Musings: As they welcome spring, birds sing despite threat

As the icy grip of winter loses its hold and signs of warmer days are upon us, a vast array of songbirds are already taking advantage of the Earth’s journey closer toward the sun in the Northern Hemisphere. Their melodious chirping reminds us that a new season is upon us.

Their enthusiasm, though, has been tainted, unknowingly to them, with a virus that harbors illness — and possibly worse — to them and also to those in their environment, including humans and other mammals.

Avian flu has the potential to mutate and take aim at those unaware of its wrath. Sadly, for some, apprehension has overshadowed the annual emergence of the birds’ announcements that spring has arrived.

From the beginning of mankind, our ancestors dealt with formidable foes. Their success allowed us to move forward to conquer numerous obstacles. Today, the enemy is not as obvious as a woolly mammoth or a tiger with a voracious appetite. It is more sinister and insidious.

As children growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in the early ’60s, we learned at an early age about dangers that threatened our mortality.

We were told to hunker down under our school desks if a nuclear missile were detonated. We were reminded that the Cold War was real and that our school building was a designated fallout shelter. The fear was real and painfully blatant.

Today, although less obvious but equally as threatening, the enemy is not only a distant country. This enemy is invisible with the capability of many casualties. It wears no uniform and has no sophisticated weapons. This threat is biological — a virus that lacks identity and shape and can be seen only under a microscope.

Virologists have worried about this for well over a century, and now we need to be aware that another pandemic could loom.

This is something we must acknowledge. 

— Jason E. Hill, Ridge