Why songbirds matter

If you walk into the backyard of your grandmother's house, and listen carefully, you probably wouldn't hear the same birdsongs that she did as a girl. And nobody knows exactly why.

I've just finished some of the required reading for the Earthwatch trip. In Where Have All the Birds Gone? John Terborgh makes the case for the dire situation of tropical songbirds, which are disappearing rapidly from North America. Like socialites, they flee to warmer climates during the winter months, and return north only when the weather is more friendly. This makes them doubly susceptible: their habitat may be destroyed on either end.

And it has been, devastatingly so. Forest clearcutting in Peru, lowland vegetation cleared for sugarcane in St. Kitts and the Antilles, marshes drained for parking lots in New Jersey: combined, these all change the birdsongs you hear when spring arrives.

(Scientists think that there are probably fewer amphibians, snakes and so on, but nobody misses them. A forest without pleasing bird chirps is another matter, and we are talking about birds, aren't we?)

So why study birds? It's a shame we have fewer, sure. But people have needs, you say, and you can't stop building, or using resources, just to keep habitat pristine. What does taking birdie roll call accomplish?

It tallys the costs.

Human-driven change is inevitable, but as a society we have to acknowledge both its benefits and costs. Terborgh points out that it's the business of science to make predictions. As any scientist knows, you must have the right data before you can convince anyone with your predictions.

To make decisions about the future, we must have trustworthy data to understand what our continued actions will mean. Only once we have an informed view of the facts of climate change can we, as a society, make an informed value judgement on the best use of our resources.

As well-sheltered folks who have everything we need to sustain ourselves, we know the benefits of our actions. When we study songbirds, and look for reasons for their dwindling numbers, we are tallying the cost to the climate and its species, including ourselves.

This trip, and this blog, is part of that tally.