Flashy red
cardinals, speckled woodpeckers, metallic blue-black starlings, multi-hued blue
jays, dainty chickadees, red-winged blackbirds
flashing their colors, swooping into the feeders, competing for the
abundant seeds and nuts, sending warning calls or perhaps calling a mate. A
feisty dove defends its territory, until a plump squirrel arrives, helping itself to the tasty seeds. So much
activity, live, right before our eyes in our TV room. The Cornell Lab Feeder
Watch entertains my hubby and I, avid bird watchers, more than any Netflix
series. Just imagine, we’ve been under quarantine for a month with no access to
the outdoors except our small garden and then we discover the Feeder Watch
bringing the outdoors – a pond with Canadian geese, newly-budding trees,
birdsong – onto the wide screen before us. The burden of quarantine feels
lighter, hope glimmers on our horizon.
Total
lockdown in our neighborhood was lifted two days ago, so today we plan to take
a drive! We feel it’s safe to leave our city confines to delight in the natural
world first hand. Not far, just up into the foothills of the Andes. We’ll take
our masks and maybe get out of the car to inhale the mountain air. Simple
pleasures.
We head up
the narrow curving road through the Mapocho River canyon. The majestic Andes
rise tower before us with tiny patches of snow on their peaks. It feels so
liberating to be here out of the city away from concrete, glass and metal. Yet,
hubby voices what I’ve been thinking, “Look how dry everything is.” The hills
around us are a dull grayish brown, their sparce vegetation a drab olive green,
and, most disturbing, multiple skeletal dry trees standing in sad testimony of
more than a decade of drought.
I say to my husband, “Let’s stop up
there a ways where we get a closer view of the river.” River is too grand a
word for the trickle of water. I get out of the car and walk towards the bushes
that line the riverbank, stepping through roadside garbage to reach a place
where I can hear the gurgling of the water over rocks. I want to don a pair of gloves, tote a large
bag and rid this roadside of its human detritus.
This foray out into “nature” reminds me of the degree to
which the Earth is suffering from our neglect and abuse. I wonder if the
idyllic scenes on the Feeder Watch Cam will only be accessible to us in the not
so distant future on a television or computer screen.
