by Pepper Trail
 |
| On September 14, birders gathered at La Cumbre Peak, a bump at about 4,000 feet along the ridge that rises behind Santa Barbara, California. They were hoping to see nutcrackers, an alpine bird normally found above 8,000 feet many mountains away… Over a thousand flew past in two hours. It seemed as if all the nutcrackers in California were pouring out of distant mountains… This mass movement of nutcrackers has been range-wide, with many observations in places well beyond their usual range, and often in surprisingly large numbers… Is the sky falling, is this climate change? Probably. Are the mountains falling into the seas? No, but their birds are. In an act of desperation, they have chosen a self-imposed refugee status, at least temporarily. It is not known how many will make it back to their alpine homes. —Stephen Carr Hampton Substack, October 19, 2026 |
So many, suddenly everywhere
Not yet starving, but knowing starvation
Knowing it is coming, so they must leave
It has been too dry for too long
The crops are failing, have failed
There is no seed to fill the storehouses
There is no choice, and they cross the invisible border
Our world is a mystery, a hope
Also a danger–they feel that in their bones
But abundance, enough to share
If only sharing would be allowed
If only they knew the right words to ask
But they do not
How could they, being birds?
Strange finches, nuthatches, nutcrackers, crossbills
Creatures of wilderness and winter
Known to us only from the pages of fairy tales
Fleeing scarcity, now in our neighborhoods
Invisible to most, welcomed by a few
Threatening no one
How could they, being birds?
Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.
