Birds change, we change, the world changes.

When we’re children we grow up not just within homes, not just within families and communities, but within ecologies, too — encircled by clouds of birds, sharing the air with insects and pollen, our paths crisscrossing those of hedgehogs and mice; our lives are shaped and tempered by these living worlds, these embracing atmospheres into which each of us is born.

No human ever lived in a birdless world.

We’ve made monsters we don’t know how to fight.

Nature is about now. ‘Natural’ means us, too, if it means anything.

Our worlds, the little worlds of all living things, are enmeshed beyond all entangling. And yet we’re not all one, the birds, us, the insects, worms, flowers, the rest, not exactly; we’re walled up within our own experiences, our own capacities. We share a physical world but our sensory and mental worlds remain discrete, entire, complete.

Perhaps it's impolite to die so flippantly, after all she's done for me.