[va-bird] Re: Sibley Hummingbird Comments

VA-Birders:

Phil:  you guys degraded the genetic trust (he haw, he, he, haw)
when you went out in the boat and allowed yourselves to become
a landing point for the warbler.  Shame on you!  Blame on you! 
Hang your head!  Make a public apology!  Pray for forgiveness!
Pass stop and go to jail!  Don't worry,  you'll be sent to hell :-)

My advice is that we stop all birders from taking boats out in
the ocean and degrading genetic trusts :-)

Who is to blame for creating that term genetic "trusts"?   I just
love that one!

One of the simple lessons we can learn is that assigning blame
is one of the more righteous pursuits that wastes a lot of our
time and energy.  So is keyboarding messages like this.  But
wasting time and energy is all I have to do (I'm retired ;-)
Some of us are full of righteous indignation
(including myself or I wouldn't be sending this message). 

With all of the millions of birds which MUST die every day in order
to have an orderly balancing effect in the web of life,  why must
we race to save each of those we come upon?  Why blame
anyone when that doesn't happen?

Surely the reason must be that it makes us feel warm and fuzzy, 
good, righteous, rewarded, loving and caring.  It makes us feel 
like we have "rescued" something.  It makes us feel like we
are doing something so special and beyond what simple,
stupid people can do.  Go ye and be fuzzy :-)

There are obvious exceptions:  
Whooping Crane, California Condor, Ivory-billed Woodpecker
(I'd like to be blamed for being righteous and saving an
Ivory-billed :-)  We really enjoy our righteous zeal and 
political correctness foolishness when we can find someone
to blame.  So we blame the persons who have their feeders
hanging out there. 

First we blame big business for making
feeders that are not winter safe (automatic closure if you leave
one hanging out "too late" in the season) and doing it only
to fill their fat corporate pocketbooks. 

Then we blame the
people who aren't paying attention for leaving their feeders
out.  Then we blame all the poor, ignorant,  people who should
know better for not being informed.  Then we blame all the
hummingbird researchers and rescue people for trying to
argue one point or another.  Then they blame me for having
an opinion.

Just blame me.  I don't
leave my own feeders hanging out in the winter.  I
don't want to attract a western hummer and have to fight the
battle of keeping food out there all winter and trying to keep
it from freezing.  I don't care if they do eat insects at
sapsucker tree wells during winter if I don't leave my feeders
out.  

I really feel righteous now!  Who is to blame for that ?

(P.S. to Phil --  I actually understand what you were asking.
I just got on a roll and had a wonderful time ranting and
raving and keyboarding this message.  I love it.  Nothing
personal, Phil.  Heck.  Let's go birding..) 

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN


>Perhaps there is a lesson
>here as it applies to wintering hummers.  I don't know!  Hopefully they
>survive. But if they don't, whose fault is it?  It's not clear to me who
>to blame.
>
>Phil Merritt
>pemerritt@xxxxxxxxx





You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email 
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.

Other related posts: