Jim listens closely to the natural world.  As some would preserve the natural world in photograph and on film, Jim preserves sounds, especially threatened ones.

     Jim’s interest in the sounds made by non-human creatures in their native habitat has taken him–and his recording equipment–to many places.  He has recorded by day and by night, in a wide range of  environments. 

   Jim Cummings has a website, “Bright Blue Ball:  A Simple Witness to the Years.”  On Jim’s site, you’ll find many lovely pieces he has written, some of his recordings, as well as pieces on movies, music, and other subjects.

     I invite you to click on the link below to read a short, winter piece Jim wrote.  And don’t forget to listen to the recording he provides.–April Moore  http://brightblueball.net/2011/12/08/snowy-passage/

     As I watch the action at the window feeder from our living room couch, I feel a great fondness for these hardy little birds.  They are unassuming in appearance, except for their jaunty crest, and they strike me as hard workers.  Over and over again, they drop from a branch of the saucer magnolia tree, onto the feeder’s rim, pluck out a sunflower seed with their beak, and flutter back to the tree.  Holding the seed in place with their feet, they pound away at it with their beak until it breaks open, and they can eat it.  Then they go through the same process again.  And again and again.

     Not only does winter bring titmice to the feeders, but it also evokes different sounds from these little birds.  Their sweet, whistling calls of  spring are replaced by squawking, scolding sounds.  In fact, several times lately, when I stopped near the feeder to watch them, all the action was, instead, up in the trees.  Several titmice squawked angrily and fluttered about.  It took me a little while to realize they were carrying on about me!  I imagine my nearness to the feeder made them feel unsafe to jump down for a seed, and they wanted me to go away!  Never mind that I’m the one who keeps the feeder filled with food!

     I decided I would like to know more about these feathered neighbors of ours, so I did a little research.  And I love this description I found on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website:  ”The large, black eyes, small, round bill, and brushy crest give these birds a quiet but eager expression that matches the way they flit through canopies, hang from twig ends, and drop in to bird feeders.”  The ‘quiet but eager expression’ part is apt.  Perhaps this attitude of theirs is part of what I find so appealing about the little fellows. 

     I learned that the titmouse has a very wide range.  It can be found year-round throughout the eastern states and the midwest.  And its range is expanding northward, perhaps due to climate change and maybe also to increased winter feeding.  The titmouse lives in deciduous and mixed-deciduous forests and in residential areas where there are tall trees and dense canopy.

     The tall trees and canopy provide food for titmice during the summer, when they also store nuts and seeds in crevices along the bark of trees for eating later.   Titmice also forage on the ground, and in winter they can be seen on tree trunks and at feeders.  

     Late February through April is breeding season for the titmouse.  Males and females are monogamous for a single breeding season.  The female chooses for her nest a very deep cavity (about 8-11 inches), typically in a rotted tree.   Over the course of about four days, she builds the nest.  First comes the foundation of dried leaves, moss, and strips of bark.  Then she adds the insulation–down, fur, and hair.  Female titmice have actually been observed yanking hair from live mammals for their nest, including from the arms and heads of humans! 

     Once her nest is complete, the female lays an egg each day for 5-6 days.  Incubation begins after the second to the last egg has been laid, and before beginning to incubate her eggs, the female spends the night perched on the rim of her nest.  The young fledge in about 18 days, and some might remain with their parents during the first winter, even staying on to help raise the next year’s brood!

     I had to find out about the name ‘titmouse.’  It is believed to be a combination of the old English term for ‘bird’–’mase,’ and ‘tit,’ meaning something small.  There you have it!–April Moore

a titmouse at our window feeder

     I very much wanted to share with you a particularly beautiful winter slide show that I found inspiring.  But, struggle as I might, my computer skills are so meager that I was unable to obtain the music and slide show effect.  However, you can still enjoy these fine photos of our fellow creatures in the snow by scrolling from one picture to the next.   

     Please click on this link:  hiver208672_martine_34

And Happy New Year!–April Moore

     On December 21, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson announced the new rule, which will cut mercury emissions from power plants by 90%.  Coal-fired plants are one of the largest emitters of mercury, a potent neurotoxin known to damage the developing brains of fetuses and young children.  Power plants’ mercury emissions also contribute to cardiovascular disorders, cancer, and asthma.  

     “This is a great victory for public health, for the health of our children,” Jackson told reporters gathered at the Children’s Medical Center in Washington, DC.  Public health leaders agree.  The rule is ”a step in the right direction for protecting our families by limiting the amount of mercury that will enter our environment, contaminate our water supplies, and wind up in our food chain,” according to Lexington, Kentucky physician Dr. Vicki Holmberg.  The levels of mercury currently coming out of power plants, Holmberg explains, “can overwhelm the capacity of our bodies to metabolize and eliminate toxic metal pollutants.”

     Americans who live near the older, more polluting power plants will benefit the most from the new standard, with fewer illnesses and fewer asthma attacks.  The new rule is expected to result in as many as 11,000 fewer premature deaths a year, 4,700 fewer heart attacks a year, and other widespread health benefits.  In addition to mercury, the rule also targets coal plants’ emissions of arsenic, lead, chromium, and acid gases.

     While health experts and environmentalists hail the new standard, the coal industry and many utilities have been fighting for years to stop the issuance of such a ruling.  Kentucky’s Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul recently tried unsuccessfully to block the new rule through legislation, and are already calling for the rule’s repeal.  It’s too costly, they insist.

     Compliance with the ruling will cost the nation’s utilities $9.6 billion, according to EPA.    About half of the nation’s coal-fired plants are more than 40 years old and must be replaced or modernized.  And 44% of coal-powered plants have never bothered to install technology that could easily reduce emissions of mercury and other toxins.  While some coal industry jobs will be lost, Jackson notes, the ruling will actually mean a net job increase, with the creation of 46,000 short-term construction jobs and 8,000 longer term utility sector jobs.  Utilities will have up to four years to comply. 

     With this new ruling, coal-fired power plants are finally joining every other major industrial sector in dramatically reducing mercury and other air toxins.  Oil refineries, chemical plants, plastics companies, the iron and steel induustries, and heavy manufacturers have all been subject to air toxic standards for more than 10 years. 

     I applaud the EPA for issuing this very important new rule.  We can go into the new year breathing a little more easily.–April Moore

     I am posting here a lovely, short piece by Joanna Macy, a woman I greatly admire for her work in helping people to experience their grief over what we have lost and are yet to lose of this beautiful world that nurtures us every minute.

     And I add, here at year’s end, a heartfelt thank-you to EARTH CONNECTION readers.  I am grateful that many people are interested in reading my postings.  Happy Holidays to you.  And a healthy New Year–for all of us humans and for the planet we love.–April Moore

     “We hear you, fellow creatures.  We know we are wrecking the world and we are afraid.  What we have unleashed has such momentum now, we don’t know how to turn it around.  Don’t leave us alone;  we need your help.  You need us too for your own survival.  Are there powers there you can share with us?

     “”I, lichen, work slowly, very slowly.  Time is my friend.  This is what I give you:  patience for the long haul and perseverance.”

     “”It is a dark time.  As deep-diving trout, I offer you my fearlessness of the dark.”

     “”I, lion, give you my roar, the voice to speak out and be heard.”

     “”I am caterpillar.  The leaves I eat taste bitter now.  But dimly I sense a great change coming.  What I offer you, humans, is my willingness to dissolve and transform.  I do that without knowing what the end-result will be;  so I share with you my courage too.”"–Joanna Macy

     Despite the President’s recent announcement that he would delay his decision on the project for another 12-18 months, in order to fully assess its environmental impact,  Republicans are trying to force his hand.  On December 13, House Republicans included in a bill to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits language that would force the President to make his Keystone decision within 60 days. 

     Very soon, the measure will be voted on by the Senate.  The good news is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has told Republicans he will halt negotiations on another important year-end spending bill unless Republicans drop their insistence on premature action on Keystone.  And President Obama has said that if a measure forcing him to decide on Keystone reaches his desk, he will veto it.

     Even so, we must make sure our Senators know that we citizens strongly reject this carbon-spewing, water-contaminating project.  You can be sure that Senators are all hearing from the big oil companies involved in the project.  As the wealthiest industry on the planet, Big Oil can–and does–spend vast sums of money to ’get the attention’ of our Members of Congress.

     So please pick up the phone and make two calls, one to each of your U.S. Senators.  You can leave a message on the Senate office constituent voice mail.  Or you can ask to speak to the aide who handles energy matters.  I suggest the latter, even if it means leaving a message on the aide’s machine.  I don’t have the feeling that the constituent message line carries much clout.  You can get your Senators’ names and phone numbers by clicking  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm  Or you can call the U.S. Congress Switchboard at 202-224-3121, and ask to be connected to your Senator’s office.

     Please call today  (Wednesday) or tomorrow (Thursday).  The Senate may be voting very soon. 

     For more information on the harm that would come from proceeding with the Keystone XL pipeline, click here:  http://www.tarsandsaction.org/spread-the-word/key-facts-keystone-xl/  –April Moore

     Winter Boys is included in LOVE LIFE, Fred’s latest book of poems, published by XOXOX Press in Gambier, Ohio.–April Moore

WINTER BOYS

It’s the full life of winter’s blustery height
ice and flurry and sharp-scented cold
could be mistaken for nature’s call to death
but it’s character, soft landscape, chill flame.

So we’ll pull on big boots and tussle out the door
trek on back to the river frozen deep
jump up and down on the ice until it cracks
walk across water like apprentice Jesus.

Then up along the railroad track, hollering down the valley
teetering on the slippery rails, pounding our chests
at the approaching engine, falling away
at the very last second, down into warm and
                 welcoming drifts.

We pack up solid ice balls, lob them over the precipice
listen for their smack against the distant shivery pavement
then clamber down the hill to the snow-snarled street
dart out suddenly, grab rear bumpers, pogey on the cars.

All the neighbor girls are trying on their delicate skates
they’re ready to giggle across the ice in frilly skirts
they need our trusty shoveling to open up reluctant ponds
and that we do, but we disdain their dainty pirouetting.

We’re tough guys body-slamming each other on the ice
the pond is a great hibernal wrestling ring
it’s only when some peewee warrior cracks his head
                and wails
that we shrug away from rowdy bickering.

We’re headed out for an icy exploit
ready to revel in the frigid winter world
we’ll chop and stack an igloo fort, or roll up a snowman,
push in lumps of coal for eyes and a dead carrot nose.

All the frail adults indoors, but this our wild universe
we stride right forward into the knifey wind
breaking a path out back to the trees
and we don’t need any big-brother snowshoes.

It’s there in the woods that we’ll build a fire
with matches purloined from mothers’ purses
crisp sticks gathered by our aching mitten hands
suddenly we’re warming and invincible.

All around the sky is milky white and falling
not a sound in the little tree grove
our piping voices hushed and still
as the great being of winter embraces our small daring.–Fred Andrle

     The story of the Kissimmee is an example of humans ruining a river and then working hard to restore it again.  

     The Kissimmee River originally meandered this way and that, along a wide, shallow path from Lake Kissimmee southward to Lake Okeechobee.  The river’s 50,000 acre floodplain supported numerous and diverse wetland communities–birds, fish, and a wide variety of other wildlife.

     But in the early 1960s the Kissimmee River fell victim to a program that was popular at the time–river ’straightening.’  In an attempt to avoid major flooding during hurricane events and to enable people to build homes and other buildings in a floodplain without fear of floods, many rivers during the 1960s were channelized;  they were straightened and deepened.  The Kissimmee was one such river.  Its meanders were sliced off, a deep-channel canal was dredged along the Kissimmee Valley, and the once winding, 103 mile-long river was transformed into a straight, 56-mile long, lifeless gutter.    Even the name was changed.  The former Kissimmee River became the C-38. 

     The goal of keeping the river out of the floodplain was largely achieved.  But at a great price.  Water that had once slowly wound its way southward, now shot through the trench and poured, unsettled and unfiltered,  into Lake Okeechobee.  C-38 was an inhospitable place to the many fish that had inhabited it.  The surrounding wetlands dried up and the birds disappeared.

     “The folly of ditching the Kissimmee River was recognized almost the day it was completed,” states the Everglades Foundation on its website, “and the magnitude of the ecological crisis led to a public outcry.”  In 1992, Congress approved a plan to restore the Kissimmee River.  The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct the restoration.

     While the restoration project won’t bring the entire river back to its original health, normal flow is being returned to more than 40 miles of the river’s historic channel, and about 40 square miles of the river/floodplain ecosystem will be restored.

     Restoration efforts got underway in 1999, and the results have been inspiring.  “Recovery of wetland function was much faster than expected,” according to the Everglades Foundation, “with rapid recolonization by native plants and animals.  The Kissimmee Restoration  is a true Florida environmental success story three decades in the making.”  Almost right away,   shorebirds returned.  So did ducks, songbirds and wading birds.  Aquatic invertebrates like insects, mollusks, crayfish, and freshwater shrimp again inhabited the river, and the river became home once again to fish and alligators.  

     Unfortunately, I cannot end our story here.  While I salute former Floida Republican governors Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist for their strong support for restoration efforts, the current governor, Tea Partier Rick Scott, elected in 2010, has been working to slash funds for restoration efforts and has tried to get the EPA to relax clean water regulations that affect the Kissimmee River.  If the investment by the public of more than $3 billion in state and federal funds to restore the Kissimmee River are not to be wasted, we must hope that Scott (currently out of favor with his Tea Party base) will be a one-term governor. –April Moore  

a restored section of Florida's Kissimmee River

     The artist’s comment came to my mind recently as I watched a bright-eyed titmouse, perched on the edge of the feeder, while I also savored the sounds of a couple of juncoes nosing about in the brush.  If I love these birds enough, I wondered, can I save them?  Can my love protect them from the hardships imposed by global warming and a degraded environment? 

     As I savored the sights and sounds of the birds around my home, I remembered something else.  I recalled how, many years ago, I told a wise woman of the grief I felt for the planet, of my sense of helplessnes and frustration that, despite my great love for many of my fellow species, I was impotent, utterly unable to help them survive the threats they face.  

     Then, a thought I’d never had before popped into my head, and I asked her:   “Do you think it’s possible that my love itself could make a difference?” 

     “Of course it does!” she answered, without a moment’s hesitation.   Her reply comforted me.  Someone whose opinion I respected so much was sure that my love actually benefitted the creatures I love so deeply.

     Was she right?  Well, I’m at least certain that my love does no harm to the birds and all the other creatures whose beauty fills my heart.  And I’m sure that the love I feel is good for me, even though it is inextricably mixed with grief.  After all, I am more alive than if I turned away from the love because of the pain.  

     A poet I admire, Stanley Kunitz, said it very well:  ”The heart breaks and breaks, and lives by breaking.”–April Moore 

a titmouse at our feeder

one of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings of the Pedernal

     Because I love learning about evolution, I am reading THE SONG OF THE DODO:  ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTION by David Quammen.  In an effort to understand the implications of the ‘islands’ that human activity is creating on our continents, Quammen explores the ways in which life evolves differently on islands than it does on large mainlands.  We humans are turning once vast stretches of wilderness into small, isolated chunks, with our roads, pipelines, shopping centers, and subdivisions.  By better understanding the ways of evolution on islands, Quammen believes we can better understand why diversity declines on isolated ’islands’ of wilderness.  

     Despite the book’s sobering premise, it reads like a novel.  Quammen, an award-winning science writer, tells us so interestingly why some kinds of creatures abound on islands, while others are rare or non-existent there.  He writes with humor and a great sense of ‘Wow!’  And you don’t have to be a scientist–or even particularly science-oriented–to love this book.

     I would like to share here a short passage from THE SONG OF THE DODO that explains why mammals are found only in small numbers, if at all, on islands.–April Moore

     “If I haven’t said much about mammals in this discussion of island colonization, it’s because there is not much to say.  Mammals don’t travel as well as most other vertebrates.  Their dispersal ability across salt water is generally low.  They are burdened with urgent physiological needs and blessed with only modest endurance.  Starvation and drought can kill them quickly.  So can drowning.  If they do manage to make a crossing, their prospects of establishment are still poor.  Since they reproduce sexually, give birth to live young, and suckle those young, they don’t enjoy the same adaptive advantages as many plants, insects, and reptiles.  An adult mammal needs a mate;  an infant mammal needs a mother.  All these factors reduce their chances of colonization.  Rarely a species of mammal does reach an island and establish itself, but more commonly an island remains empty of mammalian fauna despite the passage of eons.  As reptiles and ferns and pigeons tend to be disproportionately present on islands, mammals tend to be disproportionately absent.”–David Quammen, THE SONG OF THE DODO