Is that what the forest creatures said to the blackbirds when they packed their modest belongings and left for the big city? What! You didn't know? I didn't either until I read a brief mention of the big move in Milan Kundera's novel: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
Kundera made only casual reference to the blackbird diaspora. He assumed it common knowledge and therefore a useful analogy to a larger point he was making.
According to Kundera, the process began at the end of the eighteenth century in London then spread to Paris in the ninetieth century, then on to Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, and Istanbul.
Kundera thought it odd that an entire species would desert the natural word for the unnatural world.
He thought it even odder that it should be so slightly noticed. He goes on to compare it to the insidious invasion of communism in his own native country.
It’s amazing what we focus on and what we barely notice at all.
I went to google to see what I could discover.
I found many learned papers on the subject with several good reasons why blackbirds might prefer cities to woodland.
The reasons were made fuzzy by over-qualifying scientific precision. I did my best to sort-out the likely from the unlikely to save you the trouble.
One. The near incessant light of cities causes biological changes in the blackbirds. They reach maturity sooner and breed longer. That alone produces more blackbirds. Who knows what it does to you.
Two. There is more food in cities than in forest. What must be hunted in the forest lies in plain sight in the cities. All you have to do is eat. For most city dwellers hunger is something they only know about from storybooks.
Three. Nesting space in nooks and crannies is easily found in unbelievable profusion. Predators, except for cats, are nearly nonexistent. None of that Medieval nonsense about, "Four and twenty Blackbirds baked in a pie". Whew! Thank you, Perdue Farms.
So, there it is: More light, more breeding; More food; Fewer predators.
Many smart birds other than Blackbirds have gotten the message. There are now more birds in cities than in forests. There are more mammals, too. Deer, squirrel, chipmunk, raccoon, opossum, skunk, and others unnoticed, are suburbanites.
A few country cousins still live in the forest - for now.
Humans, too have been beguiled by the bright lights.
In the years following WWII great masses of Americans left the farm to move to the city; many of my own family among them. Much like the blackbirds, they went in search of more.
In their case it wasn't for food, but for salaries.
Their move seems to me foolish. What they gained
in money they lost in personal freedom. They were once masters of their own land. Now they're wage-slaves onto perpetuity.
They might have started a business. It would have changed nothing. Businesses depend on customers as much as salarymen depend on employers.
My Grandparents depended on no one but themselves. The few items they occasionally bought were for the sake of convenience, or novelty. Needs were supplied by their own hand.
Opinion will vary on this. I'll stick to my own.
Oh what a web we weave when first we try to get
a few bucks, or a few seeds, more.
I wonder if the blackbirds feel the same. The other animals, too. Once they were wild and free. Now the artificial world is the only world they know. If the cities fall and humans disappear, will they starve?
Probably not, but they might have a hard time of it for a while.
Of course I exaggerate, but not altogether.
There is a value in self-subsistence that is much undervalued these days. I doubt that attitude will change - until it's too late. I can imagine in some far-away future-time, bewildered masses searching for a grain of rice when once they could grow whole crops.
Ah well.
"Cast off all my cares and woes.
Here I go, winging low,
Bye bye Blackbird".
- Miles Daves
