Birds Help Bind Us to Our Roots, and to One Another
Our winter issue illustrates how, in today鈥檚 topsy-turvy world, we would all benefit from stronger connections.
As 2020 draws to a close, life remains upended鈥攁nd with it, many of the traditions this time of year typically brings. Some comforting rituals can carry on (go ahead, ), while others, like far-flung travel and large family gatherings, are painfully still on pause.
Given our current reality, it seems fitting the cover story for 探花精选鈥檚 Winter issue features birds we describe as the 鈥渦ltimate homebodies.鈥 After fledging, young Florida Scrub-Jays stick around the nest, where the birds live as close-knit families (and presumably also struggle with homeschooling). When they do strike out, they don鈥檛 stray far. 颅Development has divided the state鈥檚 once-contiguous scrub, so the jays now dwell in isolated populations.
As Carrie Arnold describes in her feature, just as family life defines the birds鈥 here and now, inheritance will shape the species鈥 future. Increasingly inbred, scrub-jays need genetic diversity to survive. Molded by their own family history, a father-daughter pair of scientists teamed up to move birds across fragmented habitat in an effort to connect and save them.
Elsewhere in this issue, we explore how people are striving to honor and protect their own inheritance鈥攁nd ensure a future that is intertwined with that of wildlife. As Lourdes Medrano reports from southern Arizona, descendants of the Hia-Ced O鈥檕dham are among the Indigenous protesters joining with activists to fight the U.S.鈥揗exico border wall, whose construction is devastating land that has been sacred to people and essential to animals for millennia.
It is through the revitalization of Indigenous language that both children in Chiapas and artist Luke Swinson have been strengthening links with their roots. Swinson brings this effort into his art, which, like his Anishinaabe First Nation ancestors, he uses to tell stories. 鈥淎nd the story that I鈥檓 telling right now,鈥 he says, 鈥渋s that of a young, lost, Indigenous person who鈥檚 trying to find their way back to their culture.鈥
Whether ancient or newly discovered, traditions can bring us back to what matters and illustrate how to carry history forward. And, especially at this time of year, we would all benefit from a greater sense of connection across this scattered landscape.
This piece originally ran in the Winter 2020 issue as 鈥淩ooted in Action.鈥濃 To receive our print magazine, become a member by .