By Mel Carriere
Who killed the Meadowlarks - I did of course.
My son and I walked up the hill to the bowling alley last night to get something to eat. As we listened to the screeching complaints of the Killdeer in the distance we were remembering the time when the neighborhood was new and we used to take similar walks on the shaded path that runs behind it.
I nostalgically pointed out to him the Pepper Tree where I saw my one and only flock of Lawrence 's Goldfinches. This thought reminded me of the metallic tinkling of the Horned Larks breaking the silence of dawn on the barren desertscape of the construction sites that once surrounded us. Then as I looked up the hill toward the office park where the rowdy Killdeer protests were being staged I asked my son if he could remember when that was plowed ranch land up there and we used to hear the piping flutes of the Meadowlarks during our walks.
He said he did and I believe him even though at the time he wasn't much higher than one of the fence posts the Meadowlarks use as perches to declare their sovereignty in song. I said wasn't it a shame that we can't hear that lovely soundtrack of the wonderfully wide and empty countryside anymore.
Then all at once I realized what a hypocrite I was for saying that.
For it was I who drove out the gentle Meadowlarks, because it was I that wanted to live in the quiet suburbs on the edge of the mustard covered rolling hills where once there were only serenely grazing cattle.
To be certain the Meadowlarks were not the original residents of those hillsides once paved by plowed furrows and low grasses but now carpeted with asphalt and sprinkler-watered, human planted, mass produced exotics. Unknown scores of years ago there was sage, sumac and chemise up there, and the hills were alive with the bouncing ball songs of Wrentits and the rambling, mad gibberish of California Thrashers.
Then the ranchers came in and plowed under the sage shrub, and the Meadowlarks moved into the bulldozed habitat as if it had been terraformed according to strict Sturnella specifications. Here they thrived in peace for decades until the allure of the development dollar provoked by suburban settlers such as myself forced these supreme songsters of the Icterid race onto their own avian trail of tears and ushered in the House Finches, the Goldfinches, the Kingbirds and the Phoebes that thrive in the office park ecosystem.
All of these historical avian events were provoked by the hand of man. If I rue the absence of those bright yellow feathered breasts belting out a piping tune across an ocean of grass I must remember that their removal was done under my orders, carried out with tractors and bulldozers that were financed by my monthly mortgage payment.
So here is my confession, my confession and yours, the next time we take our evening suburban walk and wonder where all the old birds have gone.
True, it's been 30 plus years since I pointed a gun at any living creature, but the effect is the same as if I had. Who killed the Meadowlarks - T'was me.
Image from: http://sdakotabirds.com/species_photos/western_meadowlark.htm
Birds by Mel is powered for flight by copious amounts of shade-grown warbler-friendly coffee, which unfortunately is very expensive. I have nothing to do with ad selection, but if you don't find them overly offensive or aggravating please see what my sponsors featured to the right and on the bottom of this post have to say.
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