Here in the Southwest, the Pinyon Jay is as integral to the landscape as the piñón pine and both are now endangered. Years of drought and now weeks, perhaps months, of extreme heat have caused the loss of 2.3 million birds, which is 78.7 percent of their total population. They exist only in the Southwestern states where the piñón pines are, or at least have been, the primary tree, low, scrawny and apparently all-enduring.
The jay and the pine are interdependent. The nuts of this pine are heavier than other nuts and they have no wings, so they depend on the jay to pluck, eat, eliminate and so spread them over a large area. This jay is considered a keystone species; without them, we lose a large part of the forests iconic to the Southwest. Yet for reasons I can’t even guess, they are not covered by the Endangered Species Act. Perhaps that is because they have been so ordinary, like the scrub pines that support them and depend on them for survival.
The nuts are also a part of Native culture, used in a variety of recipes. Once roadsides here in the fall were full of people gathering nuts, spreading sheets and shaking the nuts down on them. This is not happening now because there are no nuts.
Why is this bird so important to me now, such a welcome sight at my feeders here in the mountains?
It begins to be clear to me as the “natural” disaster we are facing with climate disruption escalate—no more natural than the fires, hurricanes and floods—we humans are beginning to sense our frailty. More and more, I notice individuals, usually men, perhaps once at the top of the totem pole in terms of prestige and recognition, sitting alone in my neighborhood coffee house, hunkered down over the newspaper but glancing up every time the door opens. The look of desperation, immediately shielded, reminds me of our shared isolation.
Permit me a moment of imagining what my response to this desperation might be, if I had the courage:
“Excuse me. I see you are sitting alone. I don’t mean to disturb you, but I thought perhaps I might sit with you for a few minutes. I don’t want anything and I’ll soon be on my way. We don’t even need to exchange names.”
Then sit together in silence and see what happens.
So much of the misery in our world comes from separation. Families have been splitting up for generations, hopeful self-made wedding vows cast out the window after a couple of years, even the self-made vows that seem promising compared to the difficult demands of faith. Lovers split up, often due to male emotional inadequacy, especially now that we women are not always “filling the gaps,” explaining, coaxing, soothing, interpreting. All our institutions are under siege, the schools from furious parents claiming their right to decide every aspect of their children’s education, churches are rent by scandal and claims of hypocrisy, government is sullied by cynicism promoted by every voice and view we hear and see. Once we were advised to respect the office even while furiously condemning its current occupant. No one says that now. As Senator Mitch McConnel declines into senility, does anyone remark on the importance, even the sacredness, of the office he holds?
Still the pinyon jay, lowly and unglorified, flits from pine to pine outside my window, searching for the nuts that are not there, and it is only in Native American wisdom that I read that these pines have only bourn once in every three years. But what is the jay to do to survive in the off years?
So I keep my feeders crammed with seed and take what comfort I can from the poet Jane Hirshfield’s remark in a recent issue of Poets & Writers magazine: “Anywhere you put your attention, the world releases hidden fragrance and unexpected abundance”—which must be true, somewhere, somehow, for both us humans and the pinyon jay.
Jane Choate says
People reading today’s comment might like to read John Muir’s writings, if they haven’t already. He writes poetically, clearly, with great joy about the interdependence of all of Nature. And he also writes with great feeling about the tragedy of people destroying that balance.