In the middle of April, I got the impression that many Latvians have stopped living their lives and started living the lives of white-tailed eagles, constantly following the changes in bird partners, laying eggs, food supply, etc. It began to remind me somewhat of how many parents at some point stop living their lives and start living their children's lives, or even worse, they sink into the lives of some soap opera characters instead of their own lives.
A major turning point came in the fourth weekend of April, when both hatched white-tailed eagle birds died in a cold snap. (More about these events can be read here.) Suddenly, social sites were filled with hate speech against white-tailed eagles, about white-tailed eagles being cruel monsters and the like.
This shows that for many in Latvia, the only contact with birds has been by the Old Riga canal, feeding ducks with bread crumbs and happily watching how they kindly accept human food.
In Latvia, for many, the notions of birds have been influenced by art and creative works. For example, Ē. Ķiģelis un I. Ulmanis song “Don't shoot birds from the side of your house! Don't shoot a stork, he's a blessing! Green and bright under the wings of a stork, the earth blooms in the summer,” glorified storks, who do not stand out with special kindness in their deeds, because they are part of nature. Those living in the Soviet information space were greatly influenced by the work of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). The dove, drawn by Pablo Picasso, became a symbol of the peace movement and the ideals of the Communist Party in April 1949, as it was integrated into the much-circulated poster of the World Peace Congress in Paris and Prague. After 1949, Soviet-era paintings and posters depicted a dove of peace as an angel-like creature who did no harm to anyone but was able to unite everyone into a harmonious and peaceful life.
But these symbols of art and ideology have nothing to do with real nature and interspecies competition. Birds are part of nature, and they engage in both the struggle for their survival, especially when there is a lack of food, and interspecies competition. People who watch birds not only from birdwatching areas or in Riga's parks, but deal with them 24 hours a day and all year round, have no illusions of birds as angel-like creatures because birds can beat even the worst people in their cruelty. While working at the Preses nams, I could observe how the terns, who had set their nests on the roof of the Preses nams printing house, were killing any foreign chick of their species, which had accidentally gone into the territory of another tern family.
My experience with pigeons dispelled any illusions about the peaceful nature of these birds. Twenty years ago, house martins began setting up their nests under the roof ledge of my house, by the brick wall. The genus of house martins (Delichon), which has three species, belongs to the swallow family. The house martins build their nests from mud. The 6-meter-high brick wall of my house created good heat conditions on the south side, it protected the martins from cats and the roof ledge - from flying predators. The martins didn't bother me, so they formed their own colony on the wall of my house for many years. But at some point, pigeons discovered that a gap had formed between the roof and the eaves, into which they could sneak in and form their lairs under the roof. It was a very safe spot, and the pigeon colony multiplied every year. Until one year there were so many pigeons that they were running out of food. The pigeons began to scare away all the sparrows from the yards, preventing them from picking up dog food leftovers. But that was not enough, and then at some point, the pigeons decided to expel other species of birds from their surroundings. House martins, which did not care about crumbs in the yards and streets, although smaller, in air combat, were more agile than pigeons. Then the pigeons began to destroy the martin chicks. Waiting for the moment when the martin chicks hatched, the pigeons hit the martins' nests, using their beaks like arrowheads. They were made from mud and fell apart from the blows of pigeons, and the already hatched birds fell down from a height of six meters. Those who were not eaten by the local village cats, I buried in the ground. The terror of the pigeons against the little martin chicks continued for several years until I rented a lift and nailed shut the gap between the roof and the eaves with a board. The pigeons no longer had a place to build their lairs, but unfortunately the martins did not return the following year or any later years… However, in the garden trees, tits and even hoopoes set their nests.
What is the moral of this story?
Attributing human traits to birds and beasts is personification. It is an artistic method. It has little to do with natural processes. Pigeons, martins and white-tailed eagles are animals whose behavior is determined by the laws of nature and instincts.
Yes! Now, during the many restrictions and nonsensical decisions of the government, it is very convenient to start living other lives, be they from TV show characters or white-tailed eagles. Maybe that's enough of that. We can start living our lives, taking responsibility for what is happening around us, for example, by opposing the nonsense implemented by those who are not worthy to be the leaders of the Latvian land and Latvian regions.
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