![]() To say a name is to give breath to a legacy, to carry the past into the present. Soon a video circulated of a white woman calling the cops on a Black birder in New York’s Central Park, bringing the outrage sparked by the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd home to the birding community. Confined to my home, I logged eBird checklists of my backyard visitors while scrolling through my social media feeds, which were filled with scenes from racial-justice protests. I began to think more deeply about the names appended to the natural world as the pandemic wore on. ![]() I’d assumed Cooper’s Hawks might steal chickens from coops at night. I’d spent years believing Steller’s Jay was called “Stellar Jay” because its plumage looked like the night sky. As for other birds carrying people’s names, I’d misconstrued several to better suit my knowledge of the species. So the honorific became a passive marker for speaking of Wilson’s birds, but not for knowing them. Flipping through my field guide, I saw four more birds bore the same possessive title. Whoever Wilson was had no bearing on my understanding of my new feathered familiar, except that maybe the “O” in its name felt like a nod to its dark cap. A Wilson’s Warbler! I’d gleefully add this songbird to my checklist after the tiny floof flitted away into the brush. If I was lucky, a little bird would appear among the thickets long enough for me to count its field marks-nimble flight, yellow-green feathers, a perfect black oval on its crown. Songbirds and waterfowl seemed at home in a world awash in gold and I felt more attuned to their rhythms when we basked together in the last sliver of summer sunlight. I didn’t know what these plants were called, but I carefully and meticulously learned the names of all the birds I saw and heard. The verdant reeds and towering silver-barked trees glowed in the hours just before sunset. When pandemic lockdowns began, I took daily walks around a placid lagoon in a park in downtown Santa Cruz, California. There is something remarkable about looking for birds at last light.
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