Birds on Chairs

From the Washington Post Sept. 29, 2019, Michael Parr; President of the American Bird Conservancy:

You probably see birds frequently- so much so that they may seem to be everywhere. The reality, of course, is that our subjective experience only goes so far. Researchers recently released a new large-scale study that shows that bird populations in North America are undergoing a massive and unsustainable decline. Even species that experts previously thought were adapting to human modified landscapes. Three billion is an unimaginably large number. But that’s the number of birds that have been lost from North America since 1970. It is more than a quarter of the total bird population of the continent. 

Birds are a critical part of the Natural Food Chain, and this loss of birds represents a loss of ecological integrity that, along with climate change, suggests that nature as we know it is beginning to die. Fortunately each of us can do our part to make a difference for the birds and other wildlife. Mr Parr says, “ You can choose to ignore it, but if you do , worse consequences likely await.”

I was shocked when I read Mr. Parr’s article. I wanted to share it and make people aware of the crisis with the birds and how we can help them. I feel it is something we all need to care about and try to help. I originally chose chairs as my subject matter because I love the simple lines and the complex shadows that occur around the chair depending on the lighting. The chairs seemed a little lonely and needed some life, so I thought it would be nice to add native birds to the composition. After I became aware of the plight of the birds, I hope it might help to draw attention to this crises. In a small way it might help. (Julie Schram)