Wonders that Cannot be Fathomed, Miracles that Cannot be Counted
by David A. Ek
The crowd dissipated into secluded enclaves; they each wanted a semblance of a private and deeply personal experience as if each held a singular connection to God’s glory. The sun hadn’t yet risen. The Moon’s faint glow cast eerie shadows against outstretched arms swaying in the stiff breeze. The contrasting moonlight and dancing shadows created a darkness deeply felt. Each waiting individual knew the light would soon come and shine down on them alone to warm their bitter waters. Goodness knows, worldwide, there are far too many bitter waters seeking solace.
From across the continent, and beyond, individuals and groups flocked to the San Pedro River to purge their bitters. Each waited in passionate devotion against the pre-dawn darkness and chill. Anticipation kept them warm. Kept them anxious. Pent-up energy sent miniature currents swirling into the heavens. The fragrance of mesquite greeted their full-alert senses. Finally, the sun rose and spread warmth on stiff muscles and stifled nerves. The sunrise came and passed—the widely spaced devoted followers continued waiting in silence. Passing time had not dampened enthusiasm for they were living in the moment.
Suddenly, mesquite leaves parted, exposing rustling and silently graceful twerks. The long-awaited return was upon them as if on cue. In unison, all rose and found the moment frozen in time. As if recognizing the event’s significance, the wind obeyed, and it too froze in silent reverence. All around, it was as if the object of their admiration had rebuked the winds, and behold—there was calmness.
Each patient follower caught their first glimpse of the charismatic southwestern willow flycatcher. In synchronized unity, binoculars, scopes, cameras, and eyeballs tracked every motion of this diminutive bird which has had an oversized impact on the sinuous mesquite, cottonwood, and willow groves lining the San Pedro River margins.
The birders watched motionless, even stilling their breathing. The southwestern willow flycatcher rewarded the resolve of those observers who remained still, present, and engaged. The flycatcher hopped out of the mesquite’s protective cover. He flew to a barren protruding wispy limb in a nearby cottonwood tree, scanning the landscape, presumably looking for insects. Now and then darting to grab a fluttering insect before retreating to his clear favorite perch. This bird, forever an entertainer, has a remarkably commanding voice despite such a minute package. He released the unmistakable “fitz-bew!” with each head lift and bill snap. Each abrupt motion expelled a “fitz-bew” into the clear morning air as if he had been idle too long and now only wanted to—sing.
His frenzied motions, projectile “fitz-bew’s,” and short jockeying positions along the same branch demanded attention and closer observation. Although unmarkable in its olive top, white wing bars, and buffy breasts, the shape and dimensions of its entire body are something to behold. Even the stiffest of souls could not describe it other than cute.
Life’s sublimed margins brought both birds and spectators from across the globe to meet at this one special point in time and space. The marvel of this conjuncture heightened the essential experience. They were not merely flycatchers and spectators; they were active participants in nature’s marvel. For some, the occasion merely allowed them to check this species off their burgeoning birding “life list.” While for others, the experience became deep and personal—even spiritual.
At least these bird and birder interactions are how I imagined the experience—before the southwestern willow flycatcher became so rare that years would go by without a single observation along the entire San Pedro River corridor—an internationally recognized birding hotspot. Habitat loss is the primary culprit for the population decline. When people and a bird like the same habitat, people rarely share.
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The southwestern willow flycatcher lives in undisturbed cottonwood, willow, and mesquite bosques lining undisturbed waters coursing through the hottest and driest American deserts. Consequently, for many people, the bird symbolizes our increasingly rapid habitat loss due to human encroachment and manipulation. These losses catapulted this tiny bird onto the highest tier of legal wildlife protection—an “endangered species,” under the often-contentious Endangered Species Act. Endangered species stand a reasonable chance of going extinct. Extinction is forever. Forever is noteworthy.
Another noteworthy distinction of the southwestern willow flycatcher is that it is one of the 340 Neotropical migratory bird species. Neotropical migratory birds summer in North America and winter in Central or South America. Migrating long distances is stressful and dangerous for individual birds, but evolutionary principles show the benefits outweigh the costs.
Migration adds stresses that non-migrating species don’t experience. Consequently, many Neotropical migrating bird species are declining. Besides the southwestern willow flycatcher, this includes many hummingbird species.
The San Pedro River is one of the nation’s hot spots for hummingbird diversity. While many hummingbirds live along San Pedro’s abundant riverside willows and cottonwoods year-round, it’s during the spring and fall migrations when populations explode. During seasonal migrations, as many as ten hummingbird species may visit the San Pedro River corridor, including the tiny Calliope hummingbird.
Birders named the Calliope hummingbird after Zeus’ beautiful-voiced daughter—the most prominent of the muses. Seneca the Younger, the First-century Roman philosopher, in his tragic play Medea, describes Orpheus, the legendary musician and poet, and son of Calliope, as the prophet “Whose sweet melodies the swift stream stood still, and the winds were hushed, when the bird, leaving off its own singing, came near him, the whole wood following after.” Calliope, the Greek legend, personifies grace and elegance, but so does the Calliope, the hummingbird.
The Calliope hummingbird is the smallest long-distance migrant in the world. A Calliope may fly five-and-a-half thousand miles, twice a year, during its annual migrations. The minute bird conducts these astonishing global flights with a body weighing no more than two-and-a-half grams, slightly heavier than one U.S. penny. We should all be awe-stricken at the presence of this remarkable hummingbird goddess.
“Why do you fix your eyes upon the ground?” asked Philostratus the Younger, the Third-century Greek philosopher.
“Since I for one do not know whether it is because you are now collecting your thoughts, or because you are awe-stricken at the presence of the goddess.” The philosopher continued philosophizing. “The gifts of the gods are not to be rejected, since you have heard it from one of the devotees of Calliope,” he added. “You can doubtless see the goddess herself imparting to you now sublimity of speech and loftiness of thought and measuring out the gift with a gracious smile.”
During annual migrations, Calliope hummingbirds, southwestern willow flycatchers, and other Neotropical migrating birds stop at critical resting spots, including the rich riparian vegetation lining the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona. In the spring migration, birds passing by the San Pedro River area intending to nest further north regularly stop for only a short time. The birds don’t waste time reaching their breeding grounds, building nests, laying eggs, and beginning new families. Southerly migrating birds conserve body fat and energy by flying slower and stopping, eating, and resting on their journey. The San Pedro River’s lush north-to-south river corridor provides birds with critical resting cover and an abundant food supply that aids in the migration’s success.
The Nearctic, one of the eight great bioregions of the world, stretches from North America’s Arctic down to the United States-Mexico border. From this border, it transitions into the Neotropical region—which continues through Mexico and Central America to end in southern South America. The San Pedro River is key to connecting these two global ecological regions.
The San Pedro River begins in the Sierra de los Ajos, one of the “sky islands” chain of mountains in northwestern Mexico. Sky islands are isolated mountains (“islands”) holding lusher non-desert plant species surrounded by wide desert expanses (“seas”). The ecological importance of sky islands is the connectivity offered by being close to one another. The sky islands that dot the San Pedro River landscape provide less harsh resting places in the hundreds of miles between Mexico’s subtropical mountains and the temperate Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada. If not for the sky islands, the desert expanse in northwestern Mexico and southwestern U.S. would provide an insurmountable obstacle for animals to cross—even long-distance migrating bird species.
If plants and animals did not cross the desert expanse, nature would have no means of sharing its gene pool between ecologically rich mountain regions. This would lead to isolated populations, genetic decay, and increased extinctions. Birds travel across the expanse by “hopping” from one sky island to the next. Sky islands provide a critically important ecological “river” sustaining biodiversity on a continental scale.
If a stream flows by two or more sky islands, the streambank’s lush riparian vegetation aids in connecting two widely separated mountain islands. In this manner, the stream serves as a natural international genetic highway. However, unlike our freeways that carry economic commerce, nature’s highways carry essential genetics that sustain their survival and better equip species for the harsh and changing times ahead. The San Pedro River is one of the nation’s most significant corridors that connect the Nearctic and Neotropical regions. “I am not born for one corner,” Seneca the Younger once said, “the whole world is my native land.”
Despite the San Pedro River being one of the longest undammed rivers in the American Southwest, its riparian habitat is especially vulnerable to impact. Its very existence depends upon too many variables and too many unchecked threats. A desert stream is more than mere water, it’s a total ecological system of interconnected parts. Species dependent on an interconnected system suffer when connections malfunction or fall apart.
If we withdraw groundwater from a desert, less is available to feed desert streams and springs. With lower water levels in streams, dependent riparian plants die, and plant communities begin adjusting to the new stream level and new normal. This cycle eventually replaces the entire species composition of shoreline plant communities. Even Seneca the Younger could not foresee such an unfortunate fate for the San Pedro River riparian habitat.
Since wildlife biodiversity within deserts mostly lies within riparian areas, the changing nature of streamside plants has a devastating rippling effect throughout the entire bio-community of interrelated species. Consider the southwestern willow flycatcher. Diminishing riparian vegetation means less available nesting habitat, less cover from predators, fewer insects, and less flycatcher food. It’s a cascading series of events much more dire than even Lemony Snicket could imagine befalling his orphaned children at the hands of Count Olaf. A real and consequential dire event that originated with groundwater pumping feeding rapid development within the San Pedro River watershed.
If these trends continue, it doesn’t bode well for desert migratory bird species. If the last lonely flycatcher perches on a branch and fervently tilts its head back and snaps out the loudest “fitz-bew,” it would be a jarring declaration as prominent as Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter that we failed to see the broader and interconnected importance of water in desert environments. Before this dystopian future is upon us, if we are fortunate enough to hear a lonely “fitz-bew,” in the far distance, will it remind us of Job 5:11, “Call if you will, but who will answer you?”
The Nature Conservancy heard. They bought San Pedro River riparian habitat to protect vulnerable species. The American Bird Conservancy, a national conservation organization committed to bird conservation, designated the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area as the nation’s first Globally Important Bird Area.
Similarly, the federal government designates “critical habitat” for endangered species. The southwestern willow flycatcher recovery plan identified critical habitats across the bird’s range. For the San Pedro River part, the Fish and Wildlife Service designated the river’s lowest seventy-eight-mile section—to the confluence with the Gila River—as critical habitat. Congress also provided other protections for the southwestern willow flycatcher by designating the San Pedro National Conservation Area. This is one of only two National Conservation Areas in the nation.
Conservation efforts are beginning to successfully protect the fragile San Pedro River and its dynamic riparian system. However, threats do not remain static. Both new and unresolved hardships are often just around the corner. Job 5:6-7: “For hardship does not …sprout from the ground.” Time will tell if today’s sprouts can survive our worsening droughts and bitter waters—and if tomorrow’s groundwater will be strong enough to sustain a world-renowned San Pedro River.
Our future can be more wonder-filled than mere remembrances of times passed. A real future can again have us finding solace along the San Pedro River basking in the Moon’s soft glow as we listen to music rising from the mesquite. A real future experience frozen in time as the “fitz-bews” intermingle with the sweet melodies of Zeus’s beautiful-voiced daughter. Pure sights and sounds—wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. An enchantment so pure it causes the swiftest stream to stand still, the winds to hush, and the whole wood prepared to follow—and leave us all with a lasting and gracious smile.
— The End —
© Copyright 2024 David Alan Ek. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This story is nonfiction. It reflects the author’s present recollections of experiences over time.
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Through TAR, we travel and experience the diverse Americana landscape. The last post had us getting into an American Paris state of mind. In TAR’s next post, in the spirit embodied in Ponce de Leon’s quest for the Fountain of Youth, Lewis and Clark’s scouting the route west, and Monty Python’s search for the Holy Grail, we will explore the challenges faced by a modern mountain man’s search for water fountains along the highways and rest stops across America’s increasingly arid landscapes. Look for “Of Mountain Men and Water Fountains” on January 1.
In the meantime, check out all the good things the private non-profit organization the Friends of San Pedro River is doing to conserve and restore the San Pedro River and its habitats.
Also, please check out my website’s Portfolio page for a description of my compelling novels, Pedro’s Pickles and the American Dream and Lizard People: Death Valley Underground, and my relatable literary nonfiction book Nowhere Bound—A Spud’s Reflections on Climbing, Caving, and Other Useless Toils. I encourage you to like or follow my Facebook and Goodreads “Author’s Pages.” Until then, take care and I look forward to our next glimpse into Americana on our next TAR adventure. See you then….
