Happy Birthday to the Coots
I sing Happy Birthday to the coots. I sing because we ignore them, only tolerating their presence when it doesn’t infringe on our comfort. We protect what is valuable and the birds are not part of that equation. I sing as a way to give back, to acknowledge their presence in the spaces we have created. To recognize their disruption as an essential part of our increasingly urban living. Nature is never far away, it has only adapted into new shapes.
The shapes from before are gone, making it impossible to ignore the impact that our artificial materiality has on our perception of natural. We enmesh ourselves with the fiber of our habitat and unknowingly transform it into a human shaped version of it’s former self. This is what humanity will leave behind, industrial production entrenched into everywhere you look. The glory of humanity encapsulated in the plastic wraps that can be found on the ground or wrapped around the wood branches that compose a nest. Seeing the coots as equals in the construction of our shared environment allow for further inter-species dialogue. We work alongside them either if we want to or not. Their presence becomes undeniable through their resilience.