April is the cruelest month
TS.Eliot
In case you’ve been too busy to notice, it’s spring out there and birds are pairing off. Nests, long since crafted or discovered or reclaimed, are now natural Easter baskets full of eggs, and parents are trapped by their biological inheritance into sitting on them, waiting for precious cracking noises. ‘Tis the season for Nest cam watching, and from New York to Singapore devoted fans check in on feathered families from eagles to owlets.
A famous local webcam follows the peregrine falcons who nest in the PGE building in downtown San Francisco. The word “peregrine” means “wanderer” and peregrines have one of the largest migrations of any bird. Tundra-nesting birds winter in South America, with a yearly range of 15,000 miles. Now peregrines are medium sized falcons that eat smaller birds and catch their prey in flight. Falcons can dive at about 200 miles an hour. They are a species of bird we almost completely eliminated in the 60’s by our use of the pesticide DDT.
In case you haven’t heard this story, DDT was a cheap efficient pesticide used for years to control mosquitoes and other disease-spreading insects around the world. In the 60’s, naturalist-author Rachel Carlson drew attention to its harmful effect on wildlife with her famous book Silent Spring. She described how birds in particular were harmed because DDT affected the thickness of the eggshell, so loving parents trying to hatch their young were crushing their offspring to death. Her book was a best seller, compelled the issue to the forefront and by the 1970’s we had stopped using DDT in the united states.
Fast forward to 2009 and there are still only 45 breeding pairs of Peregrines in the state of California, so interested parties like the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group tend to keep a close eye on them. In fact, a couple years back the PGE peregrines thought maybe they’d find new real estate and took up shop in another very expensive building in down town San Francisco. The birds pull so much weight that the new million dollar renter couldn’t even move in until nature had taken its course.
I got interested in the SF Peregrines after reading about them in the paper. Local businessman Glenn Nevill began photographing their escapades on his lunch hours or before and after work. George and Gracie were the lovely pair in residence at the time, and in 2005 they launched four beautiful offspring. It may seem odd to think of Peregrines in big cities, but remember they are used to steep cliffs, narrow canyons and vast buffet tables of pigeon. One of the most amazing parts of Peregrine courtship was when George would bring food to Gracie on the nest: he’d drop it for her from the sky, and she would catch it on the wing.
Some have asked why my youtube name was “Bigonegeorgegrace” and its actually for them. (Its supposed to be Bygone not Big One)…and my first movie was an attempt to record their interaction using the webcam. At that time I saw a huge community grow around interest in these birds, people who would show up every week to watch in person or just keep track on line. As they got closer to first flight, volunteers were all over the city to spot if their were problems. One bird jumped before his time and fell into traffic in front of a Fed Ex truck. The quick-thinking driver wisely stopped, put the squawking fellow in a box, and brought him up the corporate elevator back to his nest.
He was nicknamed “Otis”.
Through Glenn’s amazing photographs, or in person with binoculars and scopes, we watched those birds learn to fly, joining their parents, practicing diving, catching a pigeon of their very own. One of those four fledges hit a clear windowed building and was instantly killed. People were heartbroken, and I was much sadder than I expected to be. I realized that care for these birds had made a community which stretched from Marin to Santa Cruz and the wide world beyond. Now the big faceless city of San Francisco was this intimate little peregrine feeding ground and the home of thousands who cared about them.
Perhaps you can see some similarities.
Why would Eliot call April, bursting with life, the cruelest month? Well anyone who watches it closely knows it’s also bursting with death: eggs that don’t survive or nests that are raided and failed launches that end in instant loss or slow suffering. I can’t say whether that’s what he meant, but its what I think when I read it. The more species you care about in the world, the more risky April becomes.
This year’s peregrines are Dapper Dan and Diamond Lil. She has laid four eggs in the scrape (peregrines nest on gravel) and you can watch their progress here.
