rhamphotheca: Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata) by David Allen…
Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata) by David Allen Sibley
from The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd ed.
Wrentit may be the most sedentary bird in North America. Based on banding records, young birds settle less than 1500 feet, on average, from where they were hatched, and then spend the rest of their life in a nesting territory that can be less than an acre.
(via: David Sibley)
There were two moments I remember growing up that led to my identifying as an environmentalist. One was when I returned to my mother’s house after many months away and saw that the chaparral where I’d spent many of my favorite days was gone. It had become tract houses, practically overnight.
I knew the wrentits that had lived there. I knew that they spent their entire lives within one small patch of chaparral.
I understand the impulse to provide for one’s family, to create wealth and security, that motivated the real estate developers who turned north San Diego County into suburbia and strip malls. I understand the motivation to live in a beautiful part of the world that created the demand for those houses. The people who live there now have their own lives, and I realize that the fact that a weird kid who liked to hike alone felt a sense of kinship with the plants and animals that used to live there doesn’t count for much.
But I miss the wrentits. And I know that when the bulldozers came they had nowhere else to go.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1ixhRFN.
Tags: wrentits, environmentalism, real estate development, San Diego county.
