Winter World_ The Ingenuity of Animal Survival - Bernd Heinrich [50]
Although I have seen almost solid mats of snow fleas on the snow, neither I nor anybody else seems to know where they come from or where they go. Snow fleas appear mysteriously in isolated patches, sometimes within hours after the snow begins to melt. They are on the snow only in the daytime (to absorb sunlight?). Perhaps they burrow directly through the snow, but they also retreat to tree trunks in the evening and radiate out from them in the morning. I have never seen kinglets pay any attention to the snow fleas that are so conspicuous to us on the ground. That is surprising, if kinglets are indeed specifically adapted to forage for springtails, and in Europe Collembola were reported to be their main prey in winter—the manna that provides them the calories and fuels their metabolism to survive the night. Snow fleas appear to be palatable. Bill Barnard, a biologist from Norwich College who studies gray jays in Victory Bog in Vermont, has seen the jays scooping up snow laden with snow fleas like kids eating maple syrup on snow at spring sugaring parties. Do golden-crowns take advantage of this bounty? If so, why had I never seen it happen? Are the springtails up in the trees where the kinglets spend most of their time and where they feed on them unobtrusively? However, as I’ll indicate shortly, I doubted that snow fleas spent much time up in the trees.
Kinglets are, as far as I know, the only birds that routinely hover at twig ends to pluck off microscopic mites, aphids, and aphid eggs that probably no other bird could see, nor a human would ever find unless assisted with a hand lens. It would be difficult, but important to know what the birds’ lives depend on. Knowing what a bird eats is fundamental if not central to understanding the mysteries of its survival. But knowledge is never without costs to acquire. Sometimes one has to do whatever it takes. To find out what kinglets eat, I had to do the most direct thing. I had to examine kinglets’ stomach contents.
I may invite censure for setting a bad example by hunting tiny birds. Nature writer Jim Harrison (1996) warns: “I have noticed lately that hunting, tobacco, and wife-beating are being lumped together in the feel-good quadrant of yuppiedom, that ghastly, fluorescent hell of the professionally sincere that makes one long for the sixties.” I’m not insensitive to his observation and need to at least address the hunting rap, given also my upbringing by a father who was a professional bird collector (hunter) for museums. I’ll never forget the rhyme he taught me: “Quale nie ein Tier zum Scherz denn es fühlt wie du den Schmerz” [Never do something to torture an animal because it feels the pain like you]. He drilled the ethics of hunting into me, and the only time when I ever saw him show anger toward me was when as a preteen in the 1950s I tried to kill a skunk with my slingshot to impress my peers. That was not all right. It was disgusting. He felt justified to kill birds for a museum where they would be preserved forever, as some feel justified to eat fish, chicken, or other meat that is digested in hours. Which is more justified? And even if necessary, how do you justify? Those who are familiar with ancient folklore, or are up above the rest of us a moral notch or two, kill “respectfully” by offering prayers or apologies, in the hope that animals will “offer themselves” up to be voluntarily killed. However, it is a sad fact that no animal cares if those who might eat them invent reasons to justify their acts (to make themselves feel good). But if any animals did offer themselves up for the greater good, then none as small as a kinglet would ever consider the value of its meager body to man as sufficient recompense for its own life. So, yes, I killed several kinglets (after