Accepting consequences

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Actions have consequences, often unplanned and unexpected, and sometimes unwanted. Frequently the results of our actions are a mixture of both desired ("good") outcomes, and undesired ("bad") ones. Good and bad are relative terms, depending on your point of view.

*****

Life in the desert is directly affected by the availability of two things - water and food. While this is true anywhere on Earth, due to the scarcity of those two elements in the desert environment, they become the paramount factors for the survival of living things. Usually the two are found together; plants and animals are concentrated in areas where water is reliably available.

For many years I have made both available to the birds and small mammals occupying the rural suburban area where I live. I tend the plants that provide shelter and food to them, and make available a steady source of water and supplemental food in measured amounts. It is an oasis not dissimilar to the natural ones nearby. As a predictable result I am privy to an inside view of the lives of the native wildlife on a daily basis, right outside my front window.

One morning, as a bevy of quail were busily feeding on the ground below the bird feeder, something startled them into flight. A young male hit the window with a sickening thud and fell to the ground. I jumped up to see if he had survived, just in time to watch a hawk sweep down, grab the inert body, and fly away.

In retrospect, it was entirely predictable that in attracting quail and rabbits I would also be attracting the animals that prey on them. While it was not my goal, I must recognize that the gathering of prey animals would attract predators. If I stopped making food and water available, the quail and squirrels and rabbits would simply find another source, and the hawks and coyotes would follow them; making the consequences invisible doesn't change them.

*****

The other day I was raking out the dead thatch of the annual rye underneath the trees, when I saw a small grey object in the pile of leaves and dead grass. I picked it up, and in a moment realized that in my gloved hand was the desiccated skull of a small bird. That's when I saw the feathers scattered in the grass, all that remained of a ladderback woodpecker.

And a single, solitary hawk feather.

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