“Why are there birds?”
“Excuse me?” I said. Turning. Looking down into a face so steeped in wide-eyed innocence that Shirley Temple would have traded up. The face of my niece.
“I said,” said the sinister little universe-shattering cherub “why are there birds?”
To which I replied … “Uhhhhhh…”
I’m not often at a loss for words. But the kid stopped me. I’ve been studying birds for 48 years. Never questioned the reason for their existence.
Upon reflection (and I was reflecting fast) all of the usual banal responses came to mind. Things like, “Well, Shirley, birds are on this planet because…”
They keep Ma Earth from being covered in garden-consuming insect pests. And birds do eat lots of things that thrive on what we humans like to grow and consume. But birds were on the planet long before our species figured out the relationship between dirt and seeds. In fact, they were on this planet before our ancestors were competing with them for limb space.
It is also apt and accurate to say that birds are widely and commonly distributed across the planet because they fill an important ecological niche–niches, in fact. Birds are just about anywhere you can think of this side of the troposphere and in some places (like Antarctica) they constitute the bulk of living things.
Without birds, a lot of the earth’s surface would be wasted.
Extra-surface, too. Birds have wings. Most creatures do not. They use them to move freely through one of the most underutilized portions of the planet. The sky. If it weren’t for birds (and clouds, and rainbows, and stars, and single-engine planes towing banners inviting you to enjoy a specific brand of carbonated malt beverage) the sky would be just blue and boring.
But how do you say this to someone whose eyes are the color of moisture parched skies?
So I thought of telling her that without birds, advertising people couldn’t sell lawn care products (have you ever heard an ad for fertilizer or riding mowers that didn’t have the song of a Mourning Warbler dubbed into the background?).
Mourning Warbler, incidentally, is a bird of brushy edge, not lawns.
And I thought of telling her that without birds, lots of cars and professional sports franchises wouldn’t have any names.
Do you think the Philadelphia Um-ums have a shot at the Super Bowl this year? Maybe the Baltimore Ah-hmmms or the Seattle Uh-uuuhs?
If there were no birds, why would housebound cats sit on window sills? Why would car washes exist? Why would bad little boys want a BB gun?
I thought of explaining all these things but decided instead to just be honest.
“There are birds,” I said, “because if there weren’t, your Uncle Pete wouldn’t have a job.”
“Oh,” she said. “Why are there trees?”
Anybody want to jump in here?