Home for the Holidays
by Greg Martin
Liberty Wildlife Volunteer
Home means different things to different people, particularly at this time of year. For some, it’s as much a concept as a physical location: “going home” means returning to family, to feelings and comforts instilled in us since our earliest days. Home can be a region, a culture or climate, something that speaks to or defines us, sometimes whether we have physically been there or not. We often import our values from our predecessors; our home may be some ancestral place special to our forebears, and therefore special to us. Home could be, quite literally, the place we live. And then there are those who tragically lack a definable answer to some of those possibilities, or all of them.
Animals too, have homes, sometimes in ways surprisingly analogous to our own. Home for the Swainson’s Hawk is dependent upon the time of year. Spring means it’s Canada, while in the winter months, Argentina calls. And that is no mean trip. Yet the great bulk of the species makes it without fail. Many of us can understand that migratory impulse based upon the seasonal flux, so perhaps their journey isn’t so mysterious, even if it is incredible. Countless species migrate, although not always with such uniformity. Canada Geese, as their name suggests, hail from the upper regions of North America … except when they don’t. During the coldest times of the year, home is down here, where temperatures are comparatively mild. But even that’s not a hard and fast rule. Artificial Edens in the shape of golf courses entice some geese to put down more permanent roots, residing in one place year round, much as our own ancestors abandoned their nomadic inclinations once circumstances permitted. They remain Canada Geese in name and physiology, but not locale.
For many birds, home is the nearest tree. Roosting at night is a survival imperative, at least for diurnal birds unable to see in darkness. Branches offer a place off the ground, and give disguising cover to their vulnerable forms. Red-tailed Hawks, those big and powerful Buteos, turn their light-colored chests towards the tree trunk, using their dark back feathers as camouflage until light of day gives the all clear. Some members of that ubiquitous species range far and wide as food sources rise and fall. Others become routine sights in neighborhoods and along highways, clear proof that home, for them at least, is right nearby. Red-tailed Hawk pairs, mated for life, frequently return to the same nesting sites over and over. Sometimes, however, those very sites get co-opted by other birds, not even of the same species, seeking more temporary living space. Great Horned Owls famously squat in other birds’ domiciles long enough to raise their families. Home for raptors is often an entire domain, although this can be nebulous as well. Predatory birds are very particular about co-habitating with other raptors, since having neighbors means competing over the same finite food stocks. Violence sometimes ensues when birds of prey violate each other’s personal space; it’s not uncommon for us at Liberty Wildlife to treat raptors for injuries related to territorial spats. In their case, home is whatever you’re strong enough to defend.

Several more benign species make a good living co-habitating with us, scavenging the refuse of our consumer culture. Others find themselves freely welcomed by beneficent humans, kind souls who set up bird feeders for their feathered friends. It’s important to remember that agricultural development is what enabled human beings to quit wandering and establish roots. Home may indeed be where the heart is, but it is also where the basic requirements for life are. If we lacked the ability to artificially cool or heat our environs, we might find ourselves migrating for winter and summer as well, if not so far as Argentina and back.
This is the time of year when we think most of home. It might behoove us to think also of just what home means: safety, warmth, comfort, peace. Food. Family. Those all sound so very human in definition. But spare a moment for the mass of birds in your backyard, your friends from the feeder. Consider the hawk so consistently perched in your neighborhood, day in and day out. Ponder what it takes for them to stay where they are. To be there, and to live. To survive. Think about what home represents to them.
It’s not all that different. |