rowntree an experience that most will never have. Observing a hummingbird is a
novelty because the birds are so much faster, so much more brilliant, and so much
smaller than humans. These differences make the bird unique, and humans find
something desirable in observing them and getting close to them.
It is no easy task to get close to a hummingbird, and due to their rapid
movements, time spent observing the birds is often very minimal. The appearance of the
birds and their presence before human eyes is an unusual gift. The rarity of the
opportunity to closely examine a hummingbird in nature makes such events stand out in
memory and in writing. In her poem “Summer Story,” Oliver, like Rowntree, describes
an experience observing a hummingbird in nature, showing both her pleasure of
observation and her desire to know the hummingbird. The bird “sinks its face / into the
trumpet vine” (lines 2-3), and Oliver writes:
I am scorched
to realize once again
how many small, available things
are in this world
that aren’t
pieces of gold
or power— (lines 9-15)
36
Seeing the hummingbird shocks the speaker of the poem, and she finds so much pleasure
in watching the bird that she realizes that delight and joy are made very accessible by the
world. Watching a hummingbird’s “thin beak probing and dipping” (line 31) is enjoyable
because it is such a rare experience. Even though the hummingbirds arrive and leave
human presence so quickly, a fleeting image of one of the birds is enough to bring
humans closer to knowing and understanding the small, unique birds.
In addition to being amazed by the movement of hummingbirds as they swiftly
appear and disappear, authors are also amazed at the energy of the small birds and the
distances they travel. The hummingbird is a migratory bird, and Annie Dillard notices
“the Zugunruhe” or “the great restlessness…of birds before migration” (249) during the
early autumn in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Along with the titmice, chickadees, and
sparrows that Dillard describes, it is likely that hummingbirds experience the same
restlessness before their great migration to Mexico. “The birds were excited,” (249) she
writes, and this excitement is not surprising. As Caras writes, “The energy used [in
migration] is extraordinary” (193). To fuel this energy, the one-eighth-ounce
hummingbird must feed. The birds prefer the nectar of red flowers, but they will eat the
nectar from any flower, as well as insects. Caras describes the energy of the
“pugnacious, rapacious little spirits”: “Their metabolism is atomic and they must feed
much of the time. Each a jewel, each a small electric explosion of color and iridescence,
the birds must feed a furnace and will gain in return incomparable powers of flight” (193194). By using terms like “jewel,” “explosion,” and “iridescence” to describe the birds,
Caras depicts a certain brilliance that matches the energy of the hummingbirds. Their
movement is “electric”: quick, lively, and energized. The nectar from vividly colored
37
flowers provides the fuel for this vibrant energy. It makes the hummingbirds powerful
and able to complete a journey that is colossal relative to their size. The small bird’s
resilience to the challenges of completing such a long migration is a mystifying
characteristic; it is astonishing how far the hummingbird’s small wings can take it. The
miracle of the hummingbird’s migration impresses writers as much as the short, quick
movements of the birds as they feed on nectar. Understanding and appreciating the
liveliness and energy involved in the hummingbird’s migration causes humans to view
the small birds with admiration.
Though most authors use imagery to describe the beauty of hummingbirds, the
pleasure of observing them, and their admirable characteristics, not all descriptions of
hummingbirds are positive or peaceful. However, by understanding the negative fates
and headstrong behaviors of hummingbirds, observers come closer to understanding the
lives of the small birds. In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Dillard is sensitive to the death that
approaches hummingbirds. She writes of “outright predators” (240) that kill
hummingbirds. “Large spiders in barns have been known to trap, wrap, and suck
hummingbirds,” (52) she writes, and describes “the swathing and sipping of trapped
hummingbirds by barn spiders” (240). While the hummingbird previously sipped the
nectar from flowers, it is now being sipped, in an extremely brutal sense, by large barn
spiders. Spiders aren’t the only predators of hummingbirds. Dillard also describes the
eating habits of adult praying mantises, who consume “more or less everything that
breathes and is small enough to capture…People have actually seen them seize and
devour garter snakes, mice, and even hummingbirds” (56). Dillard’s emphasis on
“hummingbirds” shows her amazement that such small and beautiful creatures can be
38
killed by insects. The “feats of predators can be…gruesome” (240) she writes. The
hummingbird’s small size leaves them prey to other creatures, and tragedy meets them
despite their beauty. Dillard, always focused on nature’s cycles, notices the “gruesome”
destruction that sometimes falls upon hummingbirds. She writes about this death with a
clear mind, able to accept reality but still amazed by the fates that have befallen some
hummingbirds. By witnessing the death of hummingbirds and accepting their fate as a
part of nature’s cycles, Dillard is able to more fully understand the individual
hummingbird’s life cycle and the role the bird plays in its environment.
In addition to experiencing brutality by predators, hummingbirds also impose
injury on each other. John Daniel describes hummingbird behavior in “A Word in Favor
of Rootlessness,” an essay which questions ideas about place and belonging. Daniel is
frustrated with how seriously attached to “place” many species become, and after being
stung by a wasp defending its home, Daniel observes hummingbirds who confirm his
“bitter state of mind.” “The place in question is the hummingbird feeder, and the chief
influence of that place is to inspire in hummingbirds a fiercely intense desire to impale
one another on their needlelike beaks,” Daniel writes. He continues:
Surely they’re expending more energy blustering in their buzzy way than they
possible can be deriving from the feeder. This behavior is not simply a
consequence of feeding Kool-Aid to already over-amped birds—they try to kill
each other over natural flower patches too. Nor can it be explained as the
typically mindless and violent behavior of the male gender in general. Both sexes
are represented in the fray, and females predominate. It is simply a demonstration
of over-identification with place. (261)
Like other authors, Daniel describes the immense energy that hummingbirds harbor;
however, instead of using this energy for flight or migration, these birds use it to fight
each other. Though the hummingbirds are small, their “needlelike beaks” are still
39
dangerous weapons when used against each other, and the “over-amped birds” have a
“fiercely intense desire” to triumph over each other to gain full ownership of the
hummingbird feeder. Daniel describes this violent behavior as an “over-identification
with place,” and he notes that “Humans do it too” (261). By comparing the birds and
their identification with place to humans, Daniel draws a connection between the two
species. Other authors are impressed with hummingbirds because of their smallness and
brilliance of color, two attributes that stand out as unusual and unique. In contrast,
Daniel examines the birds by what he understands: a sense of place, something that all
species possess. Through this observation, Daniel creates a new way of knowing and
understanding the small birds. Though Daniel can identify with the hummingbirds’
actions, their violence disturbs him. The hummingbirds “blustering in their buzzy way”
is not as amazing a spectacle as the birds’ flight or colors which other authors describe.
However, Daniel knows this behavior is a part of nature, just as Dillard understands “the
swathing and sipping of trapped hummingbirds by barn spiders” as a part of nature. The
persistence of the hummingbirds to have adequate access to their food resources indicates
a determination for survival. By recognizing this behavior as a part of the
hummingbird’s life cycle and the larger cycles of nature, observers like Daniel can
appreciate the actions of hummingbirds as necessary within their “place.”
Despite observations of violence and brutality, such as those described by Dillard
and Daniel, hummingbirds still inspire in most authors an understanding of beauty and an
appreciation for such a “marvel” of a creature. Caras describes a hummingbird with
these ideals in mind: “It was a flashing jewel, a speck of colored light, a sunspot in a
blurred gauze veil of flight-sustaining motion…then vanishing like a fairy light, remote
40
yet common, seeable yet unexplainable, one of the miracles of nature” (198). In this
description, Caras includes images of color, brilliance, and movement. He also
articulates the fact that because of its characteristics, the hummingbird is a creature that is
partly unknown to humans, even though humans frequently have the opportunity to
observe the bird. The bird is “unexplainable,” but it is not completely unknowable.
Writers who are lucky enough to observe the small, swift birds in nature have the
opportunity to relate to readers the behaviors, characteristics, and appearance of
hummingbirds, so that each can gather a stronger sense of knowing the birds. The
hummingbird will continually impress humans with its presence, because it is indeed
“one of the miracles of nature.”
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Herons and Egrets
Family Ardeidae
“Medium to large wading birds with long neck, spearlike
bill. They stand with neck erect or head back on shoulders.
In flight, neck is folded in an S; legs trail. Many herons
have plumes when breeding. Sexes similar. Food: Fish,
frogs, crawfish, other aquatic life; mice, gophers, small
birds, insects. Range: Worldwide except colder regions.”
-Roger Tory Peterson
Field Guide to Birds of North America
“Like other artists, my river is temperamental; there is no
predicting when the mood to paint will come upon him, or
how long it will last. But in midsummer, when the great
white fleets cruise the sky for day after flawless day, it is
worth strolling down to the sandbars just to see whether he
has been at work. The work begins with a broad ribbon of
silt brushed thinly on the sand of a receding shore. As this
dries slowly in the sun, goldfinches bathe in its pools, and
deer, herons, killdeers, raccoons, and turtles cover it with a
lacework of tracks. There is no telling, at this stage,
whether anything further will happen.”
-Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
42
Chapter Four
Humans rarely have the opportunity to observe herons and egrets due to their
elusive nature, and because such observations are rare, humans bestow a great value upon
the chance to view the secretive birds. Writers of environmental literature often depict
herons and egrets as a part of marshy water environments; Great Blue Herons, Green
Herons, and White Egrets are some of the many species that authors describe. The longnecked, graceful waders are most often portrayed as silent, solitary creatures who
camouflage themselves among tall river grasses or the blue shadows of a marsh.
Although these birds, strongly tied to the rhythms of water, occupy a world apart from
humans, authors are drawn to them. The value these writers place upon herons and egrets
is evident in descriptions that draw together the elements of water, land, and air to create
a natural beauty that emphasizes human admiration for the solitary birds.
As authors describe water-dominated landscapes, they reveal the hiding places of
these birds. The long, thin legs and necks of herons and egrets allow the birds to blend in
well with tall grasses and other vegetation characteristic of stream, river, and lake
environments. In her poem “Knot,” Pattiann Rogers incorporates both a white egret and
a heron into the natural setting she describes. She writes:
I am skillful
at tracing the white egret within the white
branches of the dead willow where it roosts
and at separating the heron’s graceful neck
from the leaning stems of the blue-green
lilies surrounding. (lines 5-10)
Both egrets and herons blend so well into their natural environments that it takes a
“skillful” eye to determine where these birds are standing. Because the speaker of the
poem must “separate” the bodies of the birds from the surrounding vegetation, Rogers
43
shows that bird and background are bonded, as in the title of the poem. Rogers writes,
“All afternoon I part, I isolate, I untie, / I undo” (lines 17-18). In her observations of the
egret and heron, the speaker spends her time disentangling the birds from their
environment, only to find that the birds cannot be removed from the landscape. Every
part of nature that the speaker has “isolated” returns to its place, woven among its
surroundings. Rogers concludes her poem:
…the new stars, showing now
through the night-spaces of the sweet gum
and beech, squeeze into the dark
bone of my breast, take their perfectly
secured stitches up and down, pull
all of their thousand threads tight
and fasten, fasten. (lines 27-33)
Despite how skillfully the speaker separates parts of nature, each piece immediately ties
itself to its surroundings once more. Just as the new stars “pull all of their thousand
threads tight,” so, too, do the egret and heron “fasten, fasten” themselves back into their
environments. The egret once more becomes a part of the dead willow tree, and the
heron again camouflages itself between the blue-green stems of the lilies. Even though
the speaker has an expert eye and can distinguish where the wading birds live and hide,
she understands that she cannot remove the birds from their natural settings. It is partly
because the environment conceals the birds so well that it is such a pleasure for observers
to discover them. That the birds are often well-hidden makes each glimpse of an egret or
heron a quiet surprise for the viewer. This secrecy makes egrets and herons unique, and
observers delight in such silent beauty.
While Rogers describes a “knot” that ties the egret and heron to the surrounding
vegetation, the birds are more often connected to the water of their environments. Many
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passages about herons focus on the bodies of water in which they thrive. Wendell Berry,
in his poem “The Heron,” describes “the river / where it flowed, faithful to its way” (lines
2-3). The river brings a memory of a heron to Berry’s mind, and the memory “lifts into
mind in undeniable flood” (line 9). The flow of the river is steady, yet the memory it
calls forth acts as a flood, filling Berry’s mind with a watery reverie. He remembers
observing a heron as he takes a foggy boat trip along the river. Berry writes:
And I go on until I see, crouched
on a dead branch sticking out of the water,
a heron—so still that I believe
he is a bit of drift hung dead above the water.
And then I see the articulation of feather
and living eye, a brilliance I receive
beyond my power to make, as he
receives in his great patience
the river’s providence. (lines 16-24)
Berry’s description again shows that the environment camouflages the heron. The bird
appears to be one with the dead branch sticking out of the water, and as in Rogers’ poem,
it takes a skillful eye to determine that the piece of dead wood is actually a heron. The
concealment of the heron within the river environment makes “the articulation of feather
and living eye” full of details that are both surprising and satisfying for the speaker. In
addition to noting the bird’s disguise, however, Berry also notes the heron’s role within
the spiritual ecosystem of the river. The bird “receives in his great patience the river’s
providence,” showing that the water both takes care of the bird and determines its
destiny. The river becomes a divine caretaker for its creatures, concealing the heron from
intruders and protecting it from harm. After viewing and understanding the patience of
the heron, Berry concludes his poem:
And then I see
that I am seen. Still as I keep,
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I might be a tree for all the fear he shows.
Suddenly I know that I have passed across
to a shore where I do not live. (lines 24-28)
Berry recognizes that he is unwelcome and no longer free to view the silent bird, and the
concluding two lines of the poem reinforce the fact that he has intruded. In this poem,
water plays two roles. For Berry, the river acts as “an undeniable flood” and obscures his
vision with fog. These two natural factors make his trip to the river a challenge, showing
that the river is not amiable to those who do not belong there. In contrast, for the heron,
the river is a divine entity that protects the bird. The nature that surrounds and includes
the river hides the heron from intruders, camouflaging the bird and allowing it to live
fruitfully along the water’s shores. The river is a welcoming home for the heron, but an
unpredictable force for visitors. Berry recognizes this difference, allowing him to truly
appreciate the “brilliance” of his short observations of the elusive heron.
Berry appreciates the presence of the heron despite his knowledge that he is
unwelcome in the heron’s river home. Similarly, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie
Dillard appreciates the presence of a green heron she observes on the creek, despite her
knowledge that she is an intruder. As Berry was suddenly seen by the heron, making him
realize that he was unwanted, so too the green heron “keep[s] an eye” on Dillard. She
writes, “I watched it for half an hour, during which time it stalked about in the creek
moodily, expanding and contracting its incredible, brown-streaked neck. It made only
three lightning-quick stabs at strands of slime for food, and all three times occurred when
my head was turned slightly away” (190). The fact that the heron stalks about “moodily”
shows that the bird is irritated by Dillard’s presence, and the heron does not allow Dillard
the pleasure of adequately viewing its behavior. Even though the heron is annoyed at
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Dillard’s presence, Dillard is still able to notice details about the bird and the surrounding
area. She describes her observations:
The heron was in calm shallows; the deepest water it walked in went two inches
up its orange legs. It would go and get something from the cattails on the side,
and, when it had eaten it—tossing up its beak and contracting its throat in great
gulps—it would plod back to a dry sandbar in the center of the creek which
seemed to serve as its observation tower. It wagged its stubby tail up and down;
its tail was so short it did not extend beyond its folded wings. (190-191)
Dillard distinguishes details about the heron, from its orange legs to its stubby tail. In
addition to noting the bird’s physical characteristics, Dillard also writes about the heron’s
environment. It is clear from this passage that the heron is in command over much of the
creek, including the calm shallows, shore-hugging cattails, and inner sandbar. The bird is
the center of its dominion, making Dillard aware that the creek belongs to the heron, and
she is simply a visitor.
Dillard continues her observations of the green heron, and as she does, she is
made more aware that she is only a visitor to the bird’s home. She writes:
Mostly it just watched me warily, as if I might shoot it, or steal its minnows for
my own supper, if it did not stare me down. But my only weapon was stillness,
and my only wish its continued presence before my eyes. I knew it would fly
away if I made the least false move. In half an hour it got used to me—as though
I were a bicycle somebody had abandoned on the bridge, or a branch left by high
water. It even suffered me to turn my head slowly, and to stretch my aching legs
very slowly. But finally, at the end, some least motion or thought set it off, and it
rose, glancing at me with a cry, and winged slowly away upstream, around a
bend, and out of sight. (191)
The reader sees a contrast between Dillard’s and the green heron’s perceptions of each
other. While Dillard only wants the heron’s “continued presence before [her] eyes,” the
heron is aggravated by Dillard’s presence and merely tolerates her. As in Berry’s poem,
it is clear that Dillard has “passed across to a shore” where she does not live. The creek
belongs to the green heron, and Dillard is only a temporary visitor to the heron’s home.
47
From the heron’s wariness and Dillard’s caution and stillness, it is evident that the heron
prefers solitude; Dillard’s wish of observing the heron is only briefly fulfilled before the
bird chooses privacy and flies away. Because herons are normally so secretive, Dillard
optimizes her opportunity to observe the green heron and does not leave it alone until it
flies from her presence. The attention Dillard gives to the heron is indicative of the value
she places upon the bird and the rarity of such a chance to observe it. Aware of the bird’s
preference for solitude, Dillard watches the bird from a distance. She pretends to be a
natural part of the heron’s environment though she knows her presence aggravates the
bird.
Berry’s heron and Dillard’s green heron are the sole rulers of their river and creek
environments. For them, human presence is unwanted. In her poem “Hope and Love,”
Jane Hirshfield also describes the “solitary habit” of herons. However, in this poem, the
speaker is a distant observer; the blue heron about which Hirshfield writes does not know
that he is being watched. The absence of an immediate human presence in the heron’s
life allows the speaker to observe the bird “all winter.” The poem reads as follows:
All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if the solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one—
not knowing even
that was what he did—
in the blowing
sounds in the dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
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love we carry.
He slept
with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.
The blue heron in this poem is a solitary creature who finds company and warmth among
the horses—not other birds—during the cold winter months. The dark, wintry images of
the poem produce a sense of melancholy in both the heron, who may be waiting for
another heron, and the speaker, who may also be missing someone. The speaker
attributes her own sense of “missing” to the heron, claiming that “hope is the hardest love
we carry.” It appears that the speaker of the poem has experienced a lost or unfulfilled
love, and she transfers this human characteristic to the blue heron. The simile that
compares the heron’s folded neck to “a letter put away” further suggests that the speaker
has “put away” a past love; this comparison further anthropomorphizes the heron, turning
the bird into a symbol of the speaker’s lost love. The speaker compares the heron’s
solitary nature to human love without the heron even being aware of the speaker’s
presence or attention. Such attentiveness to the heron’s life shows that the speaker
wishes to understand his habits. In her attempt to understand the heron, she imposes her
own knowledge and experience to the heron’s life. In contrast, the speaker’s struggles or
her analysis of the heron’s life is not of concern to the heron. This disparity shows a
human desire to be closer to the nonhuman bird, while the heron will continue to live a
solitary life “among the horses.”
The speaker of Hirshfield’s poem projects her own longing by comparing human
love to the heron’s life, but she continues her observations without frightening the bird
away with human thoughts, ideas, or presence. As with the herons that Berry and Dillard
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describe, Hirshfield’s heron prefers a life of solitude apart from human life. Despite this
universal preference of herons to choose seclusion from human attention, authors have
been able to observe the birds. Like Hirshfield, Mary Oliver also observes herons from a
distance. She begins her poem “Herons in Winter in the Frozen Marsh” much like
Hirshfield begins her poem:
All winter
two blue herons
hunkered in the frozen marsh,
like two columns of blue smoke. (lines 1-4)
The introduction of the poem sets a cold, melancholic winter scene. The herons are
crouching and huddling because of the cold; the marsh is frozen, making it seem
unforgiving; the herons are the sad grayish-blue of smoke. Though the herons are not
alone, as Berry’s, Dillard’s, and Hirshfield’s herons are, Oliver still creates a sense of
loneliness by forming somber images of the frozen marsh. Oliver continues to describe
the winter scene and the challenges that face the herons in the cold and harsh
environment:
What they ate
I can’t imagine,
unless it was the small laces
of snow that settled
in the ruckus of the cattails,
or the glazed windows of ice
under the tired
pitchforks of their feet. (lines 5-12)
In these lines, Oliver uses delicate images to describe the wintry marsh. The “small
laces” of snow and the “glazed windows” of ice connote fragility in the frozen marsh.
Such delicacy and fragility match the lives of the two herons, who are tall, thin, and
appear as breakable as a brittle icicle in the frozen winter landscape. With nothing to eat,
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the meager birds “were mired in nature, and starving” (line 16). The frozen marsh,
unable to provide for the “tired” herons, is a cold, desolate place. However, Oliver
continues to observe the two birds throughout the winter, and she notes with optimism:
Still, every morning
they shrugged the rime from their shoulders,
and all day they
stood to attention
in the stubbled desolation. (lines 17-21)
The resilience of the herons fills Oliver with “admiration,” “sympathy,” and “empathy”
(lines 22-24). Despite the unpleasantness of the harsh, icy marsh environment, the two
birds, together, withstand the winter. The herons endure the hardships placed upon them
until the spring, when “Finally the marsh softened” (line 26) and the two birds fly away.
The two birds have “vanished” (line 31), but Oliver’s observations go on. She continues
to watch the marsh:
All spring, I watched the rising blue-green grass,
above its gleaming and substantial shadows,
toss in the breeze,
like wings. (lines 33-36)
In the birds’ absence, Oliver still watches the place where they stood. The marsh
environment has changed from a frozen, unforgiving place to a growing, “gleaming,”
“blue-green” place, but the biggest change that Oliver notices is the absence of the two
herons she watched all winter. She notes that the rising grasses “toss in the breeze like
wings”; through this comparison, Oliver attributes the appearance of the herons to the
vegetation. In other pieces of literature, authors often mistake herons to be pieces of
wood, branches, or grasses, but Oliver, in contrast, mistakes the grasses for the birds
themselves. As in other passages, this sense of mistaken identity shows how closely
herons match their natural environments. However, it also portrays a sense of longing:
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Oliver wishes so much that the herons had not “vanished” that she still senses their
presence even after they have flown away. She continues to watch the “softened” marsh,
hoping that the birds will return, that this isn’t the “blunt, dark finish” (line 30) that
Oliver imagines when the birds “crank” (line 27) open their wings to fly away.
Through Oliver’s continued attention to the marsh and her vision of the herons’
wings, it is clear that Oliver wishes she could be close to the two birds. However, these
herons, though not solitary, still live separate from Oliver’s presence. Oliver watches the
two birds from a distance, and they are not aware of her attention. She allows the birds to
keep their isolation from her presence “all winter” and has the opportunity to watch them
until the spring comes. She maintains a watchful eye over the birds while respecting their
privacy and their preference to remain apart from humans; such observation proves the
admiration and respect that Oliver has for the isolated birds. Her unease at the birds’
disappearance reveals her appreciation for the time spent observing them. This yearning
to be closer to nature, to see the herons again, shows the significance of the two herons in
Oliver’s experience.
Human encounters with the elusive herons and egrets are rare, but observations of
the solitary waders are almost always valuable. Authors who observe herons and egrets
respect their privacy or long to grow closer to the quiet birds. Terry Tempest Williams,
author of Refuge, perhaps expresses the greatest interest in growing close to a heron. In
Refuge, Williams observes many different bird species at the Bear River Migratory Bird
Refuge, an area that is threatened by the rise of Great Salt Lake. She finds a great blue
heron that “stands on the edge of the lake, solitary and serene. The wind shinnies up her
back, raising a few feathers, but her focus remains steady. This is a bird who knows how
52
to protect herself. She has weathered the changes well” (266). Williams admires this
heron for her strength and dignity. Despite the rising lake levels, the heron continues to
live well, with a strong, steady gaze: “Throughout the high water and now its retreat, the
true blue heron has stayed home” (266). The bird is determined to survive the changes to
her environment, and she does not leave because of the natural threats that surround her.
She knows how to live alone and how to protect herself. These characteristics are ones
that Williams wishes she could emulate. Her admiration is clear when she writes, “I
would like to wade along the edges with her, this great blue heron” (266). Because
Williams is so in awe of the heron and the heron’s dignity, she wishes to share the
heron’s experience. By wading along the edges of the lake with the heron, Williams
hopes to achieve some of the strength and serenity that the heron possesses. The heron’s
serenity also causes Williams to view the heron as a symbol of peace, and she writes,
“She belongs to the meditation of water” (266). The heron’s sense of calmness and
meditation is a powerful force in light of the drastically changing environment and the
tumultuous affects of the lake’s rising. Williams respects this soothing quality as she
struggles with the turbulent factors surrounding her own life. Williams’ respect and
admiration for the heron is most clear when she writes, “But then this is another paradox
of mine—wanting to be a bird when I am human” (266). Williams wishes that she could
weather the changes in her life as well as the heron has weathered the changes in her
own. Williams imagines that if she were a heron, she could survive the struggles of her
own life with the same strength, dignity, and calmness that the heron represents. By
wanting to be the heron itself, Williams presents a clear desire to be closely connected
with the heron; this longing is stronger than what any other author has described. Despite
53
this desire, however, the heron belongs to nothing but the meditation of water. The bird
will remain elusive and apart from human influence. The bird’s independence proves to
Williams that the heron must be observed from a distance. The value of witnessing the
bird and its solitary yet strong behavior allows Williams to respect the heron, both in
terms of its character and its preference for solitude.
It is not only through quiet observation that humans desire to be close to wild
birds such as herons. While many people, appreciative of nature and its processes, tiptoe
around the birds or observe them at a distance for fear of scaring the birds away, others
are not sensitive to the birds’ preference for solitude. For some, viewing a stuffed bird in
a collection is more gratifying than witnessing a bird in the wild. During America’s early
birding history, the practice of “shot-gun ornithology” was widespread; many naturalists,
ornithologists, collectors, and hunters often shot countless bird species for collections and
to be put on display. In Sarah Orne Jewett’s short story “A White Heron” (1886), a
young ornithologist attempts to get close to a “little white heron,” or a white egret, by
shooting it for his collection of birds. Jewett’s story features Sylvia, an eight-year-old
girl who lives with her grandmother in a very rural area. Walking through the woods one
day, Sylvia comes upon a “stranger” who carries a gun over his shoulder: “Suddenly this
little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away. Not a bird’s
whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy’s whistle, determined, and
somewhat aggressive…The enemy had discovered her” (26). While a bird’s song is
sweet and very friendly, this man’s whistle is aggressive and scares Sylvia, making him
an “enemy.” The first impression of the young man fills Sylvia with fear, both because
of the gun he carries and because he is an unfamiliar presence in Sylvia’s woods.
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However, Sylvia brings the young man to her home, where her grandmother offers to
feed him and let him stay for the night.
The three characters engage in a conversation that evening, and the “stranger”
learns that Sylvia is very familiar with the forest’s creatures, including birds. In his
excitement, the stranger questions the young girl’s knowledge:
‘So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she?...I am making a collection of birds
myself. I have been at it ever since I was a boy….I have shot or snared every one
myself. I caught a glimpse of a white heron three miles from here on Saturday,
and I have followed it in this direction. They have never been found in this
district at all. The little white heron, it is,’ and he turned again to look at Sylvia
with the hope of discovering that the rare bird was one of her acquaintances. (29)
After this explanation, Jewett begins to refer to the young stranger as an “ornithologist.”
The man has established his interest in studying birds, and his large collection of birds
can be used for both science and education. His title as an ornithologist legitimizes, for
some, his quest to shoot the beautiful birds of Sylvia’s woods. The young man is
hopeful: “‘You would know the heron if you saw it,’ the stranger continued eagerly. ‘A
queer tall white bird with soft feathers and long thin legs. And it would have a nest
perhaps in the top of a high tree, made of sticks, something like a hawk’s nest’” (29).
The man’s description creates an image of the white heron for both the reader and for
Sylvia. His description gains the girl’s attention: “Sylvia’s heart gave a wild beat; she
knew that strange white bird, and had once stolen softly near where it stood in some
bright green swamp grass, away over at the other side of the woods” (29). The eagerness
of the young ornithologist shows how clearly he desires to obtain this white heron for his
collection; he has studied the bird so that he may take a part of nature for his own
interest. The bird is rare, but the stranger is thrilled that Sylvia may know where the
heron lives. The reason that Sylvia has been able to observe the strange bird is that she
55
has “stolen softly” near it; like the authors who observed herons from a distance, Sylvia
quietly witnessed this heron so that she would not scare it away. At this point in the
story, it is unclear how Sylvia feels about the young ornithologist or his work. Her heart
beats wildly at the mention of the little white heron, but the same eagerness and
hopefulness that is seen in the ornithologist is not seen in Sylvia herself. Rather, the
reader understands that Sylvia knows the “strange white bird,” and that she knows it well.
She has been close to the bird and she knows the setting in which the bird lives. Though
this interaction is set early in the story, the reader gleans an understanding that the young
stranger and the small girl have seen the white heron through different eyes. The
ornithologist has envisioned the rare bird—killed, mounted, and preserved—in his large
collection. In contrast, Sylvia has viewed the bird in a wild place, on the other side of the
woods, in a bright, swampy, natural environment. This difference of experience and
value sets the conflict for the story.
The stranger offers a prize of ten dollars to anybody who can lead him to the nest
of the white heron. Sylvia seems uninterested in the reward, but she follows the “young
sportsman” into the woods the following day. No longer afraid of him, Sylvia now finds
the man “kind and sympathetic” (30). However, the young girl is still conflicted about
the man’s presence: “Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she
could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much. But as the
day waned, Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration” (30). Sylvia’s
experience in the forest is much different from the ornithologist’s. She cannot
comprehend why the man does not enjoy the presence of birds in the wild as she does.
However, she begins to admire the young man, and though Sylvia does not understand
56
why the man wants to shoot the beautiful, strange white heron, she longs to find the bird
to gain his approval. But Sylvia is still conflicted: “She grieved because the longed-for
white heron was elusive, but she did not lead the guest, she only followed, and there was
no such thing as speaking first. The sound of her own unquestioned voice would have
terrified her,—it was hard enough to answer yes or no when there was need of that” (31).
Caught in conflicting desires to both please the ornithologist and protect the white heron,
Sylvia does not lead the man to the bird, nor does she lead him away from it. The bird,
perhaps aware of the man’s intentions, refuses to be found. Sylvia grieves because of this
and because she fears what will happen if the two do locate the bird.
Unsuccessful, the hunter and his guide return home. Sylvia continues to think
about the elusive heron. She thinks of an old pine tree, taller than any other tree in the
forest and decides to climb the tree at daybreak to find “whence the white heron flew”
and to “mark the place, and find the hidden nest.” This sudden idea fills Sylvia with
excitement; she will find a way to please the young man whom she admires. In her
excitement, Sylvia forgets of the well-being of the white heron. She thinks only of how
pleased the ornithologist will be when she reveals the location of the heron’s nest: “What
a spirit of adventure, what wild ambition! What fancied triumph and delight and glory
for the later morning when she could make known the secret! It was almost too real and
too great for the childish heart to bear” (31). In descriptions of herons by other authors,
the herons are often hidden within their natural environments; the observers often
stumble upon the elusive birds without expecting to. In this story, however, Sylvia is
frustrated that the heron is elusive solely because she is hoping to find it. To aid in her
goal, the young girl decides to use the heron’s natural environment; she will perch in a
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tall tree, as a heron might, to view where the bird flies. With the help of the forest, Sylvia
hopes to find where the strange bird hides.
At daybreak, Sylvia climbs the tall pine tree. Jewett describes Sylvia’s experience
at the top of the tree in a beautiful passage filled with natural images of the landscape and
a bright portrait of the strange bird itself:
Where was the white heron’s nest in the sea of green branches, and was this
wonderful sight and pageant of the world the only reward for having climbed to
such a giddy height? Now look down again, Sylvia, where the green marsh is set
among the shining birches and dark hemlocks; there where you saw the white
heron once you will see him again; look, look! a white spot of him like a single
floating feather comes up from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and
comes close at last, and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing and
outstretched slender neck and crested head. And wait! wait! do not move a foot
or a finger, little girl, do not send an arrow of light and consciousness from your
two eager eyes, for the heron has perched on a pine bough not far beyond yours,
and cries back to his mate on the nest, and plumes his feathers for the new day!
(33-34)
This passage, more than any other, places the white heron in his own environment, far
from the ornithologist’s collection of preserved birds. Among the green branches,
shining birches, green marsh, and pine boughs, the white heron is a beautiful, bright
“white spot,” ready for the “new day” in a green, sun-lit world. The sight of the white
bird flying through the morning light is so beautiful that Sylvia cannot move an inch for
fear of scaring it away. Sylvia is aware of how quickly the elusive heron would fly from
her view if it noted her presence, but she wants the beautiful bird to stay within her sight,
so that she may feel close to the secretive bird. After sharing a brief but spectacular
moment with the white bird, Sylvia “knows his secret now, the wild, light, slender bird
that floats and wavers, and goes back like an arrow presently to his home in the green
world beneath” (34). The beauty of the scene is interrupted by Sylvia’s knowledge of the
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bird’s secret, and the heron leaves the girl’s view. However, Sylvia is “well satisfied,”
and rushes home, covered in pine-pitch and scratches from climbing the tree.
It is when Sylvia returns home that she finds she cannot reveal the secret of the
heron’s location. She “does not speak after all,” despite the ornithologist’s pleas and the
grandmother’s rebukes:
No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her
dumb? Has she been nine years growing, and now, when the great world for the
first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird’s sake? The
murmur of the pine’s green branches is in her ears, she remembers how the white
heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the
morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s secret and
give its life away. (35)
Sylvia throws aside both the admiration of the young ornithologist and the promise of a
ten dollar reward to save the white heron. What forces Sylvia to keep silence is her
experience observing the beautiful bird in the “golden air” in the bright morning. The
two shared a view of the sky and the sea, and Sylvia’s connection with the bird during
those morning moments causes her to save the bird’s life by keeping her silence. Sylvia
originally intended to find the bird to reveal its secret to the young hunter, but the young
girl discovers that the actual reason she found the bird was to once more witness its
natural beauty and to then protect its life in the wild. The questions posed in this passage
show that Sylvia is still conflicted about her choice to remain silent. The promise of the
ornithologist’s respect and approval, as well as the promise of a financial reward, are
extremely tempting. However, the beauty of the strange white bird in the morning light
is more beautiful to the young girl than the admiration of the young man or the wealth of
a reward. The vision of the white heron in the golden air is far more loving and rich.
Sylvia chooses to protect the bird’s life because of its beauty and because it revealed
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itself to her, allowing her to share a moment with the heron up above the treetops. It is
Sylvia’s connection with the white heron and her closeness to nature that allows her to
choose the bird’s life over the ornithologist’s success. She allows the heron to keep his
secret, both protecting the bird and making future encounters with it possible.
Sir David Attenborough writes, “Birds are the most popular group in the animal
kingdom. We feed them and tame them and think we know them. And yet they inhabit a
world which is really rather mysterious. Once they take off from our bird tables or our
lawns they disappear into a world of their own” (Wroth). Herons, more than any other
birds, live in a world completely their own. Several authors, when writing about the
birds, portray themselves as intruders when they attempt to get too close to the birds;
other authors are aware that they must view the birds at a distance. This awareness, or
fear, of disturbing the birds is based on the fact that herons are solitary, independent, and
protective birds. They occupy the secret places of a world seldom visited by humans. To
emphasize this point, Sallie Bingham, in her essay “A Woman’s Land” writes:
What defines the land is what escapes definition: the Canada geese who light on
the pond and take off with a wild flurry of wings in the morning, always towards
the south; the heron outside my studio window who stood for a short while on a
stone in the river. These birds did not arrive here, and pause briefly, for our
edification. They exist in their own worlds, which we can barely appreciate,
which we cannot penetrate or convert into cash. (426)
In “A White Heron,” Sylvia learns the solitary, mysterious world that the white heron
occupies; she is taught that the heron’s life is worth infinitely more than the reward the
ornithologist promised her. The young girl comes to respect the wild, sun-lit world that
the heron lives in, and she appreciates the opportunity to observe the elusive bird.
Writers recognize that herons aren’t found in the places humans sometimes visit so that
people can enjoy their existence; rather, the chance to view the quiet birds in their own
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environments is a rare and valuable opportunity. As humans, we can only hope to
occasionally observe the silent, wind-roughened birds and hope that they will not mind
our presence. As quiet observers of the natural world, however, humans must remember
to respect and appreciate the mysterious worlds that herons inhabit, always keeping in
mind their preference for solitude, privacy, and the right to remain wild.
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Canada Geese
Family Anatidae
Branta Canadensis
“Large, gregarious waterfowl; heavier bodied, longer
necked than ducks; bills thick at base. Noisy in flight;
some fly in lines of V formations. Sexes alike. Geese are
more terrestrial than ducks, often grazing. Food: Grasses,
seeds, waste grain, aquatic plants.
The most widespread goose in North America. Note black
head and neck, or ‘stocking,’ that contrasts with pale breast
and white chin strap. Flocks travel in strings or in Vs,
‘honking’ loudly. Substantial variation in size and neck
length exists among populations. Voice: Deep, musical
honking or barking, ka-ronk or ka-lunk. Habitat: Lakes,
ponds, bays, marshes, fields. Resident in many areas,
frequenting parks, lawns, golf courses.”
-Roger Tory Peterson
Field Guide to Birds of North America
“One of the little gifts of birdwatching has been to anchor
me, in a small new way, in natural time. Dawn and dusk
matter differently to me now, and the seasons, tied to the
arrival of birds and the departure of birds, bind me to the
earth in subtle and important ways.”
-Jonathan Rosen, The Life of the Skies
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Chapter Five
No sound represents the advent of winter and spring more than the sound of a
goose honking. The most common geese in North America, Canada Geese echo their
calls through light and dark skies as they fly south, avoiding the winter, or north,
announcing the arrival of spring. Sometimes, these sounds offer a surprise to listeners
who are not expecting the arrival of the bird. In Walden, Henry David Thoreau describes
the sound of geese flying over his cabin:
One night in the beginning of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine
o’clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, and, stepping to the door,
heard the sound of their wings like a tempest in the woods as they flew low over
my house. They passed by my light, their commodore honking all the while with
a regular beat. (175)
The rush of wings in the night sky sounds like a storm to Thoreau; the sound of the geese,
loud and rhythmic, cannot be ignored. In the chapter “April: Come High Water” of A
Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold also writes about the arrival of geese at his farm.
He describes their thunderous calls: “How deep and chesty the honkings of the geese as
they cruise over cornfield after cornfield, each in process of becoming a lake. Ever
hundred yards some new goose flails the air as he struggles to lead the echelon in its
morning survey of this new and watery world” (24). In both these passages, the geese
form groups, or “echelons,” led in a military style by their “commodore.” The unity of
these flocks as they fly and look for places to land makes their presence even more stormlike and noisy. Whether the geese are flying in the winter or in the spring, they always
announce their presence with their loud honking as they look below for places to land,
eat, bathe, or rest. Their honking fills the skies, teaching viewers about migration,
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proclaiming the start of spring or the onset of winter, and representing, for many authors,
something that is truly wild.
As the seasons change at Walden, Thoreau is aware of the onset of winter. While
the dropping temperature and howling winds summon the cold wintry weather, the
passing of geese across the freezing pond signifies the start of the season. As they head
toward warmer climates, the geese arrive in early winter, giving Thoreau a first-hand
example of the course of migration. He writes:
At length the winter set in in good earnest, just as I had finished plastering, and
the wind began to howl around the house as if it had not had permission to do so
till then. Night after night the geese came lumbering in in the dark with a clangor
and a whistling of wings, even after the ground was covered with snow, some to
alight in Walden, and some flying low over the woods toward Fair Haven, bound
for Mexico. (160)
By noting that the geese are bound for lands much further south than Walden or Fair
Haven, Thoreau enforces the fact that Mexico, the destination of the geese, is a very
distant place, far from the forests of Massachusetts. The geese will continue to create “a
clangor and a whistling of wings” as they continue south, avoiding the snow and frozen
weather of Thoreau’s northeast. The geese fly away from the snow and ice because, as
Roger Caras notes in “The Endless Migrations”: “Migration is a survival tactic, not so
much for individuals as for species—the kind, the mass, the total product of evolution”
(201). Though some geese may be able to survive the winter, and some alight in
Walden’s freezing waters, the species of Canada geese as a whole must travel to warmer
climates to survive.
Annie Dillard also watches Canada Geese migrate south in the winter and return
in the spring. In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she writes: “Migrating birds head south in what
appears to be dire panic, leaving mild weather and fields full of insects and seeds; they
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reappear as if in all eagerness in January, and poke about morosely in the snow” (77).
Such a “dire panic” parallels the “clangor” and “tempest” that Thoreau describes, as well
as the geese who “flail the air” in Leopold’s account. This imagery shows the crucial
urgency with which the geese must fly south before the winter truly arrives, as well as
their excitement at returning once the spring has begun. To continue such imagery of
wild flight, Dillard more specifically describes her experience watching the migrations of
the Canada Geese:
Last year I saw three migrating Canada geese flying low over the frozen duck
pond where I stood. I heard a heart-stopping blast of speed before I saw them; I
felt the flayed air slap at my face. They thundered across the pond, and back, and
back again: I swear I have never seen such speed, such single-mindedness, such
flailing of wings. They froze the duck pond as they flew; they rang the air; they
disappeared. I think of this now, and my brain vibrates to the blurred bastinado of
feathered bone. (265)
This passage combines Thoreau’s storm imagery with Leopold’s imagery of geese
flailing the air to create an effect of wild and forceful flight. The geese enter Dillard’s
view and disappear just as quickly, bringing a sense of chaos and tremor to the still duck
pond and sky. The experience leaves Dillard with vibrations of the frenzied flight; the
hurried passage across her field of view truly emphasizes the “dire panic” with which
these birds fly south at the onset of winter. In addition to emphasizing the wildness of the
geese by showing the fury with which they migrate, however, Dillard also portrays the
necessity of migration for these birds. Caras writes, “There are many answers to the tilt
of the earth, but migration is the one we see most clearly and know best because it
happens en masse, it thunders around us or fills our skies” (201). Dillard’s sky is filled
with the migration of the Canada Geese, and she is easily able to relate her observations
to her readers, who have most likely witnessed the same thunderous flight of migrating
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geese. Because bird migration is an event that “happens en masse” and “fills our skies,”
it is a process of nature that both authors and readers can easily understand. Its
prominence in our skies during two seasons of the year makes the flight of migrating
birds evident and eventful. The volume of the geese and the “heart-stopping speed” of
their flight only serve to bring more attention to their migratory journey.
When the Canada Geese fly north after their warm winters, they bring with them a
reminder of the warm seasons to come. Birds, including geese, are “guideposts to the
seasons, to planting and harvest, forecasts of the changing weather and even changing
personal fortune—visible tokens of what was soon to come” (Weidensaul 70). Quite
simply, the arrival of Canada Geese at the tail-end of winter is a sure symbol of the
approaching spring. Leopold, in his chapter “March: The Geese Return,” writes “…one
skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring” (18). This arrival
brings excitement and joy to Leopold’s farm. He continues: “Once touching water, our
newly arrived guests set up a honking and splashing that shakes the last thought of winter
out of the brittle cattails. Our geese are home again!” (19). Leopold’s exclamation that
the geese are “home again” shows his enthusiasm for their arrival. Not only have the
birds brought spring with them, they also appear on Leopold’s farm like old friends who
have returned for a visit. The rambunctious honking of the geese, as well as the summerlike sound of their splashing on the water, chases the chill of winter out of the air. The
arrival of the geese as a sign of spring’s arrival is something on which Leopold has come
to depend. He writes, “…a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on
the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries
the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges” (18). With “the conviction of a
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prophet,” the geese return north only when they know they will be able to survive: when
the spring’s arrival is imminent, the ponds will thaw, and the snow will melt to reveal the
vegetation necessary for their sustenance. Leopold knows that the geese will not return
to his farm too soon; they patiently wait for the proper weather conditions and the arrival
of an endurable season. In this way, Leopold relies on the natural process of migration to
enliven his mood as he himself awaits the conclusion of winter. The confidence and trust
that Leopold places on the behavior of the geese is testament to both the resilience of
nature and Leopold’s love for his seasonal visitors.
The arrival of the geese at Walden Pond at the end of winter also ensures for
Thoreau that spring has arrived. After a winter quiet without the calls of the geese,
Thoreau is “startled by the honking of geese flying low over the woods, like weary
travelers getting in late from southern lakes, and indulging at last in unrestrained
complaint and mutual consolation” (202). While these geese are “weary” and do not
bring the same liveliness and excitement that Leopold’s geese do, the birds, with “the
rush of their wings” (202) are nevertheless a sure sign of warmer weather to come. After
the geese settle in the pond, Thoreau writes, “So I came in, and shut the door, and passed
my first spring night in the woods” (202). Thoreau shuts his door with a sense of finality,
almost as if to shut the winter out for good. He notes that the night the geese arrive is his
“first spring night,” indicating that their arrival decidedly marks the beginning of spring.
In the morning, the geese are rested after their long travel, and they are much livelier,
further signaling the vigor of the coming spring season. The birds are “tumultuous” and
rise up from the pond “with a great flapping of wings,” before they “steered straight to
Canada, with a regular honk from the leader at intervals” (202). Thoreau continues: “For
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a week I heard the circling groping clangor of some solitary goose in the foggy mornings,
seeking its companion, and still peopling the woods with the sound of a larger life than
they could sustain” (202). The solitary birds that Thoreau hears on foggy mornings are
small but loud exclamation points: Yes! Spring has come! Yes! It’s here! Their honking
above the expansive woods continues to remind Thoreau that spring has arrived, and their
presence at Walden is inescapable. The ruckus that the birds make above the woods is so
noisy that it seems there are many more geese in the area, and the solitary birds portray “a
larger life” than Walden could adequately support.
The wild geese, witnessed by many as they move freely between Canada and
Mexico, symbolize both change, on a yearly scale, and repetition of nature’s cycles, on a
longer time scale. Such familiar presence and symbolic representation make geese the
subject of literature that focuses on human relations to natural cycles and the continuity
of wild nature. By comparing human needs and reactions to the pathways and intentions
of geese, authors explore what these migrations symbolize from a humanized perspective.
At the beginning of spring, when the geese arrive on Leopold’s farm, he writes, “And in
this annual barter of food for light, and winter warmth for summer solitude, the whole
continent receives as net profit a wild poem dropped from the murky skies upon the muds
of March” (23). The “wild poem” that the geese represent in Leopold’s description is not
the only wild poem, however. In their poems “The Wild Geese” and “Wild Geese,”
Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver, respectively, compare their observations of wild,
migrating geese with human needs for clarity, truth, and a sense of place.
Berry’s poem is written as follows:
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
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and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
Despite the images of completion with which Berry begins his poem—of the harvest, of
summer, and of lives—the speaker of this poem still finds “promise” in the seed of a
persimmon. As the speaker contemplates this potential growth, the wild geese “appear.”
These birds, driven by the necessity to “abandon” the area where winter encroaches, are
determined in their flight. This “ancient faith” is unwavering; the birds have a clear goal,
and they fly towards it along ancient routes of migration. Nature and evolution have
given these birds a clear pathway to follow, and they are single-minded in their pursuit.
The speaker of the poem contemplates this determination and models a human need for
clarity on the steady path that the geese follow. “What we need is here,” Berry writes,
and then repeats. The simplicity of this statement is based on the clarity of the geese in
flight. The birds do what they need to survive, and they do what they have done for
centuries. Similarly, humans need to be “quiet in heart, and in eye clear,” to recognize
that what they need to survive is provided for them. By repeating the line “What we need
is here,” Berry grounds the reader in reality. The wild geese, though they abandon the
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cold, are not fleeing without cause; they are flying out of necessity. Berry suggests that
humans should follow the same sense of clarity that the birds possess to realize true needs
for survival and true goals. It is with such clarity that the promise of the persimmon seed
will be realized. The seed will only need what is absolutely necessary for its growth.
Likewise, humans only need what is absolutely necessary, and Berry suggests that this is
“here.” The migrating birds, who do only that which nature requires of them, serve as a
reminder of this point.
By illustrating the migration of wild geese, Oliver’s poem also serves to ground
humans in reality. She writes:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Oliver’s description of the wild geese is prefaced by the line “Meanwhile the world goes
on.” These migrating geese, permanent harbingers of the changing seasons, are a
reminder of the fact that the earth continues to spin. Just as the geese are a symbol of the
change of seasons, they are also a sign that life continues, no matter the hardships that
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people are faced with or the fierceness of the cold winter. This reminder serves to bring
the audience back to the present despite the “despair” that the audience may feel.
When Oliver describes the wild geese, she does so in relation to “the sun,” “the
clear pebbles of the rain,” “the landscapes,” “the prairies,” “the deep trees,” “the
mountains,” and “the rivers.” The geese are the only living beings that Oliver describes
when she writes that “the world goes on,” making them the main characters of the poem.
Readers of the poem are forced to recognize connections between themselves and the
migrating birds. The geese, who “are heading home again,” remind the audience that
each person has a “place in the family of things.” No matter where the person is, how
lonely he or she may be, or how many hardships present themselves, there is always a
“place” that the person belongs. This place may be “home,” as it is for the wild geese, or
it may simply be the earth, which continues to move forward into each new day. Like
Berry, Oliver recognizes that each person can find his or her place on earth, whether that
place is “home,” “here,” or simply “the world.” The geese, who occupy many places
along their migration pathways, are testament to the fact that each human can find a place
to belong, no matter the landscape or the troubles that arise. The wild geese, though they
fly “high in the clean blue air,” represent a sense of being grounded: they remind readers
that accepting the idea of belonging to a place will make troubles less significant.
Though the geese in Berry’s and Oliver’s poems stick to their migration
pathways, maintaining different homes in all seasons, and preserving a single-minded,
determined plan for survival, the birds are still “wild.” The birds are “wild” because of
the way they appear as they fly between their homes. The geese follow a strict pathway
and maintain specific areas of habitation, but they appear wild to viewers stuck on the
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ground. As they migrate, the geese represent ideals of freedom: freedom to fly, freedom
to escape the winter, freedom to travel as they please, freedom of survival, and freedom
to follow the rhythms of nature. This sense of freedom makes the birds “wild” to authors
who watch them from below.
Rick Bass, in his essay “On Willow Creek,” also views a group of migrating
geese as “wild.” The birds come to represent for Bass something beautiful and free, and
the birds bring out the “thoroughly wild” young man in him. As a teenager, Bass camps
in a cabin with his father and grandfather on a winter night. He steps outside alone in the
foggy night when he hears “the sound of a goose honking—approaching from the north”
(257). “There is no sound more beautiful,” Bass writes,
especially at night, and I stood there and listened. Another goose joined in—that
wild, magnificent honking—and then another. It seemed, standing there in the
dark…that I could barely stand the hugeness, the unlimited future of life. I could
feel my youth, could feel my heart beating, and it seemed those geese were
coming straight for me, as if they, too, could feel that barely controlled wildness
and were attracted to it. When they were directly above me, they began to fly in
circles, more geese joining them. They came lower and lower, until I could hear
the underlying readiness of those resonant honks; I could hear their grunts, their
intake of air before each honk. (257)
The openness and limitlessness of the night stirs something inside Bass; he becomes
overwhelmed by the infiniteness of the world and understanding his place in it. The
geese, coming straight for Bass, are a beautiful and wild representation of the vastness of
Bass’s world and the possibilities that exist within it. When the geese fly directly over
Bass, they begin to fly in circles above him as more geese join the group. Bass becomes
the center of the flock of geese as they fly above him, and the “barely controlled
wildness” of the night is transferred from the flight of the geese to Bass’s own life.
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The next morning, after the geese have flown away, Bass writes, “it seemed that
some part of me was gone with them, some tame or civilized part, and they had left
behind a boy, a young man, who was now thoroughly wild and who thoroughly loved
wild things” (257). The geese flew so low to the ground, and so close to Bass himself,
that Bass felt the birds took a part of him with them when they rose up again and flew
away. Bass’s closeness to the birds on such a wide-open, exhilarating night left him
feeling as wild as the magnificent geese appeared to him. Bass maintains this
exhilaration and sense of freedom throughout his life; years after his experience, when
Bass wrote the essay, he notes, “And I often still have the dream I had that night, that I
was up with the geese, up in the cold night, peering down at the fuzzy glow of the cabin
lights in the fog, that dim beacon of hope and mystery, safety and longing…” (257). This
continued dream shows that Bass upholds his love of wild things and his longing to be
among them, as a “thoroughly wild” person. He comes so close to the geese on the night
of his youth that he feels as though he was among the wild birds. This connection,
proven by Bass’s continued dreams of the experience, shows Bass’s appreciation of the
wild geese and the freedom and openness that they inspire.
Such a wild sense of exhilaration, inspired by the wild geese, also moves Martha
Reben. In her essay “Night Song,” a short passage from a book of wildlife stories, Reben
writes about camping alone and watching the night take the place of a quiet sunset. She
writes, “The moon came up behind the black trees to the east, and the wilderness stood
forth, vast, mysterious, still. All at once the silence and the solitude were touched by
wild music, thin as air, the faraway gabbling of geese flying at night” (145). Like Bass,
Reben is immersed in the vast wilderness of the nighttime. The “faraway gabbling of
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geese” interrupts the silence of the night, as did the “wild, magnificent honking” in
Bass’s experience. The sounds of the geese are “wild music,” and Reben, like Bass, finds
the sound beautiful and magnificent. Both authors use the word “wild” to describe the
sound of the birds. Heard before they are seen, the wild sound of the geese is soon
paralleled by the wildness of their broad journey. Reben continues:
Presently I caught sight of them as they streamed across the face of the moon, the
high, excited clamor of their voices tingling through the night, and suddenly I
saw, in one of those rare moments of insight, what it means to be wild and free.
As they went over me, I was there with them, passing over the moonlit
countryside, glorying with them in their strong-hearted journeying, exulting in its
joy and splendor. (145)
As in Bass’s experience, the geese pass directly over Reben as she stands below, looking
up toward the night sky and the passing birds. As in Bass’s dream, Reben, too, is among
the flock of geese as they fly over the vast wilderness of the night, and this journey,
though metaphorical, is so exhilarating for Reben that she understands “what it means to
be wild and free.” Flying above the world in the immense, open night, the geese appear
truly wild, and they rejoice in such freedom. Reben, connecting intimately with the
freedom of the geese, also rejoices. She is enlivened by the wild expanses of the world
and thrilled by her place in it, among wild creatures as magnificent and beautiful as the
flock of geese rushing “across the face of the moon.”
The wildness and beauty of the migrating geese inspires in many authors feelings
of exhilaration, openness, and freedom. Stuck on the ground, and often in one place,
humans look to the skies at the traveling birds and admire the freedom of the geese as
they move from place to place. Some authors join the birds on a metaphorical journey of
joy and liberation. In his chapter “November: If I Were the Wind,” Leopold writes, “The
flock emerges from the low clouds, a tattered banner of birds, dipping and rising, blown
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up and blown down, blown together and blown apart, but advancing, the wind wrestling
lovingly with each winnowing wing” (66). Leopold’s use of alliteration to describe the
“blown” “banner of birds,” billowing in the cloudy sky, and the “wind wrestling lovingly
with each winnowing wing,” creates a flowing, ribbon-like effect of the flight of the
geese. The fluidity of this description joins the wind, sky, and flock of geese as one.
After describing the passage of geese above his head, he continues, “It is warm behind
the driftwood now, for the wind has gone with the geese. So would I—if I were the
wind” (67). Like other authors, Leopold also wishes he had the freedom to fly with the
wild birds. Like the wind, Leopold would like to be a part of the flock of wild geese that
passes low in the sky. A part of each human is “thoroughly wild,” as Bass describes, and
we harbor an internal desire to be immersed in wild nature. The geese, known by humans
all over the North American continent as they migrate north each summer and south each
winter, symbolize such a human longing for the wild. Their resonant honking, filling the
skies of every season, represents the freedom humans wish for, though they often remain
grounded in their own internal realities.
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Owls
Families Tytonidae and Strigidae
“Chiefly nocturnal birds of prey, with large heads and
flattened faces forming facial disk; large, forward facing
eyes; hooked bill and claws; usually feathered feet (outer
toe reversible). Flight noiseless, mothlike. Some species
have “horns,” or ear tufts. Sexes similar; female larger.
Food: Rodents, birds, reptiles, fish, large insects. Range:
Nearly worldwide.”
-Roger Tory Peterson
Field Guide to Birds of North America
“The birds are like stars, pregnant with mystery but also
remote, unfathomable. And so we give them names, like
constellations, to make them familiar to us. We cling to
that familiarity and need it desperately, but always
alongside the familiar is the unfathomable. In the night sky
we still see the light of dead stars, and in birds, too, there is
the spark of something ignited eons ago, flashes of extinct
forms that somehow put us nearer to our origins even as
they baffle our desire for simple understanding.”
-Jonathan Rosen, The Life of the Skies
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Nightjars
Family Caprimulgidae
“Nocturnal birds with ample tail, large eyes, tiny bill, large
bristled gape, and very short legs. By day, they rest on
limbs or on ground, camouflaged by their “dead-leaf”
pattern. Best identified at night by voice. Food: Nocturnal
insects. Range: Nearly worldwide in temperate and
tropical land regions.”
-Roger Tory Peterson
Field Guide to Birds of North America
“I hear and see wood thrushes and veeries, and scarlet
tanagers and field sparrows. I have even seen a
whippoorwill hunched in perfect camouflage in the fork of
a tree. Central Park is, for better or worse, my Walden
Pond.”
-Jonathan Rosen, The Life of the Skies
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Chapter Six
Owls, with their large, yellow eyes, hooked beaks, tufted ear “horns,” and sharp
talons, are rarely seen nocturnal birds. Humans also seldom have the chance to view
nighthawks and whippoorwills, smaller birds with great tails, short legs, and large eyes.
These birds are most often identified by their voices, and humans frequently find their
calls haunting and mysterious. It is not surprising that humans view these nocturnal birds
of noiseless flight as “omens of loss and sorrow” (Rosen 227). Historically, birds were
often subjects of folk wisdom, and “a whip-poor-will or a screech-owl calling outside the
window heralded approaching death for a loved one” (Weidensaul 70). These birds, who
sing a “most solemn graveyard ditty” (Thoreau 81), have come to represent death and
loss not only because of their somber wails, but also because of their role as destructive
predators of the night. Owls in particular are prolific hunters, and they pose a threat to
small mammals and even other birds. After a night of killing, the owl, “in his trisyllabic
commentary, plays down the story of the night’s murders” (Leopold 61). When writing
about these birds, authors often turn to their voices as representations of the birds
themselves. Their “dismal scream[s],” (Thoreau 81) and “forlorn” and “sonorous”
shrieks (175) echo through the night sky, haunting humans and reminding them of the
mysteriousness of these unknown, nocturnal birds.
The preference for woodland habitat of many of these birds makes the forest at
Walden Pond in Massachusetts a perfect location for owls and nightjars. In Walden
(1854), Henry David Thoreau observes the calls of Screech Owls, Barred Owls, and
Whippoorwills. He hears these woodland birds in the “stark twilight” (82); even though
Thoreau rarely sees the birds, their sounds are a regular part of his life at Walden. On
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summer evenings, he hears the Whippoorwills “regularly at half past seven,” and the
birds “chant their vespers for half an hour” (81). Thoreau continues to describe the
sounds of the night birds, who “sing almost with as much precision as a clock”:
Sometimes I heard four or five at once in different parts of the wood, by accident
one a bar behind another, and so near me that I distinguished not only the cluck
after each note, but often that singular buzzing sound like a fly in a spider’s web,
only proportionally louder. Sometimes one would circle round and round me in
the woods a few feet distant as if tethered by a string, when probably I was near
its eggs. They sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as musical
as ever just before and about dawn. (81)
Though Thoreau cannot see the birds, he detects where each bird is by their sounds. The
Whippoorwills appear to be physically close to Thoreau, yet they retain a sense of
mysteriousness because he does not readily see them. Though the birds sing at regular
intervals throughout the night, they retain their secrecy by the cover of night’s darkness,
and their music does not completely reveal them to observers.
Owls, like the Whippoorwills, remain hidden except for their sounds. Thoreau
describes the Screech Owls as “Wise midnight hags!” whose “wailing” and “doleful
responses” he loves to hear. In fact, Thoreau states, “I rejoice that there are owls. Let
them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to
swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped
nature which men have not recognized” (82). The owl’s hooting, cries that men would
not utter, become something mysterious and unknown. However, humans are able to
observe these sounds, and, like Thoreau, attribute significance to them. In Thoreau’s
analysis, owls become “the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen
souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now
expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their
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transgressions” (81). The owls are haunting both because of their chilling cries and
because they, like ghosts, remain unseen. Known only for the sounds they make, the
birds come to represent mystery and darkness, obscurity and ghostly twilight.
The owls also represent sadness to Thoreau. The Screech Owl’s cries remind
Thoreau of “the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be
sung” (81). The Barred Owl’s hooting is “the most melancholy sound in Nature” and
mimics “the dying moans of a human being – some poor weak relic of mortality who has
left hope behind, and howls like an animal” (81). These melancholy sounds are also
“melodious,” and through the owls’ songs, Thoreau hears pain and sadness that humans
cannot convey. Though Thoreau is a loner, spending his time in the woods apart from
human society, the owl’s sounds, like those of a dying human being, still conjure sadness
for Thoreau. His sensitivity to these sounds, sung with “the restlessness of despair” (81),
allows the cries to echo through the dark woods, reminding Thoreau of “ghouls and idiots
and insane howlings” (82). Again, the owls’ melodies express grief and sorrow, haunting
the woods around Walden Pond and representing mystery and gloom.
Thoreau notes that the owl’s call is “quite familiar to me at last, though I never
saw the bird while it was making it” (175). When Thoreau does observe a Barred Owl,
sleeping in “one of the lower dead limbs of a white-pine…in broad daylight,” he is eager
to get closer to the owl to observe it. As Thoreau approaches the bird, he wakens it, and
the owl moves away from him:
At length, on some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy
and sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impatient at having his dreams
disturbed; and when he launched himself off and flapped through the pines,
spreading his wings to unexpected breadth, I could not hear the slightest sound
from them. Thus, guided amid the pine boughs rather by a delicate sense of their
neighborhood than by sight, feeling his twilight way as it were with his sensitive
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pinions, he found a new perch, where he might in peace await the dawning of his
day. (172)
Thoreau again portrays the owl as something mysterious as it soundlessly flies away and
escapes his view. Away from the intrusion of Thoreau, the owl rests once more. The
“dawning of his day” will cause the owl to become active again; when the night begins,
the bird will be free to echo its ghostly calls through the woods, hidden from daylight’s
view.
Though it is rare to view owls in the daylight, Mary Oliver, like Thoreau, is eager
to observe an owl visually instead of aurally. In her essay “Owls” (1995) Oliver walks
through the woods in Massachusetts, searching for the nest of a Great Horned Owl.
When Oliver finds the great bird, she listens to the “heavy, crisp, breathy snapping of its
hooked beak” (15). The fierceness of the bird’s presence as its “razor-tipped toes rasp the
limb” causes Oliver to think of the owl’s role in nature:
They are the pure wild hunters of our world. They are swift and merciless upon
the backs of rabbits, mice, voles, snakes, even skunks, even cats sitting in dusky
yards, thinking peaceful thoughts. I have found the headless bodies of rabbits and
blue jays, and known it was the great horned owl that did them in, taking the head
only, for the owl has an insatiable craving for the taste of brains…I know this
bird. If it could, it would eat the whole world. (15)
Instead of viewing the owls as a representation of human sorrow, as Thoreau does, Oliver
analyzes the ecological behavior of the birds. She connects the fierce talons and beak
that she witnesses during the day with the decapitated bodies of small animals she finds;
she knows the Great Horned Owl not by witnessing its actions but by seeing the mess it
leaves behind. Despite the havoc wreaked on small animals by the owl, Oliver is eager to
witness it in the woods near her home. In fact, Oliver looks “in every part of the
Provincelands that is within [her] walking range” (13), searching for the bird that hunts
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so mercilessly. Oliver’s eagerness to witness the Great Horned Owl parallels Thoreau’s
desire to get close to the sleeping Barred Owl. Getting closer to these birds would
demystify them; the birds, known mostly for their sounds or for the carnage they leave
behind, would be better understood if only they could be witnessed in the wild. Both
authors wish to obtain a better way of “knowing” the mysterious birds.
The violence wrought by birds like the Great Horned Owl can also be witnessed
by night. In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), Annie Dillard observes a Great Horned Owl
in the woods near her home in Virginia; in the chapter “Nightwatch,” Dillard describes
some of the wildlife she witnesses during the night. A skunk emerges in the “valley
night,” and a “great horned owl folded his wings and dropped from the sky, and the two
met on the bloodied surface of the earth. Spreading over a distance, the air from that spot
thinned to a frail sweetness, a tinctured wind that bespoke real creatures and real
encounters at the edge…events, events” (223). Like the Great Horned Owl in Oliver’s
essay, Dillard’s Great Horned Owl is a “pure wild hunter,” and Dillard’s description
shows the viciousness with which the owl attacks its prey. Like the Great Horned Owl
that Oliver describes, Dillard’s owl is also “swift and merciless.” However, Dillard does
not sympathize with the mutilated body of the skunk; she understands the interaction as a
“real encounter at the edge,” a natural “event.” The Great Horned Owl, though brutal, is
as “real” a creature as the skunk it kills, and the hunt is both necessary and natural.
Elf Owls, though much smaller and less intimidating than the raspy, long-clawed
Great Horned Owls, also practice similar hunting patterns. In her essay “Water Trails of
the Ceriso” (1903), Mary Austin also describes Elf Owls that visit a spring in the desert
of the American Southwest. “Those burrow-haunting, speckled fluffs of greediness begin
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a twilight flitting toward the spring,” she writes, “feeding as they go on grasshoppers,
lizards, and small, swift creatures, diving into burrows to catch field mice asleep, battling
with chipmunks at their own doors, and getting down in great numbers toward the lone
juniper” (13). Though the two species live in very different environments, this owl of the
desert and wooded canyons, like the Great Horned Owl in the eastern woodland
environment, also feeds on a variety of animals smaller and less fortunate than itself. The
Elf Owls do not visit the spring to drink or bathe; they visit the spring because of the
“presence of the things they feed upon” (13). The Elf Owls are hunters, and “All night
the rustle and soft hooting keeps on in the neighborhood of the spring, with seldom small
shrieks of mortal agony. It is clear day before they have all gotten back to their particular
hummocks” (13). The owls spend the whole night preying upon other animals, and the
“small shrieks of mortal agony” are as haunting and as representative of death as are the
owls’ calls. While these owls are small, “speckled fluffs,” they still have the ability to
raise terror and fear in small animals, and these emotions echo in human minds. The Elf
Owls, though small, are still birds of prey that kill to survive.
Though writers of environmental literature depict owls as brutal hunters having
no remorse for the creatures they destroy, the authors understand that the process of
killing is part of nature’s cycle. Oliver continues her essay “Owls” by describing the
brutality of the hunt: “In the night, when the owl is less than exquisitely swift and perfect,
the scream of the rabbit is terrible. But the scream of the owl, which is not of pain and
hopelessness and the fear of being plucked out of the world, but of the sheer rollicking
glory of the death-bringer, is more terrible still” (15-16). The owl’s terrible scream
signifies its capacity to kill. Oliver even refers to the great horned owl later in the essay
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as “death…with molten eyes.” Worse even than the “small shrieks of mortal agony” that
Austin describes, the call of the Great Horned Owl after the hunt represents not death, but
a sense of joy at the onslaught of death. The cry is chilling. Despite the brutality that
Oliver sense, however, she continues:
When I hear it resounding through the woods, and then the five black pellets of its
song dropping like stones into the air, I know I am standing at the edge of the
mystery, in which terror is naturally and abundantly part of life, part of even the
most becalmed, intelligent, sunny life—as, for example, my own. The world
where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which
I live too. There is only one world. (16)
Oliver’s description turns the call of the owl into “five black pellets,” making the song
solid, dangerous, and dark. Though the owl, with its haunting cries, is mysterious, Oliver
is close to understanding the brutality of the owl’s hunt. The endless hunger of the bird
leads to the vicious deaths of other animals, feeding both the owl and the larger
ecosystem with its natural process of life and death. Though the murder by the bird may
be hard to accept, Oliver understands these connections, and she understands the role that
the owl plays within her own world. Terror, mystery, and agony belong to both bird and
human at different times and for different reasons, but they are shared intangibles.
The Great Horned Owl plays a specific role in the ecosystem that Oliver observes.
Similarly, Thoreau recognizes the place owls hold in observations of his own world.
“They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our
common dwelling” (81), he writes, showing that the owl’s actions are a part of the nature
that both human and bird share. Thoreau continues:
They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day
the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce
stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the
chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath;
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but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures
awakes to express the meaning of Nature there. (82)
The owls take the place of daytime creatures when the night arises, and though their new
day may be “more dismal,” they occupy a necessary part of it. Like the lichens, hawks,
evergreens, and humans, the owls fill a role in nature that is vital, characterized by
chilling cries and vicious hunt. Though other animals do not hunt or haunt as the owl
does, each living thing is a part of the world which contains such acts, and nature writers
from Thoreau to Oliver have come to understand the necessary role that owls play.
The untamed and uninhibited night cries of owls and nighthawks, though
alarming, allow authors to appreciate the wild nature of the birds. In his essay “On
Willow Creek” (1993), Rick Bass writes of “the wild places he knew as a child, the
swamps on the west side of Houston and the rugged, rocky fields and creeks of the hill
country” (250). The essay describes a memory of camping and hiking with his father in
Texas, and Bass writes:
We descended toward the creek, and our cabin. The country came into view,
brilliant in the headlights. Nighthawks flittered and flipped in the road before us,
danced eerie acrobatic flights that looked as if they were trying to smother the
dust in the road with their soft wings. Their eyes were glittering red in the
headlights. It was as if we had stumbled into a witches’ coven, but I wasn’t
frightened. They weren’t bad witches; they were just wild. (258)
Nighthawks, like owls, are rarely seen. When Bass sees them in the path of his
headlights, he is aware of how wild the birds are. His descriptions of the nighthawks,
with “glittering red eyes” and with “eerie acrobatic flights,” parallel the ghost-like
descriptions of owls by other authors. Likewise, the nighthawks have an unknown
appearance and mysterious actions. However, Bass explains that the birds do not scare
him; he simply accepts their strange appearance and actions as wild and not to be feared.
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While the nighthawks, like owls, may seem haunting, Bass knows the birds are not
harmful or threatening. Like the other authors, Bass also identifies the birds as a wild and
necessary part of nature to be accepted as equal inhabitants of the “one world” that Oliver
describes.
The eerie nighthawks are also viewed through Barry Lopez’s headlights as he is
driving in Idaho. In his essay “Apologia” (1992), Lopez “offer[s] an apology” to animals
that he finds dead on the road, hit by passing cars. “Who are these animals, their lights
gone out?” he asks, “What journeys have fallen apart here?” (76). When Lopez finds
dead animals in the road, he stops his car and moves the animals to the side of the road to
give them “some semblance of burial,” and to show the dead animals respect. Lopez
believes that this act illustrates his awareness of other creatures in nature as well as
nature’s cycles of life and death. Before Lopez notices two nighthawks, “lying soft as
clouds in the road,” he describes viewing them, alive, in the darkness, as they “swoop the
road for gnats, silent on the wing as owls” (76). Lopez notices the birds both alive and
dead, showing his awareness for the creatures in both states. When he finds the dead
ones, he pulls over, and picks one bird up in each hand.
Lopez draws the attention of another man on the road, who approaches Lopez and
speaks of the birds in “a deep murmur weighted with awe” (77). Lopez writes of the
man’s fascination with the nighthawks:
He has been watching these flocks feeding just above the road for several
evenings. He calls them whippoorwills. He gestures for a carcass. How odd,
yes, the way they concentrate their hunting right on the road, I say. He runs a
finger down the smooth arc of the belly and remarks on the small whiskered bill.
He pulls one long wing out straight, but not roughly. He marvels. He glances at
my car, baffled by this out-of-state courtesy. Two dozen nighthawks career past,
back and forth at arm’s length, feeding at our height and lower. He asks if I
would mind—as though I owned it—if he took the bird up to the house to show
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his wife. ‘She’s never seen anything like this.’ He’s fascinated. ‘Not close.’ I
trust, later, he will put it in the fields, not throw the body in the trash, a whirligig.
(77)
Seeing the nighthawks so closely captivates the man who approaches Lopez. Like
Lopez, this man also observed the birds in flight when they were alive, and he is equally
impressed and in awe of their lifeless bodies. The appreciation of both men for the birds’
beauty, from their smooth bellies to their whiskered bills, is apparent through their
attention to the carcasses. When two dozen living nighthawks fly past, hunting along the
road like the two that were killed, both men again are able to compare the dead bodies to
the freely flying, living birds. The man’s fascination with the living birds is translated to
his fascination with the carcasses, so much so that he takes the dead bodies from Lopez’s
hands so that he can show them to his wife. The dead birds give the man and his wife the
opportunity to witness the birds up-close, something that cannot be done in the wild. The
man is mesmerized by the appearance of the birds, and having the chance to study them
so closely allows both men to better understand the nighthawk’s place in the sky, not on
the side of the road. Though the nighthawks are dead, the two men treat the birds with
the same respect and reverence deserving of living, wild creatures, and Lopez’s trust in
the man to give the birds a proper “apology” is reflective of their captivation with the
birds.
Because humans rarely observe owls and nighthawks, it is not surprising that
humans have such reverence for the birds when they do see them. The chance to observe
one of these birds fills the viewer with admiration, and this admiration is exemplified by
the fact that the birds seem mysterious and are often unknown. However, instead of
associating the mysterious birds with ghosts or witches, as other authors do, in her poem
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“White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field” (1990), Mary Oliver describes a Snowy Owl
“Coming down / out of the freezing sky” (lines 1-2) “like an angel, / or a buddha with
wings” (lines 4-5), “beautiful” (line 6), and “graceful” (line 16). The owl, which stands
out against the snowy landscape, brings “depths of light” (line 3) to the scene, even
though, like other owls, it is a hunter, chasing smaller animals “through the white valleys
/ of the snow” (lines 14-15). This light image of the white owl against the snow-covered
valleys, coming out of the frozen sky, brings Oliver to suggest
so I thought:
maybe death
isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us—
as soft as feathers—
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,
not without amazement… (lines 21-29)
In this poem, Oliver portrays the snowy owl by using light and soft imagery, in deep
contrast to the dark, eerie, and haunting images of owls by other authors. However, the
snowy owl is still a hunter, ready to bring death to other creatures. Oliver suggests that
such a quick onset of death which the owl brings may be like the death that humans
experience: “nothing but light—scalding, aortal light” (line 34). Even though the snowy
owl represents death, its description is filled with positive imagery, and humans look
upon it with amazement. The light that the owl represents is both soft and bright, and its
beauty is overwhelming. The owl, which is both beautiful and graceful, represents death
not in a terrifying or depressing way; rather, it represents the softness and light that may
come with death. The dazzling whiteness and positive imagery describing the owl’s
flight and hunt illustrate both the beauty of the bird and the beauty of nature. Though
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death is a part of nature, the beauty found in nature is not compromised. The Snowy
Owl, though a hunter, is a beautiful bird to be revered.
Like the Snowy Owl, other owls, nighthawks, and whippoorwills are equally
beautiful, despite their mysteriousness. The fact that these birds are so unknown to
humans makes encounters with them unique and extraordinary. Historically, the birds
have come to represent loss, death, and sorrow, but humans are still intrigued by the
birds. Their roles as hunters and as birds of the night do not make the birds something to
be feared; rather, it reminds humans of the many roles that different animals occupy in
nature. Even though the birds may remain unknown to humans, many people still have a
desire to get closer to owls, nighthawks, and whippoorwills, to observe them, understand
them, and know them. The oppositions of their fierceness and their elegance, their
swiftness and their precision, parallel ideas of death and beauty to create a spectacle of
majestic mystery. Though often shrouded in dark, or noted only by their haunting calls
or the tracks of their destruction, owls and nightjars remind us that nature operates in
beautiful but mysterious ways.
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Conclusion
Environmental literature helps us to remember those birds that now only fly
through memory or the pages of a book. Texts that describe the Passenger Pigeon and
Carolina Parakeet, such as John James Audubon’s essays of direct observations, Mary
Oliver’s reflective poem “Showing the Birds,” or Christopher Cokinos’ lengthy book
about the natural history and extinction of these birds, portray for readers the beautiful
avian species that we have lost at the hands of human destruction. Such essays, poems,
and books also depict the reverence and respect that humans have for the birds we have
lost, as well as the utter disbelief that we let such extinction events occur. Human
recognition of these birds and the roles the birds played within our landscapes and
environments shows readers both the fragility of the livelihood of avian species and the
potential for such devastating losses to occur in the future. As global climate change
threatens to lead many other species, avian and otherwise, to extinction, humans are
reminded of the lessons of the past. The loss of the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina
Parakeet occurred because few humans attempted to stop their slaughter. As the species
declined in number, humans were even more likely to shoot the birds to preserve them for
collections and science education. The flocks that once filled the skies and covered the
trees met their end rapidly, as human greed and ignorance won over conservation goals
and respect for nonhuman species.
Since the deaths of the last Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet, however,
human study and interest in birds has moved from shot-gun ornithology, popular in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to a new form of hunting. Replacing shotguns
with binoculars and preserved collections with life lists has helped make birdwatching the
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popular hobby that it is today. Part of the excitement of birdwatching is in the “hunt,”
whether it is hunting the sky or forest for a flash of color or hunting through the
guidebook to identify a particular bird. As Jonathan Rosen states in The Life of the Skies,
“Birdwatching is all about looking for life” (29). Searching for birds in the sky,
wilderness, or the city is a way for humans to become acquainted with nature.
Birdwatching is increasing in popularity for both those who do and don’t identify as
environmentalists or conservationists. Even in urban areas, looking for birds is a hobby
that allows humans to observe nature that they would not otherwise have the chance to
see. Rosen states, “Most people live in cities or suburbs but pine, at some deep level, for
the wild world that produced us long ago and that our ancestors, with animal fury,
worked so hard to subdue. This is why birding, though it can seem like a token activity,
an eccentric pastime, is so central to modern life” (9). In a society that increasingly
draws us away from nature and places us indoors or in cities, observing birds is a pastime
that allows us to be closer to the nature that is woven into our ancestry.
Humans have the opportunity to admire nature through watching birds. Whether
we witness the swift and stunning hummingbird, the solitary and elusive heron, the wild
and rambunctious goose, or the mysterious and haunting owl, the attention we give to
birds means that we appreciate nature and its processes. As we observe birds and learn to
identify them, we attempt to understand their lives, ecology, and behavior. By gaining
more knowledge about different bird species, we are better equipped to understand the
roles they play within their environments as well as the ways that human impacts on the
environment in turn impact the birds. Environmental literature about the Passenger
Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet force us to understand the fragility of bird species and
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their dependence on the habitats and ecosystems they occupy. These works serve as a
lesson for us to not let the same devastation occur for the species that remain. By
describing different bird species with admiration, respect, and reverence, nature writers
urge readers to protect birds and their habitats so that we may continue to appreciate their
presence in our lives.
As the hummingbirds escape the cold winter and migrate south, or as the solitary
heron escapes human presence and flies to another shore, humans, too, escape modern
society by watching birds. We fly from society to nature when we look for birds. Our
attention to the birds and our appreciation for their lives shows that we wish to be as wild
and free as they are. Throughout America’s history, humans have looked to the birds:
first to learn more about the nature of a new continent, and now to return to the nature we
were once intimately a part of. Nature writers from Henry David Thoreau to Mary Oliver
express a unified human interest in both birds and nature when they write their essays,
short stories, books, and poems. By describing these avian species from biological,
ecological, sociological, historical, humanistic, or literary perspectives, nature writers
have created texts by which readers can admire birds and hope to witness them in the
wild. Like the wild geese, who are “heading home again” (Oliver, Wild Geese line 13),
we look to birds to return home, to our instinctive cravings for wild nature.
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Appendix
Books
Cokinos, Christopher. Hope is the Thing with Feathers.
Poet and nonfiction writer Christopher Cokinos wrote this book, which details the
histories of six extinct bird species in America. Combining natural history, biology,
sociology, and personal narrative, Cokinos describes the lives and deaths of the Carolina
Parakeet, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, the Heath Hen, the Passenger Pigeon, the
Labrador Duck, and the Great Auk.
Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
This text is Annie Dillard’s first published book of prose, but she has gone on to write
many more books and novels. This book, a “mystical excursion into the natural world,”
explores the natural habitats and creatures found at Tinker Creek, near Dillard’s home in
Virginia. Dillard’s prose focuses on the intricacies and details of nature; the book is also
well-researched and includes biological information about much of the wildlife she
encounters.
Koeppel, Dan. To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong
Obsession.
This text was written largely about the author’s father, Richard Koeppel, a “life lister.”
The book explores Richard’s obsession with birding and how he reached a life list of
observations of over 7,000 bird species. The book is filled with historical, scientific, and
cultural information about the hobby of birding.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There.
This classic text, written by one of America’s foremost conservationists, is filled with
nature writing that describes Leopold’s life and landscape on his farm in Wisconsin. The
book details the many species of wildlife that frequent his farm, as well as his love for all
things wild. The book also explore ideals of conservation, wilderness, and the ways that
humans interact with the land.
Rhodes, Richard. John James Audubon: The Making of an American.
This book explores the life of John James Audubon, and is written by Richard Rhodes, a
prolific writer of history, novels, and journalism. Much of this text focuses on
Audubon’s artwork, but it is a well-rounded history of his life and work.
Rosen, Joanathan. The Life of the Skies.
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This book explores what birds represent in our society. In increasingly urban areas,
humans can still watch birds to feel close to nature. By exploring and analyzing the
hobby of birding, Rosen incorporates information about many bird species, several
important ornithologists, and many authors and poets who write about birds. Rosen
questions whether bird-watching in man-made environments can bring humans close to
nature, and he explores ideas of creation versus evolution and tries to discover what birds
symbolize in such a context.
Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History.
Ted Steinberg is an environmental historian, and this text explores the history of America
from before European settlement to the present from an environmental perspective.
While limited in its scope on avian history, it does include information about the
extinction of the Passenger Pigeon.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden; or, Life in the Woods.
This classic text is naturalist and writer Henry David Thoreau’s most famous work. The
setting for his memoir-style explorations of the natural world is at Walden Pond, in
Massachusetts, where Thoreau lived in a cabin in the woods beginning in the spring of
1845. The book includes Thoreau’s philosophical ideas about nature, society, economy,
and education, as well as many descriptive encounters with the nature surrounding him at
Walden.
Weidensaul, Scott. Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding.
This book describes ornithology in America from an environmental historical
perspective. The content of the book ranges from creation myths to the extinction of
species; from the founder of the first Audubon Society to the Father of American
Ornithology; from artwork centered on birds to the creation of several revolutionary field
guides; from bird migrations to bird invasions; from plume trading for millinery to
central female ornithologists; and from counting birds to collecting them.
Williams, Terry Tempest. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place.
Only a short excerpt from this book was used for this paper, but Refuge is filled with bird
imagery. The book compares the rise of Great Salt Lake, which threatened the Bear
River Migratory Bird Refuge, with the slow process of Williams’ mother’s death by
cancer. Each chapter focuses on a different bird species that Williams observes at the
refuge, where she goes to contemplate the struggle of losing her mother.
Wroth, Katharine, Ed. The Zen of Watching Birds: Wit, Wisdom, and Inspiration.
This book incorporates quotes about birds, ranging from Chinese proverbs to statements
by Friedrich Nietzsche. The book aims to capture “the emotional, spiritual, and
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humorous experiences we have when out watching birds.” Illustrated by Kate Quinby,
the book incorporates flip-book style images of birds.
Essays
Audubon, John James. “Passenger Pigeon.”
This essay, printed in Roger Caras’ Treasury of Classic Nature Tales, describes naturalist
and artist John James Audubon’s observations of immense flocks of Passenger Pigeons, a
now extinct species, in the early 19th century.
Audubon, John James. “The Carolina Parrot.”
This essay, printed in The Audubon Reader, edited by Richard Rhodes, describes
naturalist and artist John James Auduon’s observations of Carolina Parakeets, a now
extinct species, in the early 19th century.
Austin, Mary. The Land of Little Rain.
This essay collection is composed of “14 sketches” that describe “plants, animals,
mountains, birds, skies, Indians, prospectors, towns and other features of the desert in
serene, beautifully modulated prose that perfectly conveys the timeless cycles of life and
death in a harsh land.” Mary Austin spent most of her life in the desert of the Southwest
United States, where she wrote prolifically about her environment in poems, plays, and
novels.
Bass, Rick. “On Willow Creek.”
This essay, printed in Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture,
edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, was first published in
the Los Angeles Times Magazine in November 1993. Bass has written many essays about
wilderness experiences, especially those in Texas and Montana. This essay describes the
rugged landscapes Bass knew as a child, and argues for the preservation of this
wilderness.
Bingham, Sallie. “A Woman’s Land.”
This essay, printed in Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture,
edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, was first published in
the Amicus Journal of the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1990. Bingham, a
playwright and fiction writer, portrays a strong feminist voice in her writings. This essay
explores ideas of land ownership from a feminist perspective.
Caras, Roger. “The Endless Migrations.”
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This essay, printed in Roger Caras’ Treasury of Classic Nature Tales, is “endless” in its
description of the migrations of birds. The essay does talk about other species, but it
focuses mostly on birds, primarily the hummingbirds. Geese, robins, waxwings, loons,
plovers, terns, jaegers, grouse, and warblers are also described. The essay combines a
great deal of scientific information about the birds’ habits with beautiful imagery about
their appearance and behavior. Caras, a writer of pets and wildlife, excerpted this essay
for his collection from his book The Endless Migrations.
Daniel, John. “A Word in Favor of Rootlessness.”
This essay, printed in Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture,
edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, was originally
published in Orion magazine in 1995. Daniel, a writer of poems and essays, is interested
in the idea of place and connections to the environment. In this essay, Daniel praises the
“potential benefits of rootlessness,” as opposed to being attached to a single place.
Lopez, Barry. “Apologia.”
This essay, printed in Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture,
edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, was originally
published in the anthology On Nature’s Terms: Contemporary Voices in 1992, and
appeared earlier in a slightly different form in the journal Witness in 1989. Lopez is one
of “the preeminent contemporary American nature writers.” This essay explores the
respect that Lopez has for animals that have passed away, and questions what these dead
animals represent.
Reben, Martha. “Night Song.”
This essay appears in Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry about Nature,
edited by Lorraine Anderson, and was first printed in A Sharing of Joy in 1963. Reben,
who spent much of her time in the Adirondacks, focuses many of her writings on the idea
of healing in nature. This excerpt is taken from a book of Reben’s best wildlife stories.
Rowntree, Lester. “Collecting Myself.”
This essay, printed in Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture,
edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, was originally
published in Nature Magazine in 1950. Rowntree, a horticulturalist and writer, wrote this
essay about wildlife experiences in her native California wilderness.
Stratton-Porter, Gene. “The Last Passenger Pigeon.”
This essay by Gene Stratton-Porter, a naturalist and writer of fiction, is printed in
American Earth, edited by Bill McKibben. Stratton-Porter describes one of the last
Passenger Pigeons witnessed in the wild in the American Midwest, where Stratton-Porter
lived. Many of her essays focus on environmental themes. Though her nature writing
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was less popular than her novels, Stratton-Porter wrote prolifically about nature and the
environmental changes that she witnessed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
Poems
Berry, Wendell. Collected Poems.
The poems “The Heron” and “The Wild Geese” are from this collection of poems by
Wendell Berry, a poet, novelist, essayist, and writer of short stories. Berry’s
environmental influence comes from his life as a farmer, largely in rural areas of
Kentucky. “The Heron” (page 137) was originally printed in Farming: A Handbook
(1970), and “The Wild Geese” (page 155) was originally printed in The Country of
Marriage (1973).
Hirshfield, Jane. “Hope and Love.”
This poem is printed in Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, a
book that “celebrate[s] the winged creatures that have inspired so many poets to sing for
centuries,” edited by Billy Collins. The poem was originally printed in Hirshfield’s The
Lives of the Heart (1997). Hirshfield is the author of several books of poetry.
Jeffers, Robinson. “Passenger Pigeons.”
This poem is printed in the anthology Literature and the Environment: A Reader on
Nature and Culture, edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady.
The poem was originally printed in The Beginning and the End and Other Poems (1963).
Much of Jeffers’ poetry is influenced by the mountain and ocean scenery of California.
This poem raises ideas of the fate of the human species and whether or not humans suffer
at the loss of another species.
Oliver, Mary. Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays; Red Bird.
Owls and Other Fantasies, a book of poems and essays, includes: “Wild Geese” (page 1);
“Owls” (page 13); “Herons in Winter in the Frozen Marsh” (page 24); “Hummingbirds”
(page 28); and “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field” (page 54). The book is filled
with poems and essays about birds, showing Oliver’s love for birds and the natural world.
Red Bird is a book of poems that includes “Summer Story” (page 25) and “Showing the
Birds” (page 43). Oliver is the author of many books of poetry and prose, and is the
winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Rogers, Pattiann. “Knot.”
This poem is printed in the anthology Literature and the Environment: A Reader on
Nature and Culture, edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady.
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The poem was originally printed in Splitting and Binding (1989). Many of Rogers’
poems, like this one, describe the natural world and the place that humans occupy within
it.
Skeen, Anita. “A Sadness.”
This poem is printed in Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry about Nature. It
was originally printed in The Resurrection of the Animals (2002). Skeen writes poetry,
short fiction, and essays, and The Resurrection of the Animals is filled with imagery of
animals, landscapes, and weather.
Stories
Jewett, Sarah Orne. “A White Heron.”
This story is printed in Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry about Nature. It
was originally printed in a collection of short stories, A White Heron and Other Stories
(1886). Jewett’s short stories and novels are based in the landscapes of rural New
England, where she lived. Jewett was also an activist and part of the bird conservation
movement that discouraged the hunting of birds for use in women’s fashion accessories
in the late nineteenth century.
Field Guides
Peterson, Roger Tory. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America
This field guide includes original paintings by naturalist Roger Tory Peterson. The book
is designed to let amateur birder identify birds by pointing out distinguishing features.
The guide also includes information about each species and maps that show where the
birds are located.
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Works Cited
Audubon, John James. “Passenger Pigeon.” Roger Caras' Treasury of Classic Nature
Tales. Ed. Caras, Roger A. New York: Galahad Books, 1997. 30-39.
Audubon, John James. “The Carolina Parrot.” The Audubon Reader. Ed. Rhodes,
Richard. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. 101-105.
Austin, Mary Hunter. The Land of Little Rain. New York: Dover Publications, 1996.
Bass, Rick. “On Willow Creek.” Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature
and Culture. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine; Slovic, Scott; and O’Grady, John P. New
York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 250-258.
Berry, Wendell. Collected Poems. San Francisco: North Point Press. 1985.
Bingham, Sallie. “A Woman’s Land.” Literature and the Environment: A Reader on
Nature and Culture. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine; Slovic, Scott; and O’Grady, John P.
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 425-427.
Caras, Roger. “The Endless Migrations.” Roger Caras' Treasury of Classic Nature
Tales. Ed. Caras, Roger A. New York: Galahad Books, 1997. 189-216.
Cokinos, Christopher. Hope is the Thing with Feathers. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher /
Penguin, 2009.
Daniel, John. “A Word in Favor of Rootlessness.” Literature and the Environment: A
Reader on Nature and Culture. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine; Slovic, Scott; and
O’Grady, John P. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 259-264.
Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Bantam Books, 1974.
Hirshfield, Jane. “Hope and Love.” Bright Wings. Ed. Collins, Billy. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2010. 32.
99
Jeffers, Robinson. “Passenger Pigeons.” Literature and the Environment: A Reader on
Nature and Culture. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine; Slovic, Scott; and O’Grady, John P.
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 475-476.
Jewett, Sarah Orne. “A White Heron.” Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry
about Nature. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. 24-35.
Koeppel, Dan. To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession.
New York: Plume, 2006.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1949.
Lopez, Barry. “Apologia.” Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and
Culture. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine; Slovic, Scott; and O’Grady, John P. New York:
Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 75-79.
Oliver, Mary. Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays. Boston: Beacon Press,
2003.
Oliver, Mary. Red Bird. Boston: Beacon Press, 2008.
Peterson, Roger Tory. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America. New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008.
Reben, Martha. “Night Song.” Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry about
Nature. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. 145.
Rhodes, Richard. John James Audubon: The Making of an American. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 2004.
100
Rogers, Pattiann. “Knot.” Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and
Culture. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine; Slovic, Scott; and O’Grady, John P. New York:
Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 62.
Rosen, Joanathan. The Life of the Skies. New York: Picador, 2008.
Rowntree, Lester. “Collecting Myself.” Literature and the Environment: A Reader on
Nature and Culture. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine; Slovic, Scott; and O’Grady, John P.
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 22-27.
Skeen, Anita. “A Sadness.” Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry about
Nature. Ed. Anderson, Lorraine. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. 263-264.
Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002.
Stratton-Porter, Gene. “The Last Passenger Pigeon.” American Earth: Environmental
Writing Since Thoreau. Ed. McKibben, Bill. New York: The Library of America,
2008. 192-204.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. New York: Dover Publications,
1995.
Thorea, Henry David. The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Journal March 2, 1859 –
November 30, 1859. Ed. Torrey, Braford. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and
Company, 1906. 328.
Weidensaul, Scott. Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding. Orlando:
Harcourt, Inc., 2007.
Williams, Terry Tempest. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. New
York: Vintage Books,1991.
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Wroth, Katharine, Ed. The Zen of Watching Birds: Wit, Wisdom, and Inspiration. Seattle:
Skipstone, 2009.