Living Alongside Feathered Friends: Cape Spurfowl and Some Musings

Whilst whale watching in Gansbaai South Africa, I stumbled upon two Cape spurfowl (Pternistis capensis). I obviously stopped the car in the middle of the road, very unsafe, but I had to visit them. The roads in coastal towns are mostly deserted, lucky for me and for the birds. But these birds have changed with us as we changed their environment.

It is often said, or so I remember, that survival of the fittest is not about strength and perseverance, but rather about adapting to change. Obviously, we are changing the environment at a never-before-seen pace, but sometimes when you read all the bad news you forget to see that there are at least some species that have changed with our human interference. Obviously, this is not ideal, we would want better for us and them, but most people will still want their iPhones and luxuries.

Many times I find myself dwelling in the territory or mind space in which I should not go:

What if we could go back to how it was before all this fast-paced change?

And I know we should not dwell here, because we will never return, not willingly at least. People have become so accustomed to their ways of living that change for the worse will not work. That is, people will not return to what philosophers call a state of nature.

It might sound like a good thing, but is a world without antibiotics and health and iPhones better? It is up for debate but most people will not want to live in the "old world". The next best option is to help where we can, like farming our own food, making compost, and leaving weeds in our garden.

But even this is sometimes too much to ask for.

It is funny how people want "dead" gardens: perfectly manicured lawns, weed-free gardens, and monocultures.

Diversity is not something the modern mind can work with.

I remember when I grew up, we received booklets full of different phones you could choose from. I mean, there were probably more than 100 different phones, each one with unique features. You did not want the same phone as your friend, the weirder the phone the better. And then you could download "skins" which changed the appearance of your phone so it did not look like your friend's. Recently, everyone wants an iPhone, everyone wants to copy, and every big corporate wants sameness. It is cheaper and so on. But since when did we as a diverse world full of unique individuals choose to be the same?

Sorry, this is a post about the spurfowl and we can live alongside each other! Let us get back on track.

Spending a lot of time in the garden, you pick up some of these birds' antics. They love what we deem weeds' seeds. Thus, I leave all the weeds in garden to go to seed so that they can have that yummy snacks. As you can see in these photographs, the owner of this house did not have a perfectly manicured lawn. In fact, check all those natural weeds! So many seeds for the spurfowl to eat.

I am not sure where I heard/read this, but some weeds have also been changing with our changes. I cannot remember what they call them, but these weeds follow our "footsteps". That is, where we walk, or disturb the soil, they grow. Think about all the weeds that just appear where we till the soil.

Now imagine if these weeds changed to follow our footsteps, how many bird species also started following us because where we go there the seeds will pop up.

Life is so complex and complicated. Our finite minds will never understand everything. But we can help by leaving some of our gardens to return to a state of nature. We can opt not to cut down the tree that bothers us. We can plant trees, or we can plant plants beneficial to the environment.

Can we live in a society where we as a society agree to let everyone and everything live? No one is talking about taking away your iPhone, but can people live a little diversity in their garden? I see so many people living up their gardens to lay pavement. Why? Are they scared about the maintenance? Are they worried about hay fever? I have no idea, but I will help them in the garden! The earth gives us so much, the least we can do is to give back a bit.

It is not too much, is it?

All of the photographs are my own taken with my Nikon D300 and Tamron 300m zoom lens. The musings are also my own. I hope you enjoyed this post in some sense, and that the musing resonates with you. Happy birding and stay safe.