I’ve been watching a live nest camera streaming night and day from an osprey nest in Maine for the past five years. I was so moved by what I saw that I attended a camp at the Audubon site of the nest a few years ago.
Things have changed since the first year I watched the osprey pair raise three nestlings to migration. We were devastated the following year when, watching from computers across the world, we witnessed eagles take all three of the chicks. Since then, we have witnessed more eagle attacks, midnight Great Horned Owl attacks, and even a chick chased off the nest by a colony of wasps!
While this stark evidence of Nature’s ways shocked me, I was dismayed to read the numerous demands for intervention and expressions of despair from some on the chat group. One year, a nightly prayer vigil formed to exhort heavenly intervention!
“It’s just not right that all this work and nurturing [referring to the pair of ospreys] takes place only to be a snack for the owl who will be back like he was last year till there were none left…”
OK, that one did it for me. This thoughtless person forgets that we are privileged to have a view into this nest. We are watching one piece of the enormous puzzle that is Nature. Sad as it may be to watch, the owl is feeding its own young. No one seems to criticize the ospreys as they bring live fish after live fish to feed their chicks.
I am saddened by the frequent reminders that humans think we are superior to all life. Obviously, wildlife cameras do have a downside: the very ability to see inside the wild gives some the misguided feeling of ownership. We must realize that human intervention is only rarely permitted, and prayers won’t change the natural inevitability we see here. If I were to stop watching any camera, it would be to avoid the human behavior, not nature’s.
When I see cries for intervention that span from the absurd to the ridiculous, I grow weary of those who don’t see the bigger picture: much of what we see in Nature that distresses us is the very behavior that keeps the balance. Intervention to save a weak chick tips that balance in future generations. Many are horrified to see an animal parent let an offspring starve without realizing that the female parent must survive to keep the species going.
To the person on the chat who dismissed the “work and nurturing” of the ospreys to create a “snack for the owl,” I would ask her if she can apply that premise to the family of a fallen serviceman or a couple whose young child dies of cancer.
Years ago my father, exasperated by whatever was happening in the world at that time, told me “you have no business bringing children into this world.” I quickly replied “that is my business because if we don’t have children, then that is the end of the world.” I was much younger then, but I knew what I believed in.
The natural urge to procreate is an act of hope; a belief that there will be a future; a willingness to “plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” *
When I read apocolyptic novels such as The Stand or Lucifer’s Hammer, I always see myself as a survivor. I choose hope.
*Anonoymous Greek proverb
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