Leaving, returning, and changing

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It’s morning to me but the choir has started its day way earlier. Different sounds, chirps, and twitters fills the air and surroundings – it sounds like a chaotic harmony to me. I arrive to the backyard terrace with a cup of coffee and make it to get a sight when the fieldfare (räkättirastas in Finnish) flies to the nearest spruce. After a while it comes back, collecting worms and insects to its chicks.

Couple days ago I was lucky to see a bullfinch (punatulkku), my favorite bird from the childhood. I was waiting for to see it the whole last winter while feeding the birds. Now in the middle of summer time it arrives and shows its amazing red tummy.  The bullfinch reminds me of something old and safe – about something that never changes.

I am still looking after and waiting for to see a sight of a willow tit (hömötiainen) even though I am aware that the nature around does not serve its needs anymore.  The lost of old forest areas and diversity of nature has made the breed endangered.

The birds touch me in a special way. Leaving, moving, and returning are their yearly habits, something they do to survive. There has been something similar in our behavior.  For me it’s partly been my own choice, partly what life has taken me into. Moving, getting lost, learning new, changing, and settling down in a new environment. Leaving again, returning again. Not always recognizing the old anymore; nothing but at the same time everything has changed while I have been away. Usually it is my mind set that needs to adapt itself and find the balance between old and new.

I wonder if the birds are facing something similar. Not that their mind sets would change but due to the climate change the environment changes. How can the birds adapt to this?

Due to climate change and the lost of the diversity of nature the birds, among the many other animal species, have already faced the reality and necessity of moving and changing.  In the book Birds and the climate – a journey to a changing nature (2020) Maria Pihlajaniemi writes: “As habitats change, species and individuals have three options. They can try to adapt and change themselves. Or they can start moving and look for a new habitat elsewhere. If they are unable to do either of these, only the last option remains: to fade away quietly.”

Both birds and humans are facing the changing environment due to climate change. The plants and animals react to the change around us all the time. The birds have started to move already, and environmental migration will be the future of many people as well.

Leaving, returning, and changing. There is something that interests me. If we must leave, can we return anymore? If we return, do we recognize the old? How can we adapt to the new? How do we change?