10 Jun NiteCap Journal: How Hurricanes Irma and Maria Inspired Bird-Watching

My fascination with birds began with a hummingbird who built her nest outside the front door of my childhood home in St. Thomas. Sometimes she even allowed me to pet her while crouched on her eggs, leaving me in awe of her devotion and wanting to discover her life beyond my doorstep. 

My favorite TV show, “Marty Stouffer’s Wild America”, airing on PBS, the only station I watched in the absence of cable, peeked my interest in nature. However, the Antillean-crested hummingbird like the one nestled at my doorstep, and bananaquit aka “yellow-breast” I observed fluttering in our garden never made a cameo on Marty’s storied program. His explorations didn’t venture to St. Thomas, leaving me with no guide to follow along my own wildlife odyssey. 

A female cardinal perches in guard of her nest at Tree Tops Park in Davie, FL.

Nevertheless, myself and my older brother Marcus turned our backyard into a miniature wildlife refuge. Marcus designed elaborate cages for the turtle doves we caught in the woods utilizing the ancient stick, string and cardboard box trap. We even dug a salt water pond for the sea urchins, baby eels and array of coral fish we caught amid the rocks at Vessup beach. 

The stray kittens who found refuge at our residence entertained themselves by sticking their paws in the pond. We didn’t mind as long as they didn’t try devouring the hens and their chicks who also found respite, so much so we built them a chicken coop. Somehow, those cats and even our dogs understood that every living creature in our backyard were family and operated as such. 

The birds were my favorite.

A blue jay grabs a bite to eat in Tree Tops Park in Davie, FL.

I considered them to be otherworldly, soaring to places only visited by my imagination. Living on a 32 square mile island, geographically isolated from the dreams I believed lied beyond the oceans engulfing us, I too wished I could fly. 

Looking back now I realize life on the move as an entrepreneur disconnected me from nature and the treasures that exist there. Then hurricanes  Irma and Maria struck, reminding me of Mother Nature’s all consuming power. 

A pair of North American kestrel aka “sparrow hawks” enjoy a sunset in Anguilla.

Amid the despair that came to define life after the storms, I once again turned to the skies for inspiration. I observed a pair of North American Kestrels, aka “Sparrow Hawks”, building a nest atop a falling light pole. A flock of brown-throated conures, better known as brown-throated parakeets, dined on fallen fruits from the many uprooted trees. Their incessant gawking echoed a cacophony of resilience. The birds all remained as if they knew the earth would somehow restore itself which it did. 

Witnessing that apocalyptic wasteland morph back into a lush green wonderland was life changing. The scene reminded me of a recent discussion I had with a friend about the environment. “The Earth will destroy us before we destroy it,” he told me.

A brown-throated conure, commonly called the brown-throated parakeet dines on the fruit of a fallen tree amid the debris of storm ravaged St. Thomas, USVI.

It’s why I’ve found renewed interest in celebrating and preserving the natural world around us, leading me to birdwatching, now one of my favorite pastimes. It’s more rewarding than attending a concert as well as therapeutic in addressing the anxiety that follows life post hurricanes. 

As irony would have it I now spend many hours in the air flying to wherever NiteCap takes me, living the dream I once imagined. Most recently, I drove two hours from St. Paul, Minnesota where NiteCap Live was being filmed to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha to see my favorite bird up close and personal. 

The eagle named Angel nodded as I took his picture – although a giant compared to the hummingbird at my doorstep – was just as amiable.