Some years ago I met a pair of scrub jays that lived in Golden Gate Park. I had been aware that it was possible to attract one to my hand with a peanut. Corvids and many other birds love peanuts.
And I love birds.
Ipharos (the male of the pair) became a trusted friend and companion. His mate, Ladybird was nearly always with us as well.
They formed a kind of sensory antenna together. She would stay up high in the treetops, on the lookout for threats (especially hawks). He would adventure around on the ground.
The combination of his very local knowledge of the state of the ground was profoundly complimented by her ‘from above’ perspective.
This complimentarity wasn’t an accident. In the territory in which they lived, a pair of Cooper’s Hawks had a nest quite nearby.
Sometimes, those hawks eat jays.
My adoration of Nature is innate. The problem is that I can be a bit childlike in my relationships with wild places and creatures. I can easily forget that such relationships must be taken seriously. My thoughts and behaviors are sometimes, at least in the beginning, quite naive.
I make mistakes because I am imagining fantasy stories and magic and … where the humans and the animals are together.
That doesn’t always go as planned, to put it mildly.
There’s a beauty in fantastical imaginings of reunion with Nature. But there’s also a danger, and its similar to the dangers of other kinds of intoxication.
The danger is a matter of not being actively, actually present in the relationships and situations in such a way as to not invite ironic catastrophe.
I had noticed the unique way they participated in the urgent task of situational awareness together. But I had not actually understood something crucial about this. Not yet.
I would spend an hour or two in their terrain, giving Ipharos peanuts by hand and throwing some near Ladybird so they both got peanuts. But I was so thrilled to have a bird coming to my hand, that I wasn’t really paying close enough attention to the problems I was causing.
Peanuts are relatively irresistible to jays. One birder likened them to ‘bird heroin’. So what I was actually doing, was really a problem… I brought something neither of them could reasonably resist, and far too much of it, almost every day.
I had given some thought to risks. But I should have listened to the quiet voices inside me much more closely. It had occurred to me that I was giving them too many peanuts. And also that we were both taking risks by forming relationships.
Humans, after all, generally bring trouble to birds and other creatures.
Peanuts are tasty and rich, but they’re not worth dying for…
Sometimes we hear tales, or, if we’re lucky we have memories of experiences where a creature or living place imparted something important to us. Officially, this isn’t ‘supposed’ to happen, since, after all, the anthropocentric perspective, where only humans are intelligent, has, for some time now, been the flavor of the day.
It’s 2023. But even today, if one pays careful, curious attention, signals are still being sent and received across the gulf between our people and the living places. The creatures. The forests. The oceans and the sky itself.
I watched with careful interest how the birds communicated with each other about threats and opportunities in their terrain. I realized how powerful it was to have both perspectives in concert with each other, the one ‘from above’ and the one ‘on the ground’. I wondered if something like this was possible in human cognition, thought… or behavior. Of course, it is. In fact, what I am doing right now is the result of a situation in my awareness where ‘I suddenly saw from above’.
One day, long ago, Ladybird was angry with me.
And she managed to make that clear, even though I was effectively drunk on playing ‘nature boy’ in the Gardens at the time.
One afternoon I was in their territory, near their nest and I held out a peanut for Ipharos and he came to my hand and retrieved it. Nearby, Ladybird sat atop a small post. I threw a peanut near her, so she could easily retrieve it. She looked directly at me (uncommon), and began making angry cawing calls for a few seconds, very forcefully, and then turned around and flew off.
I got the basic impression that I was doing something wrong. But I didn’t pause and really think about it.
I figured that, perhaps, I was creating more hawk danger.
And just generally went on with my reckless behavior.
A few months later, one of those hawks struck me in the head, forcefully.
And it took me quite a while to understand why something that severe might occur. But the day before, a hawk came and fluttered before my face. I mean, they did try to make it clear.
To those birds, I must seem incredibly confused, if not plainly stupid.
Today I was reflecting on this story with a friend, and suddenly, in a flash, I saw something I’d overlooked somehow.
Ladybird and Ipharos are gone. They both died, most likely of old age. But that day when she was angry suddenly came into focus in my mind.
And I think, far too late, I understand.
I was directly interfering in their threat-sensing behavior, by creating a situation where they would both be closer to the ground at the same time. This kind of danger probably won’t get you killed if you do it irregularly, but what I was doing was distracting them both… from the hawks, and even each other… every day, sometimes for more than an hour.
By bringing peanuts, and staying there a while feeding them, I was effectively paying them to defect from their natural foraging and threat-response behaviors.
I recall that before either one of them would fly or move, they would check up to 23 different vectors in the nearby terrains. To survive, they have to pay attention. Especially when hawks are nearby, which, there, is quite common.
The irresistible peanuts … what I thought of as ‘a gift’ or offering, were actually vastly more dangerous than I ever considered.
Now, years later (that’s how slow I am, sometimes), I think I understand Ladybird’s scolding.
I can’t go back and repair the history.
But I will remember what she taught me.
I will pay attention.
I may still have fantasies and beautiful imaginings.
But I will endeavor temper them with an awareness of where I am, who I am with, and what’s important there.
An astute reader reflected back to me that other readers might think I was just telling a story of something that actually took place. Which I was. But I meant it as a metaphor.
Because, for us, ‘peanuts’ is cash. Any commodity.
And what we defect from isn’t merely our mutual threat vigilance… it’s, well, nearly everything. Especially at the order of human collectivity where groups are formed. The military. ‘Industry’. ‘Nations’ and ‘Governments’. Courts. The marketplace. Media. You name it, it’s been ever-more expertly colonized with ‘more reasons to defect per second’ than you ever imagined possible. It’s as if time itself has become infected, in human behavior… thought… and our capacity to form intentionally integral collectives.
We’re trained to and rewarded for these defections. Like slaves, we’re trained to think of relating with digital images and text on screens as a reward.
I remember seeing a mother walking down the street, staring into her smartphone while dragging her four-year old daughter alongside her. The little girl looked up at her mother, looked at her phone, and then spread her free hand our and looked into her own hand, as if to attempt to summon the demon that captivated her mother.
We’re losing a lot more than mutual threat-detection here.
For peanuts.
I am insatiably curious about the nature of living beings, intelligence, language, and the origins of our species.
As a cognitive activist, my dream is that my work may contribute to our ability to understand the origins of our strange situation as modern humans, and assemble effective replacements for what our modern cultures are but the broken remnants and falsified costumes of.
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