Murder at Puddock Hill

Puddock Hill Journal #61: I — we — have a responsibility to know better.

A terrible thing happened this week.

No, let me rephrase that. I did a terrible thing this week.

A small crew came with a big chipper to perform some overdue cleanup. They had begun a few weeks ago but had not had time to finish. On the short list of tasks, there was an old brush pile in the tenant meadow that had gone neglected too long.

When the crew arrived with its giant chipper, I advised them to take care because foxes had dug a den under the brush pile. I suggested they leave a few sticks around the entrance. The foxes, I imagined, would cower in fear in their den, but it was a safe place for them, and the men wouldn’t take long.

I would turn out to be right about that—no harm to the foxes. But when the crew had arrived, my friend Jake, owner of the company, noted that he had recalled the brush pile being bigger and they would be done in a flash. The chipper was huge, and he’d brought it from a few miles away with his equally giant tractor. (He’s also a farmer.) So I looked around for more things for them to do.

There was a minor invasion of multiflora rose and Bradford pear in a sassafras thicket. They may as well take those down and feed them to the chipper. There were some low-hanging branches on the old arborvitae by the gate. They could limb those up.

Almost as an afterthought, I remembered a few dead sassafras trees along the driveway. I practice what I preach with regard to dead trees: only remove those that pose a danger to humans and our infrastructure. Since these had grown on a bank along the driveway, they might have eventually fallen on a car or, more likely, obstructed the drive. The guys may as well take them down.

I had noticed a number of woodpecker holes in one of the dead trees, but I never saw anyone coming or going. I presumed they were old abandoned nests or woodpeckers digging for bugs.

The men went to work, and I thought nothing more of it until the call came. There had indeed been an active woodpecker nest. Felling the tree killed two babies. One remained alive.

My heart already broken, I rushed down the driveway. Jake, also heartbroken, showed me two beautiful male babies. Dead. He had lain them side by side on the grass. A female sat there alive, confused, at times fluttering her wings. We decided they were downy woodpeckers. They appeared to be just a week or two from fledging.

I kicked myself. Just the day before, a tree company wanted to schedule for that very day removal of a tall leaner farther up the driveway, a job that requires a bucket truck. I told them to hold off, as I hadn’t had time to examine the tree for bird nests.

Why had I been so cavalier with the dead sassafras? Why hadn’t I examined it more carefully? Why hadn’t I simply waited until nesting season was over? I know better. For heaven’s sake, I have an obligation to know better.

But I didn’t have time to mourn. I had to save the survivor whose home we had destroyed. I went to the house and prepared an empty wine box with some paper towels inside. I called Pam, who was on her way home.

As Jake and the men and I waited for her to swing by and pick me up, we spotted the parent birds flying around. Looking on with concern. Perhaps doing their own mourning. They had found a good dead tree. They had spent the spring carving out a nest, laying eggs, brooding. They had fed their three babies day in and day out. Now, on the verge of seeing the fruits of their efforts, everything had been torn away by the careless act of humans.

Humans who know better. Humans who owe it to our fragile Earth to know better.

I am crying as I write this, overcome with guilt. We raced the surviving baby to a wonderful outfit a few towns away called Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research. People doing God’s work. The nice older woman who took the bird returned to offer a brief but kind lecture, which I interrupted. “I know this. I preach it regularly. I know better!” She heard my voice crack and stopped. She gave me a look of deep sympathy.

Raise your hand if you have killed an animal inadvertently. There are three hundred and thirty-three million of us just in the United States alone with our cars and windows and backhoes and chainsaws, not to mention our poisons and traps and shotguns. In my life I’ve run over at least two wild animals while traveling at speed—unavoidable. What adult hasn’t hit at least one?

How many animals have perished as we strived for more for ourselves? More comfort, more space, more stuff, more order.

How much do we destroy in order to build? For. Ourselves.

Don’t we owe it to other creatures to know better?

Before I left the bird rescue, I made a significant donation using a credit card—significant enough that the volunteer said, “Oh. Oh.” But I did not leave that place with my head held high. I slinked to the car, weighed down by the certainty that if I had not intentionally murdered two baby birds I had at least committed manslaughter.

The future snatched away from two innocent animals. For what? Their parents’ precious energy wasted. For what?

I know better. We all should know better.

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No pictures of flowers today. Here is a picture of the surviving bird: