I spent another 10 minutes reading yet again another BBC article .This one is about the indigenous Kogi people in my wife’s country of birth way down south in Colombia .The Kogi have generally attempted to avoid contact with other people from outside their isolated home for the past 500 years and with very little success . As of late they have come to realize the futility and have accepted the inevitable …. and as a long time Florida resident I certainly can relate.
Should you drive in any direction from my home you will in short order experience the same sight over and over and that would be the countless large tracts of freshly stripped land both wild and farm being prepped for yet another housing development or commercial endeavor. One large 450 acre tract just four miles from my home is close to completion . It stands out and I wish it stood out because it is unique and attractive , but it isn’t . If you were at all imaginative or just plain stoned on a hallucinogenic you might be able to say that it almost …. almost looks as good as the cookie cutter military base housing cheaply constructed back in the 1960s . As an aside, the developer of those 450 acres purchased it from my own county who stole it through eminent domain 20 years ago in a failed development plan to “benefit” all county residents .
The BBC article describes the Kogis’ efforts to protect all the species of birds in their area now that the area retains only 17% of the rainforest that it had it had merely 60 years ago. Much of it was slash and burned in order to grow coca for a very hungry market up north . Now the Kogi make use of that last 17% to educate the latest invaders with bird watching tours along the jungle trails to witness something fewer humans are able to witness every single year. The tours come with an explanation of their belief in birds being messengers . They hold that different birds bring different messages to warn of danger or good fortune and even weather be it good or bad and everyone has a messenger bird. In the history of my own nation of birth Saxons held similar beliefs in the messages brought them by the little Magpie .
We have a couple of bird baths in the back yard and for many years have enjoyed the sight of countless numbers of species splashing and preening in them through out the year . At times I would have to go out and refill the baths at least once a day as all the splashing and frollicking of all those happy birds would quickly empty the water onto the lawn. This season seems different as we no longer hear all the chirpy singing of the smaller species birds that would normally form a que to wait their turn at the bath . Those songs have been replaced by the constant screech of hawks and other predatory birds . Lots of them …
I like hawks … they are handsome alpha male type birds and I’ve always delighted in spotting one when ever I was in the countryside . I was pleased at first by their sudden and near constant appearances in my suburban yard and neighborhood but it didn’t take long to realise that they were responsible for my not hearing my happy chirpy colorful little friends playing in the bird bath . Hawks are predators and eat anything that they have the strength to kill whether it crawls, walks, or flies . The squirrels that usually nest in my oak tree that shades my bird baths are few and far between . Even the rabbits no longer come out into plain view.
The Hawk has lost thousands of acres’ of his hunting grounds right here in my county alone and I think he’s come to give me a message … that he’ll be leaving . I hope he let’s me know where to find him …
