Kay's Polar Bear Drawing

Her written words were passionate, and the drawing she enclosed obviously heart-felt. Carefully sketched were two sad polar bears sitting on very small ice floes; both bears were crying. In the corner she drew a diagram of the sun shining on the earth to depict global warming, with a label pointing to the Arctic where polar bears live.

Kay’s letter touched my heart. And just like she was feeling, it made me both sad and angry.

Sad, because the reality is, beyond even a shadow of scientific doubt, global warming driven by the excessive burning of fossil fuels will forever change the planet and the life it supports, unless we take real and significant action immediately. Angry because politicians continue to play reckless and dangerous political games with Kay’s future and, in fact, the future well-being of every child.

Reckless Indifference or Responsible Action?

Providing our children a future with polar bears, a healthy environment and a safe place to live should not be a mere political game. It’s a deep responsibility, incumbent upon all of us to take meaningful and effective action, regardless of political persuasion.

Tragically, organizations like the Heartland Institute continue to feed the fires of climate change controversy despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, with reckless indifference to the future well-being of Kay and millions of children just like her. Congress continues to duck the global warming issue, failing to take any significant action to curb global warming pollution. Even worse, lawmakers continue to try and stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that under the Clean Air Act the EPA clearly has the authority to do so.

Unable to see beyond the next election, politicians are gambling away Kay’s future, all the while fixing the odds in their own favor for short-term political winnings.

I wrote back to Kay, encouraging her to keep learning about global warming and to tell her friends about the trouble polar bears are in and why. I told her that some of them, like her, would also want to take action to help solve the problem. I believe we actually can save polar bears and lots of other wildlife that are affected by global warming. Kay’s “big voice” combined with others is necessary to win a brighter future for children like her.

Not a week later, Kay wrote back to me. She is working on a day where her schoolmates will ride their bikes and walk to school in lieu of motorized transportation…she calls it the “Polar bear shuffle.” Kay is taking action. Meanwhile, our elected officials continue to stall, duck and even deny the issue.

If an eight-year-old girl can step forward to invest in her own future, is it too much to ask our politicians to truly invest in every child’s future by taking action to curb global warming now?

Let’s not gamble Kay’s future away, and instead protect wildlife for her and future generations.

Here’s how you can help Kay:

• Send a message to the EPA in support of limiting carbon pollution from coal-burning power plants >>
• Find out how you can conserve energy and reduce your carbon footprint >>
• Learn about NWF’s Eco-Schools USA program, which helps schools green their facilities and curriculum >>

Tundra Swan in flight (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Except for deer, which seem to know where I am and give me a wide berth, the other wildlife ignore me altogether. Well, there was a marked exception one day to that generalization:  a tufted titmouse found me high in a tree  in my deer stand, and proceeded to spend about five minutes loudly scolding me from branches only several feet away. S/he was quite upset, but eventually grew tired of squabbling and left, leaving me to more peacefully watch other wildlife.

Here are a few highlights:

Twice I watched  a sharp-shinned hawk  that was hunting.  Both times the sleek well-groomed bird was flying silently through the forest, no more than two or three feet off the ground, seemingly effortlessly maneuvering through the brush with a flick of its long tail here or a quick wing stroke there.  It would perch on a branch for about 20 seconds, then again fly about 100 feet and perch again, all the time looking for its favorite prey:  the songbirds which frequent the brush.   Because I was in a tree, I was looking down on the sharp-shinned hawk when it went directly underneath me.

In marked contrast to the the sharp-shinned hawk’s  sleek  appearance and graceful flight, one day a large wild turkey suddenly thrashed its way out of the brush 100 feet away.  When I reached for my binoculars it immediately changed course away from me and disappeared back into the brush.  Smart birds, those wild turkeys.   Other times I’ve heard wild turkeys vocalizing, watched them feeding on the forest floor, and once delighted in the site of them leaving their night time roost trees at dawn with a long stiff-winged glide to the ground.   Gobble, gobble!  Cluck, cluck!

Pileated and other woodpeckers are quite common, not to mention loud.  They all ignore me, sometimes getting quite close.

But, my favorite every fall, is to hear and see the migrating tundra swans flying overhead.  I hadn’t seen any this entire fall season until about 8:00 AM on the last day of the deer season, when I heard tundra swans calling overhead, and I knew right away they weren’t geese!  About 50 birds flew in magnificent large ‘V’ formation heading southeast towards Chesapeake Bay about 60 miles away, where they winter.   These birds were from somewhere along the very northern coast of North America where they breed on the tundra, and could have even been from Alaska, some 6,400 miles away!   Click here for a range map (scroll down), or click here to hear their calls (scroll down to the first recording for tundra swans)….that is the beautiful sound I heard overhead. 

Witnessing the snow-white tundra swans flying gracefully overhead against the blue sky, totally made my day!

There’s always something exciting to see when watching wildlife, so Get Outside!