Now,
that was unusual!
The
other day I was in the walkway at my office (the same one that, previously,
provided such an excellent view of a robin’s nest), when suddenly something on
the window ledge caught my eye. I looked over and what do you know? It was a
wee little bird! It was sitting up, but it was very still. I also noticed what
appeared to be little tufts stuck to the window right next to the bird. I
wondered if he’d smacked into the glass and, because he was so still, I
wondered if he was stunned or …
But
no. As I crouched down to see it closer, it blinked and turned its head a bit. In
another moment, it spread even spread its wings and fluttered over to the next
window ledge. Why wasn’t it flying away?
Then
suddenly it leaped high in the air, fluttering its wings wildly while it
smacked its little face right into the glass over and over, in much the same
way you’d expect a bee to do when it finds itself trapped indoors. But this was
no bee. And it certainly wasn’t indoors.
In
fact, if it would just turn its tiny little head around, it would see that
there was a whole wide open outdoors right behind it, and a big, vast sky
directly above it. It even did appear to look around once or twice. Yet, once
again, it fluttered around and beat it face repeatedly against the glass before
landing, again, on the ledge.
Its
eventual, inadvertent rescue came from my own clumsiness. As I watched the
bird, I noticed that the glass between us consisted of either two panes, or one
really thick one. Curious as to how thick the glass actually was, I laid my
hand on it. But my hand thumped the glass a bit harder than I had intended, and
it so startled the little guy that he jumped up, turned around and took off
into the air! I’m not quite sure whether to say “I’m sorry” or “You’re
welcome”!
I
don’t really know why a bird would behave like that, but I’ve come up with the
most plausible theory I could dream up. The bird had the markings of a
chickadee, but was a bit smaller than you’d usually expect a chickadee to be. I
wondered if, possibly, he was a young bird, possibly hatched this very spring,
and he was old enough to be out and about, but still a bit too young to fully
comprehend the definition of the word “window”. Perhaps he could see the sky
and clouds in the reflection and was trying to get there, but couldn’t
understand what this cold, hard surface was that kept preventing him from
flying away!
Anyway,
perhaps that’s a reminder that if you live in a place with a high bird
population, it’s a good idea to put something on the window to prevent them
from hurting themselves.
On
another note, have you heard about this? The nation of Bolivia is passing a new
law. It’s called “The Law of Mother Earth”.
Basically,
it declares Mother Earth (A.K.A. Mother Nature) to be a “collective subject of
public interest” with rights. In other words, Mother Earth and all her creatures
are now an entity with inherent rights and legal action can be taken to
exercise those rights. At least in Bolivia.
Here
are Mother Nature’s 7 rights declared by this law:
·
Life
·
Diversity of life
·
Water
·
Clean Air
·
Equilibrium (all ecosystems and
creatures working together in cycle as they were intended to do.)
·
Restoration
·
To live free of contamination
I’m no lawyer. I
can’t pretend to completely understand everything, but it sounds pretty
promising, right? Will it work? Will it by as idyllic as it sounds? Will other countries follow Bolivia's example? What bumps
in the road will crop up? Well, only time will tell.
But I, for one,
find it very encouraging and wonderful that people are even starting to think
along these lines. That’s a mighty step in the right direction, don’t you
think?
Photo by Talshiarr at English Wikipedia
Comments