We do not generally think about the "bigger birds" when we talk about birds. But living on the coast, we are confronted with penguins in specific regions. They are magnificent birds when you see them up close. You then actually see their feathers.
And they are some of the most endangered species of birds; or in fact, I think most living creatures are. One of the biggest contributors to the extinction of life is our reliance on oil.
Generally, I stay away from politics. But when we visited a penguin sanctuary in Gansbaai South Africa in the Western Cape sponsored by Volks Wagen Motors, I felt a weird moral conflict in myself. On the one hand, oil is in part the reason why we are having the problems we have. On the other hand, oil is the reason why we have enough money to open sanctuaries like these ones. It is really a big problem with no sure answer.
Let us not get too political tonight. Everything is already and always so political. In South Africa, we are experiencing very strict "load shedding" in which power is switched off to rid the system of too much strain. But this leaves people like me who rely on the power to run their laptops and PCs without much to do. Some nights when I get home and want to post, the power is off and I cannot get on my laptop. It frustrates one, but it is the same frustration as not being able to help nature and our feathered friends.
The small person on the street does not have the money or power to influence how the world is structured; we are mere spectators in a play the rich are playing. And it is sad to see all these animals suffer, like the penguins in the sanctuary.
It really puts things in perspective to see these creatures from so close up. It saddens me to see the utter destruction we humans are capable of.
I worked in the compost heap this morning. I pondered how our society got to this point where we rely on mass-produced things such as fertilizers. We moved away from age-old wisdom to trusting big corporates. We have moved away from people having vast amounts of knowledge to trusting systems in which every part is broken down into chunks so that no one truly knows how the world works any longer. We have in effect lost touch with nature and reality. To the detriment of others as well. Our being in the world is currently reliant on the destruction of nature for capital. The myth is that there is infinite nature to destroy because in theory capital can be infinite.
But nature is finite...
I hope you enjoyed these close-up portraits of these ocean-feathered friends. All of the photographs are my own, and the musings are my own as well. I hope you are well. Happy birding, and stay safe.
