A Blackbird cries

Mark 27 Comments

I always feel guilty when it happens and relieved when it doesn’t.

To fetch firewood from the shed I need take only a few paces out of the back door. As I pass through an ivy-covered stone arch, leaves brush my head and sometimes I hear the sound of scrabbling feet and wings and the loud alarm call of a Blackbird which I have disturbed from its roosting site.  When that happens I cringe with regret for I have caused it harm. If only I had thought to get the wood in earlier, before dusk – sometimes I do, sometimes I can’t, and sometimes I could but I forget to do so.

The scientist in me wants to know more about the Blackbird. Is it the same one each time and how many roost sites does it use? Does it suffer much having to find a new roost site in the dark or are they aplenty? Why does it choose the ivy-clad wall – what makes it a good spot?  Where else does it roost? Does it sometimes crouch in fear but not fly off?

But I know that I have caused the Blackbird some harm – maybe not very much, but maybe more than I realise – and that makes me feel guilty. I don’t want to disturb it, I’m very happy for the Blackbird to roost in my garden. I benefit not at all from disturbing it and so I feel guilty, particularly when I know that I could have popped out to do this chore an hour earlier if only I had been more thoughtful.

Disturbing a Blackbird is hardly the greatest crime against nature.  It almost certainly makes no difference to Blackbird populations and wouldn’t even if I disturbed a Blackbird every evening, and if thousands of others did so too. But I still feel guilty because I have unnecessarily harmed a fellow living creature. If the boot were on the other foot, and a Blackbird made me scramble out of my resting site, in alarm and crying in surprise, I hope the Blackbird would feel a little guilty about it.

Much of the harm we do to the natural world is unintentional and at a distance. My shopping choices undoubtedly do more damage to wildlife in this country and elsewhere than does my direct disturbance of this single bird. The food I buy, the journeys I take, the energy I use, all have impacts on the natural world. But I don’t hear the cry of alarm from an individual when I carry out those actions.  When I hear the Blackbird’s alarm call I feel guilty because he speaks directly to me – and I hear his pain. 

I would never stamp on another creature, but my environmental footprint does just that, many times over.  The world would be different if we could hear the cries of the trees and insects and fish and mammals affected by our consumerism. If every time we reached for a packet on the supermarket shelf we heard a chorus of alarm in proportion to its environmental harm we would change our ways.  Or would we?

I wrote this piece a couple of years ago – I’m not sure why, but I thought it might come in useful some time. It’s not particularly Christmassy, I know, but it is relevant to this time of year. And any way, Happy Christmas!

It appeared in the volume of writing for the 10th New Networks for Nature event.

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27 Replies to “A Blackbird cries”

  1. That is surely absolutely the right attitude – to minimise our negative impact on nature, whatever it is. And if more people thought that way the world would be much richer for it.

  2. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, thank you.
    i often wonder whether benefits of eco tourism, in that the money I spend helps support the protection of the animals I travel to observe, are outweighed by the carbon costs, etc of the travel involved.

  3. Mark – I totally understand your predicament. For the last three years in the wooden porch veranda just 12 inches above the front door we had a swallow’s nest. At the wooden back veranda we had a swallow’s nest directly above the door but last year the nest was acquired by a wren which built a nest in the swallow’s abandoned nest. It’s an awful dilemma because they are terrified and fly off but obviously the comfort of the shelter and the strong attachment of the nests to the wood encourages them to return and they have two broods each year. Last year, I used the back door and my partner used the front door! It still made us feel guilty entering our house!

  6. I had similar thoughts to yours earlier as I drive home, in the dark, along the A50 near Uttoxeter after spending the day visiting family. A Barn Owl flew across the four lanes of what is, almost always, a busy road. I felt guilty for driving, adding carbon and other pollutants to the atmosphere, on a ugly tarmac strip that covers land that must once have been habitat to many wild creatures and plants and now effectively carves up their former home.

  7. I plead guilty to more and more things as each year goes by.
    One of the latest is the fact that I’m contributing to town air pollution by using a wood burner.
    Apparently wood smoke is worse than diesel fumes.
    But a fierce high temperature firing of very seasoned, dry sticks and logs can’t be that bad. Can it? Well, yes, if everybody does it. At least I rarely ever keep the stove in overnight – slow, low temperature burns must be highly polluting.
    The little person’s answer might to be to trade in guilt – one or two good things/acts for one not so good thing. But it can only be a temporary smoke and mirrors ploy. The real answer is for more legislation for cleaner urban air so that everybody can breathe easy, including that roosting Blackbird.
    Mark and co: have a good Xmas by that roaring fire – your blog does a multiplicity of good things.

  8. Disturbing/terrorising wildlife – my main argument against fireworks.

    We can keep in and comfort our companion animals, but the effect of huge displays on wild creatures must be appalling – not just the sounds, but the lights too.

    Many people think they’re wonderful, and look blank when this is suggested to them. In fact, apart from a petition some time ago asking for quiet fireworks, I’ve not heard about any other opposition to the use of these things.

  9. Beautiful piece. Good a time as any to say thank you Mark for the phenomenal amount of effort and time you put into this blog (how do you ever find time to mow the lawn!!), much appreciated. So hope you and your family enjoy an absolutely wonderful Xmas, and the same to fellow readers and commentators on this blog.

  11. Lol, so chuck another piece of wood on the fire and not consider the extra polluted air or the carbon released from that and forget about the carbon footprint it took to get your wood shed topped up.
    Wonder HOW much thought goes into our daily actions and the footprint we leave behind

    1. Well like most things that could be somewhat complicated, you are right burning wood is polluting – on the other hand growing trees absorbs pollution and some think many of our woodlands are under managed so perhaps a market for firewood can produce environmental benefits as well as harms. From what I understand the move from wood to fossil fuels for the iron industry accompanied by a loss of woodlands which until then were managed by coppicing – save our woodlands – cut down trees..

      1. The some that think our woods are ‘under managed’ don’t have much of a clue re woodland ecology or conservation. The only management woods require from us is to repair the damage we’ve done to them. Remove invasive non native plants, replicate the work of missing keystone species such as the beaver, boar and lynx (until we can put them back) and pull out the junk – burnt out cars, mattresses, crisp packets etc. What woods most certainly do not need is to have dead trees and wood removed because ‘it doesn’t look nice’, clearing out the shrub layer because scary men might be hiding in it and filling woods with ornamental plants so they can have a bit of colour. The idea, as evinced on a silly feature in Countryfile earlier this year, that we need to start taking timber out of our woods for their own good is laughable and dangerous – the people who want to make money out of the process are keen proponents of course. It’s very much like the estates claiming they need to ‘manage’ grouse moors for the benefit of wildlife – which makes you wonder how it managed before grouse shooting came along. It’s frustrating that whilst public ignorance re how our food comes to us is rightly deplored, ecological ignorance seems to be accommodated, indulged. Dead wood is vital for the natural recycling process and the thousands of species that help that along, but if a public consultation exercise says it looks untidy it gets removed without hesitation. We could and should have an expansion of native woodland for umpteen reasons, but it needs to be an increase in quality not just quantity of woodland otherwise we will end up with wildlife poor ‘woody parks’ for ‘leisure’, fire wood and timber extraction – a commodity for human consumption as opposed to one for informed appreciation. No, leave the real coppicing to beavers, they open the up the ground to light…and create loads of dead wood – it doesn’t get carted away for firewood and even the left over brash burnt to prevent honey fungus growth and fertilise the new coppice with potash. We need to be making our woods and forests into mini Bialowieczas where as much as possible the trees are allowed to go through their full life cycle – that’s conservation.

        1. I don’t have any beavers to “leave the real coppicing to” actually I’d love to have beavers in “my” woods (I noticed and replicate your previous use of ‘his’).

          I’d leave management of the deer to wolves as well. I’d quite like to have wolves too (with reservations) however dogs are the next best thing and far better than fencing or guns.

          I’m not sure why they aren’t just my woods to be honest just like Mark’s woodshed is just his woodshed and not ‘his’.

          I could have done all sorts of things with ‘my’ money which I have ‘earnt’ like buying a flash car which may have ended up in the woods. I bought woodland because I get huge pleasure from it and want to look after it and hence have a fairly crap car. I very much agree with leaving fallen timber – I take great delight in the chaos produced by the river through “my” woods with it’s constant meanderings around fallen trees. However yes – also we cut trees – and more importantly lay our hedges. Sorry but I don’t see things as black and white – our woodlands are a cultural artifact – by stopping managing them we risk losing as much if not more than we gain. “Going back” to a Bialowieczas isn’t going to happen – we need to go forward. ‘Trees are wildlife just as deer or primroses are wildlife. Each species has its own agenda and its own interactions with human activities …’ Arthur Rackham – these interactions positive and negative have got us to where we are today the idea we should not interact and “manage” our landscape is damaging and nonsensical given there are seven billion of us and counting IMO – the real question is HOW we interact and manage with it.

          Also we are converting some of the wood to charcoal 🙂

          1. “primroses are wildlife”

            Yes and it’s impressive how fast they and violets and Sweet Marjoram and insects and butterflies and birds reappear when dark neglected Clematis and Dog’s Mercury infested woodland devoid of wildlife apart from Monbiot’s Barking Water Deer is only moderately opened up to let some light in

        2. “replicate the work of missing keystone species such as the beaver, boar and lynx” – and presumably wolves? Precisely the argument put forward by hunters and 100% wrong.

          1. Hunters aren’t taking the place of our missing big predators, they usually want gross overpopulations of deer for easy shooting. So they aren’t usually wolf replacements though they like to say they are – bit difficult to claim you’re keeping red deer in check when you put out supplementary feed for them in winter! And you’re right they also take the healthiest specimens as trophies, bloody ridiculous. If I had my way we’d have lynx reintroductions up and down the country ASAP – there’s a desperate need to have something in place that can take and eat an adult specimen of any of our deer species. Over 1.5 million deer, but no space supposedly for a single specimen of a single species that can kill an adult one! We really need the lynx back.

    2. Douglas – although far from perfect, like all other forms of producing heat or energy, wood burning is a lot closer to sustainable than most forms. Death is the most sustainable option – although rotting flesh will produce carbon dioxide and methane too…

  12. Any minute now we will have another thousand posts from a certain person about how it’s ok to flush blackbirds from a wood shed as long as you don’t shoot them.

      1. I’m sure we’ve all flushed the odd bird and wild mammal now and again – unfortunate in a way but probably well within what they can cope with – and no need to then shoot them especially if you don’t want to. I certainly wouldn’t be messing about with a shot gun as I stumbled out to my wood shed in the dark – even if I possessed one (a gun that is not a woodshed) – especially not on the back of a few Xmas ports!.

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