Wild With Nature

A simple whistle, ascending at the end, easy to imitate. It’s the hour when the light departs, converting the trees into silhouettes, and the evening blue leaves the slopes of the Cerro Islá. A simple whistle that I’ve never heard before, only in recordings. The months of study crystallize in an instant and I’m almost running, the whistle calling me onwards, passing the milpa and the nopales, the starfruit and the cempasúchil, the beloved garden of grandfather Teo, passing the mangos, entering the jungle. The crickets are the voice of the approaching night, this whistle the mystery of the twilight.

The mystery is this: why is each day here different? Why does the earth give us so many chances, so many guides to learn from? The voice of each bird sings its story, its relationship with the living earth. The bud of every plant is a universe in waiting—and they all wait for us; what will we do? Will we learn the humble magic of the milpa, of thousands of generations of hands caring for the corn and the beans, the squash and the chile, the firewood and the manure, the cacao and the guanábana, so that our footprints may be gardens of flowers and jungles where the thicket tinamou (Crypturellus cinnamomeus) gives this simple whistle at sunset?

The ghosts of the birds

Or will we tear apart the earth, so that our food only comes from the supermarket, so that it carries the ghosts of the birds and the beetles that once lived where a monoculture crop creeps to the horizon? It’s not a rhetorical question. Large-scale, mechanized agriculture continues growing across the planet, the primary cause of biodiversity loss (in spite of climate change, another huge and growing threat). Industrial agriculture is an enormous and efficient system, difficult for anyone—farmers or consumers—to change. Efficient for saying goodbye to rainforests, milpas, insects, tinamous, efficient for selling us candy and snacks, diabetes and cancer, for losing our connection with the earth. But it’s not inevitable. Every milpa, every shade-grown coffee farm within the intact rainforest, every attempt to form a healthy relationship with the earth opens up a different possibility.

Ancestral practices

We all have these practices in our ancestral lineages. Here in Mexico, the system of the milpa is one of them. From the land where I was born among the mountains and valleys of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, there are the indigenous traditions, stewarding habitat for salmon, cedar, camas, and huckleberry.

I suppose that somewhere in my European roots is a tradition of tending fruits, because they’ve always fascinated me. My mom has vivid childhood memories of picking raspberries with her Grandma Jessie. As a kid, I used to go huckleberry picking with my dad. Before he died, we went out in the evening to observe noctuid moths pollinating the cherries in his orchard, an orchard of old fruit trees without pesticides where the red-naped sapsuckers (Sphyrapicus nuchalis) drilled wells in the tree trunks and the pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) visited in the fall to feed on apples. There were enough to share. We dried apples, plums, and cherries, and I grew up craving this dried fruit. I wasn’t very interested in candy, because dried fruit from the orchard was so much better.

All of these traditions and many more offer us another way forward, together with the birds and the plants, the fungi—a way that gives us healthy food and gives the animals habitat to flourish.

The tinamou, the forest-falcon, and the owls

The thicket tinamou continues singing. The earth gives us so many chances, and the voice of each bird tells its story. Grandfather Teo tells me that there used to be quail here, but they disappeared. Maybe it was because of an increase in insecticide use in the area, he says. I continue to listen for the quail at sunset. Perhaps one day I’ll find them, like the thicket tinamou whistling now from the forest close to the Río Sal, this timid bird of the dense vegetation. It’s kind of like a chicken, except that it doesn’t scratch with its feet. Using its beak, it seeks out seeds, beetles, and fallen fruits. It nests on the forest floor during the hot spring and the rainy summer.

Along with the tinamou, do you hear that nasal cry? Now it’s gotten closer. It’s a collared forest-falcon (Micrastur semitorquatus), hunter of birds and squirrels, a bird that hides in the jungle and nests in cavities in the caoba (Swietenia macrophylla) and other big trees. And now the Middle American screech-owl (Megascops guatemalae) begins its nocturnal trill, this insectivorous owl that hunts grasshoppers and beetles at the edge of the plantings.

The mystery of the twilight

In the distance hoots the mottled owl (Strix virgata), larger than the screech-owl. It also feeds on many insects at the edge of the forest. The common pauraques (Nyctidromus albicollis) have emerged from the dense bushes where they passed the day. I can see them in the deepening darkness, perching on the clay of the track. They flutter under the crescent moon, hunting beetles, moths, and other flying insects. Sometimes I hear their liquid calls and their song, purwheeoo!

The fireflies are glimmering above the shadows of the milpa. Clusters of stars hang suspended above the guardian silhouette of the Cerro Islá. A while ago the thicket tinamou stopped whistling, but I know it’s still there, in the leaf litter of the rainforest. The Middle American screech-owl continues singing.

The earth gives us so many chances to learn; the voice of each bird tells us its story. The milpa shows us how we can live with fields of flowers and diverse forests, and everyone waits for us. What will we choose?

Note: This story about the nocturnal birds of the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico alludes to the importance of insect diversity and intact ecosystems for birds and all life. It’s something I’ve touched on in other stories (such as those in bold that follow the references, below) and that I’ll continue exploring next month with a story from Montana, USA about owls, moths, and a project that is documenting the diversity and importance of these flying insects. Also, if you’d like to delve more into sustainable agriculture and biodiversity, check out the references I’ve shared below. In particular, I recommend Lorna Milne’s poignant and deeply personal essay “Losing Ty,” and Luke Hingtgen’s review of the inspiring book The Third Plate.

Further reading

Billerman, S.M., B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg (editors) (2022). Birds of the World. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/home

Hingtgen, L. (2014, 11 December). Review: The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food. Edge Effects. https://edgeeffects.net/third-plate/

Jaureguiberry, P. et al. (2022). The direct drivers of recent global anthropogenic biodiversity loss. Science Advances 8:45. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm9982

Lozada Aranda, M. and A. Ponce Mendoza. (2016). La milpa. Biodiversidad Mexicana. Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad, Mexico City, Mexico. https://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/diversidad/sistemas-productivos/milpa

Milne, L. (2023). Losing Ty. Great Plains Quarterly 43:4. https://www.lornamilne.com/losing-ty

A hopeful sign for a bird in decline: helping Montana’s tree swallows

Lunch on the fly: a bird’s-eye view of chokecherries