The Gentle Rain of Songbirds
Spring migration, warfare, and human migration
THEY know nothing of our wars and celebrations, our privilege and petty distractions. They fly just the same over Gaza as they do Washington, D.C., or the two Amazons.
Day and night their wings beat and their lungs burn along migratory routes northbound toward an uncertain fate. All the while we ourselves go about our business, our routines, mostly unaware of their presence overhead — or their perils.
That is until we meet up some morning in May: a gentle rain of songbirds.
It can happen almost anywhere: on your way to the car for work, in the park on your lunch break, outside the big box store, at a bomb site in Kyiv. And for most of us, the best of spring migration is happening now (autumn migration in the southern hemisphere).
Birdwatchers live for these days. Perhaps everyone can. Bird migration is a blend of song and color and flight, of force and grace and awe, perhaps more magnificent than anything in nature. So look up. Or gaze into the greenery around you for birds on break from their journeys.
For many of us at northern latitudes, the migration surges in May, when the diversity of birds will never be higher, and usually features songbirds. Small, colorful, musical, they are the warblers, tanagers, sparrows, thrushes, orioles, among many others. To put it another way, spring migration is an excess of the precious — like binging your favorite show or feasting on decadent foods. It is an elbow to the heart reminding us how lucky we are to be alive.
We’re even luckier to be alive now because we can “see” these birds heading our way. Well, the radar sees them — it’s called BirdCast: real-time tracking of nocturnal bird migration picked up by the U.S. weather radar network. BirdCast predicts the magnitude of flights across the U.S. up to three days in advance. (Not incidentally, the forecast calls for birds the night of May 11 in the Plains and Upper Midwest, which means it could be raining songbirds there on Mother’s Day.) BirdCast even makes nightly estimates of the number of birds on the move (345 million predicted overnight Saturday).
Birds won’t be the only migrants, however. Anywhere there is war, famine, hatred, or various other disasters there will be human refugees and migrants. The latest count is more than 114 million people worldwide displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations. “We are now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record,” according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
I’ve never been able to reconcile the beauty of nature with simultaneous misery in the world. Hunger and war aren’t exactly compatible with birdwatching. Even so, in Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Ukraine, and far too many other places, the ducks and herons and swallows are now on the move, among them some of the very same species we see here in North America. It is one sky above, and yet some of us look up and fear bombs instead.
Nobody forces migratory birds to head north in spring — it’s their nature. We watch and enjoy them in flight and in the green when they drop from the skies to visit or nest in May. That wonder and curiosity on our part — I believe it’s hard-wired in us. It is the best of human nature.
Human beings have been migrating as well for as long as we’ve been upright and walking. It is among the ways we’ve overtaken the planet (and made such a mess of things). Only now too many among us are forced migrants, fleeing home because of hatred rooted in bad ideas or misguided beliefs. It is the worst of human nature.
The birds are coming. Look up — rejoice.
Postscripts
I’ve previously written at least two corollaries to this essay: one about Ukrainians continuing to observe nature during war, and the other about the joy of a songbird “fallout.”
Among the most powerful accounts of birds in decline across North America — a population drop of nearly 3 billion in 50 years — comes via the famed Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Although there seems to be no internationally recognized definition of the word “migrant” among humans, I recognize that it differs from refugee or asylum seeker. Some migrants leave by choice, others by fear or force.
BirdCast also forecasts bird movement by U.S. county or state. It’s amazing. But do stick your head or yourself outside in the morning to see which way the wind blows for birds.
Thank you, as always, for reminding me to always be grateful for the nature we still have here, and that we are not ourselves mired in the horror of war. Thank you for helping to keep these displaced people in our hearts, and not become numb to their suffering.
Beautiful, Bryan. Thank you for putting such a deep keel on the migration story.
We've built such a chasm between their lives and ours, and yet their flights - daily and yearly - can thread the world back together again, if we'll let them.