Naked birding? No, thanks
A columnist for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle reports that birding
naked is a popular pastime in southeastern Arizona.
Sounds kind of perilous to me. After all, aren’t there cactus
and other prickly plants there? Do they even make sunscreen with
enough oomph to protect all of those usually covered places from
the desert sun?
Naked birding? No, thanks
A columnist for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle reports that birding naked is a popular pastime in southeastern Arizona.
Sounds kind of perilous to me. After all, aren’t there cactus and other prickly plants there? Do they even make sunscreen with enough oomph to protect all of those usually covered places from the desert sun?
On the plus side, the money saved on clothing would allow for a nicer set of binoculars. I’d just find the lack of pockets a handicap for carrying a bottle of water and a field guide. Suggestions about where to put a field guide while birding nude are not welcome, thanks.
Given birders’ reputation for a certain lack of style, perhaps eschewing clothes completely isn’t such a bad idea.
In other news
One of the rarest animals in the world died a few days ago, the victim of lead poisoning. One of the handfuls of free-flying California condors was taken to the Los Angeles Zoo for treatment of acute lead poisoning, but expired before treatment was completed.
I write about the California condor frequently. After the last wild birds were captured in a desperate attempt to save the species, some observers believed they would never be returned to the wild. But flocks were eventually re-established at several sites, including Big Sur and Pinnacles.
The birds continue to be actively managed, at significant cost.
Why go to such lengths to save a carrion-eating buzzard better adapted to a time prior to the arrival of humankind in North America?
The answer, for me, lies in the question. The opportunity to see a living link to California’s prehistory conjures up so many things.
It harkens to a time when the first European explorers gazed at clouds of condors feeding on the carcasses of whales littering the beaches of Monterey Bay. It evokes a past when grizzly bears padded through the coastal hills and valleys.
The birds are so enormous that they are nearly unmistakable on the wing. As turkey vultures teeter back and forth on thermals, a condor’s arrival is characterized by a rock steady glide. One might watch one or more of them for an hour and not see a flick of a wing as they soar on invisible waves of air. That bird overhead might soar 100 miles or more today, shrinking the size of Central California as it glides over it.
Because they reproduce very slowly – a single egg every other year – require vast tracts of open space and seem fragile overall, I like to think of California condors as our own canaries in the coal mine.
If they are thriving in the wild, then the wild is probably a pretty healthy place for all of us.
That alone seems reason enough to do what we can to save the condor, including trading the lead ammunition that likely poisoned that condor for the alternatives required under a law that goes into effect July 1.
How can we put a price on awe?
