The Hazard of Nature Blindess

Common grackles hold a special place in my natural history. I remember distinctly one day in high school, while I was taking honors biology and having just started our unit on identifying birds, walking around town and seeing the most amazing bird sitting on a railing. It had a glossy, iridescent head, piercing yellow eyes, and a long, wedge-shaped tail. What was this gorgeous creature? Surely it must be a rare and lucky find.

 

A pair of common grackles (with the whimsical scientific
name of Quiscalus quiscula)

Of course, when I got home to a bird guide, my avian mystery it was easily identified as a common grackle. Not rare--"common" is right in its name, after all--and one of our more familiar suburban birds. It was my first realization of how we can be utterly blind to the life right outside our window. I knew other common birds: robins of course, and chickadees. I knew there were little brown birds happy to eat any french fries you happened to drop at the local Dairy Queen knock-off, but I had no idea what they were called. My granny had taught be how to whistle like a cardinal years earlier (though I couldn't whistle as well as her. Still can't...not even close). But that was about it as far as my knowledge of neighborhood birds went.

 

This nature blindness is not uncommon. Anyone who begins putting out a birdfeeder with some quality seed will soon be amazed at the assortment of feathered friends who will come out of the woodwork. Several types of woodpecker, nuthatches, titmice, and other otherwise invisible denizens of the trees. We may see them, and we certainly hear them, but we don't know them. So until we take the time to get to know them, they remain invisible.

 

Joe-Pye weed

If we can be so ignorant of the birds around, with their bright colors, noisy songs and quick movement, how can plants stand a chance? Plant blindness is pervasive. How many of the plants that you see daily can you name? How many do you even notice? Can you tell a cup plant from tall coreopsis? Would you recognize Joe-Pye weed if you ran into it on the trail? I certainly couldn't until last year. A lucky few are taught from childhood the names of those who share our world; the rest of us have to make the introductions ourselves.

 

It is important to get to know our neighbors. It is easier to care for something when you know its name, when it goes from being another stranger in a crowd to an individual with a name. No other bird swaggers so elegantly across a lawn as a grackle. Before I learned its name, the grackle was just another "blackbird," lumped together with starlings, crows, cowbirds, and any other bird with a vaguely similar appearance. But each species has its own life history, behavior, and niche. And each deserves to be known.

Further reading:

• How Do We Fight Nature Blindness?
• We Need a Cure for Plant Blindness
• Humans are blind to plants. Can we get over it?