Why Do Birds Deserve Our Love And Protection?

Jason

I think I agree with all your reasoning. We have many species who visit my garden in the UK. Unfortunately we also have a neighbourhood cat who gets in and stalks them.

When I complained to my friend, its owner (in fun, I understand cats cannot be contained) we almost argued when she said I was feeding the birds to attract her cat. She did not understand why I preferred the birds in the garden than her cat.

I've now added Holly into the gaps in the fence to help keep her cat out. The trouble is, I've got a hedgehog. The hedgehog needs the gaps to go on its nightly hunts.

Hello Jason, the way I see the need to protect birds is they teach humanity to humans, for someone that can not look after and appreciate a small helpless animal is one that can not look after other humans and the environment. They teach how to care and love for something other than ourselves, they teach loyalty and companionship, community, balance in nature and so much more. To give is greater than taking and they certainly do give special moments to those that watch them hence we should not take them away and should protect them, to understand this is special. :) May they teach us all peace, happiness, and respect for others so greediness can be avoided in this world. Susan

Abbie, you should buy your neighbours cat a collar with a bell for Christmas, that would help the birds,

Birds are not entirely rare, but entirely rare as in raw feline delicacies. Cats should be kept in doors and given very little time outside due to the damage they do to neighboring homes. You can train your cat to not hunt sometimes, but it's terrible what they do to nests and all species smaller than themselves.


Since birds are amazing subjects in art due to their beauty and inspiring songs outside my window, I'm in total agreement with you, Jason.


And Jason, your English is better than mine. Excellent.

I agree with your list Jason. When we protect birds we protect all plants and animals.

I saw my first bob cat here in CT about five days ago. That is one hunting machine. I was in my car and the cat was about 15 feet from the car. The animal stopped and we just stared at each other for ten plus seconds. I fidgeted for my phone camera and the cat slipped away.

This morning on the radio, bob cats populations in CT are growing quickly.

Dave

Birds are a favorite subject for my artwork. I like to draw both wild birds and the chickens and duck that we have.

House cats can be a real problem if they are allowed to breed uncontrolled. There are a lot of feral cats around here but since we have dogs the cats mostly keep out of our yard. One of our cats does go outside and unfortunately he does hunt birds sometimes. He is getting old now though and doesn't do it as often. I don't feed the wild birds because of the cat and I have also placed my bird bath in a hanging position in a tree where he can't reach it.

We built a large outdoor pet enclosure for our cats and dog with easy access to the house to keep them from roaming. Which is becoming an increasingly popular way to let pets enjoy the outdoors while keeping them safer.
I had to remove my bird feeders n my yard due to a hawk waiting every morning for me to fill it because it then became its own feeding time. The hawk would actually catch the birds in mid air. Then there are the squirrels, raccoons and badgers among other animals that raid nests eating both the young birds and the eggs.
I recently saw an article about how praying mantises are killing birds especially humming birds worldwide. Weirder yet was information about how deer were eating living nestlings right out of the nests which was all caught on a field camera in North Dakota. It turns out that the animals we though were herbivores are in fact omnivores.

Birds from the crow and parrot families are highly intelligent animals. Ravens are probably the smartest of them all. All animals deserve respect. Humans are not the only terrestrial beings on this planet.

I love birds for all the reasons mentioned above but I also enjoy watching their silly antics. Comic relief, anyone?

https://kathleen-bishop.pixels.com/featured/heron-with-attitude-kathleen-bishop.html

My wife, Gloria, feeds birds in the backyard every morning and there are always some (please forgive the pun :O) ) EARLY BIRDS waiting for her.

We also have a hummingbird feeder which gets plenty of use not only by the hummers but larger birds too.

One of my great joys is putting fresh hummer food in the be feeder and standing about 15 inches away while a hummer comes to feed just inches from me.

Here's a link (because I know this isn't an image thread, Abbie) to a photo I took while practicing my free throws at the local basketball court near our home.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/guarding-the-net-photography-by-bill-tomsa-bill-tomsa.html

Bill Tomsa

https://billtomsa.blogspot.com/

Jason, this is a great idea for a group! Will be joining.

I especially agree with your #3 on your list of "Why do birds deserve our Love and Protection?"

About 62 years ago (before I went car crazy and built dozens of plastic model cars) I built my first plastic model. It was of a Baltimore Oriole.

BIll Tomsa

https://billtomsa.blogspot.com/

Conor, I agree

Where I once lived for 5 years - there was a Great Horned Owl that caught the cat that was stalking the birds and took it high up in a tree and ate it.

Cats should be kept indoors - yes, and birds set free from cages and humans put in cages.

Ever seen a mob of Blue Jays, Mocking birds, or Crows mobbing a hawk or owl that has neither in the inclination to eat any of them?

Have you ever seen the greed of black birds at the feeder? Or have you seen the Cardinals that run off the little birds from the bird feeder?

Have you seen vultures squabble over their meal of a dead animal?

Have you ever seen a hawk swoop in on a dove that was minding it's own business, feeding on the ground under a bird feeder?

Have you ever seen to Great Blue Herons, or Great Egrets, or many other birds vying for feeding or nesting rights?

I do love birds, and cats and dogs - don't get me wrong - but out in the wild - is is not all love and peace - although there is a whole lot of beauty.

Every creature on this planet deserves our protection, even if you don't want to love them. At the rate we are going, our era will keep pace with great extinction events of millions of years ago. When the earth reboots from this one, we might be the next creature to find that some component of the earth we thought to be irrelevant was the one that kept us alive.

Doug, good points.

When we had mice in our house I refused to buy kill traps and instead trapped them live and released them miles from our house.

I've carried spiders out of the house and released them because I didn't want to kill them.

I've rescued a baby chipmunk stuck by fright in the middle of our road.

I've scared off two crows attacking a star nosed mole on the road and got him off to the side and into the weeds where I hoped the birds wouldn't find him.

We've rescued fledgling birds from our back yard and taken them to a bird rescue center.

And I know they serve a purpose on this planet, Doug, but I draw the line at MOSQUITOS ! I hate getting bit by those little buggers! Besides there are plenty more where they come from and I doubt very much they are on the Endangered Species List. :O)

BIll Tomsa

I don't really think we need to actually protect the birds. I think we need not to be killing them off.

The resurgence of birds in the North Eastern US has been a joy to watch. I thank Rachel Carson out loud often. And I tell people that the resurgence of the birds is directly linked to her book Silent Spring. Thank you Rachel Carson for raising the issue of DDT and the shells of eggs.

As far as hawks feeding off bird feeder birds, we have that too. and it is the chance that birds take in the wild. The hawk is a magnificent creature and (s)he does a valuable service in culling the flocks. That balance will not be upset by what the hawk can eat. And the smaller birds are communal in driving the raptors away. It's quite the sight to watch and enjoy.

If anything, we need to find ways to corral the invasive species of birds (There are so many here given the effort to populate the "New World" with every species of bird mentioned by William Shakespeare One Eugene Schieffelin,by name) And Sparrows have nearly obliterated the Blue Bird which is the state bird of NY state and yet I do not believe that I have ever seen one. It turns out that sparrows kill Blue birds.

So in that way, yes, Birds do need our protection. They certainly have our admiration... They can fly! But they need our protection on the grand scale. They need us to protect them from mass wipeout.

I feed the birds all the time....

And I want to take this moment to publicly apologize to Marlene.

Earlier late last spring Mike was having a problem with some Mourning Doves making a racket on his air conditioner. Marlene opined that they are just pigeons. I was shocked at such a display of animosity towards the animals.

Well, over the summer, I have been feeding the birds and indeed they have arrived in large bunches. For a while I had dozens of Red Winged Blackbirds. Other times I have had a yard full of Blue Jays, Goldfinches eat my thistle socks dry! But the flock of Mourning Doves was remarkable. Scores of them. I had never seen so many at one time as I had seen this summer, and I had to admit, that Marlene was right, they're pigeons! I said to myself, "I owe Marlene an apology."

Marlene, you were right, and I take back those things I thought back then (I didn't say, I just thought).

But the birds will be fine. They've been around for a lot longer than Humans have. They are very good at surviving in the wild.

PLAU
UPD

Hi Abbie...

Thank you for respond me so soon ... I am glad if you have a garden in the yard that invites various kind species to visit. ... It reminds me back to the past, when my grandfather built a tree house near his garden, far from our village ( please visit this link and see the detail..https://fineartamerica.com/featured/hariet-jason-sentuf.html ) . We were three brothers, sometime joined our parents and grandparents, spending every Friday night in this house. We slept better when heavy rain poured on the roof of that simple house along the night and woke up early and enjoyed various kinds of wild birds replying around the tree house, nearing dawn. We often sit leaning against one another on the terrace due to the very cold morning weather while watching the attractions of birds flying from the mountain to another dense tropical wooded mountain before sunrise. Looks like we were watching and enjoying freely music concert and chorus of birds singing in such a natural open air ... Such a marvelous sight that was never forgotten. But such amazing sight has been disappear - so many modern humans freely carry their air rifles hunting and destroying all these beautiful birds for thair business purposes. .Such environmental crime ought to be prevented immediately by all parties of bird lovers globlely.

Jason, your story reminds of living in Spain soon after Franco.

The part about the people today shooting the birds.

That is not a big problem here in the USA (that I am aware of in any case). But in Spain, I was working next to some orange groves and every weekend a group would come down and people in the front would walk through the rows of orange trees and bang on oil tins. The small birds would fly and the hunters would shoot shotguns.

The birds were tiny. It seemed to me to be a waste of effort to clean and cook them, let alone try to eat them! But what you say is true (again, as far as I know )

Abby, get a super-soaker, and every time the cat goes near your bird feeders, shoot water at him. It does not hurt him in any serious way, but cats hate water and it works. I've used this method a few times when needed! I want to add that I love cats very much -- I've had many cats as pets, but then sadly became allergic to them, so I switched to birds. But cats kill literally billions of birds in the US every year, and are one of the reasons that bird populations are declining; it is very sad.

Being bowled over by this touching and evocative image, I believe it says it all about our friends, the birds

Lois Bryan's wonderful work of art

Hello Jason,

Thanks for the question!

Birds deserve our love and protection for many reasons, but the main one in my opinion is that all species deserve our love and protection. Humans are just one of many thousands of species on this planet, and as such we should share the planet with them. But we don't. It is not our right to plunder and kill and cause wanton destruction of other species. That is a very entitled and arrogant position, which I think derives from the Judeo-Christian idea from the Bible that man has dominion over the animals. It is so sad that we are the cause of devastating loss of species all over this planet, and birds are one of the main losers, as their lives and reproductive success are so dependent on habitat and the climate being stable.

So those of us who care need to try as hard as we can to protect birds from their devastating losses. These losses are due to human habitat destruction, climate change, introduction of species that kill birds (for example, read about ants that kill baby birds in Hawaii, etc., that were brought in unintentionally by humans), reflective windows in high rise buildings and everywhere, and other collisions with man made structures, cats, etc. It is unfortunately impossible to reverse these horrific destructive forces, but every single animal and bird matters, just as every human matters, so everything we can do helps.

Personally, I love birds and have come to appreciate their amazing and difficult lives by watching them for countless hours. They are just like us -- they have emotions -- they mate, raise their babies, grieve over lost mates and lost babies, thrill in the excitement of parts of life, have fear, panic, suffer pain and illness, get cold, get too hot, have to practice to master skills, take risks, make mistakes, enjoy companionship, enjoy long-lasting relationships, and work incredibly hard. I am filled with admiration.

Judi Dressler

I wrote a blog post about this a while back.


https://bposnerblog.com/why-birds-matter/

In order to genuinely protect birds we're going to have to protect the global ecosystem, without which birds (and mammals and reptiles and amphibians and etc) can't survive, regardless as to how many laws we pass protecting them. But it doesn't look like there's a movement going on to do that.

Robert... I stand in agreement with you, because there are so many other activities that are indirectly a threat to birds and other habitats.
These include:

• Deforestation and logging of forests and native forests.
• Greening of pine, rubber tree plantations, teak trees intensively at the expense of vast natural forests.
• Marine and coastal development that penetrates coastal areas and wetlands which are very important for migration and breeding of birds.
• Intensive development for roads, housing, golf courses and other facilities that violate conservation areas and natural heritage.
• Pollution that destroys waterways, destroys wildlife and causes climate change and flooding

We ought to make movement in many ways globally to protect our ecosystem in this planet.

Thank so much for such idea and support!

Kindly Regard!!

Jason Sentuf

I agree with everything you say Jason. We have a duty to protect all wild creatures and their habitat, but birds are special to me, as they give so much pleasure with their beauty, their song and their fascinating behaviour. I look forward to joining your Bird Lovers group when it is launched and wish you good luck with your book!

Hello Bill,

I have clicked your blog link several times and read your story. The message you shared forth is amazing...How amazed we are when watching the bird scene in our home yard. They also enjoy freedom and express the majesty of their Creator and give us new inspiration. Your story is amazing...Thanks for share your link in this general discussion page.. Hope other Bird Lovers visit it. I have copied yours as the same I did to other discussion member in this page - all copies for my writing reference. Your respond and encouragement comment is really appreciated.

Kindly Regard!

Jason Sentuf

Elaine.... I have already launched the Bird Lovers group last week! Please, click this link: and join with us: https://fineartamerica.com/groups/bird-lovers.html Thanks for your encouragement comment. Just visited your gallery as well...

Happy Painting!

Jason Sentuf