Race to the Last

When I drove through the Columbia River Gorge on my way to Multnomah Falls in summer 2016, I couldn't imagine having to write this blog post.

I have blogged before about the feeling of losing what was the Pacific Northwest to global warming. Although many of the changes brought to the region by the warming climate, including the staggering heat of July 2015, the shrinking glaciers at Mount Rainier, and the die-offs off starfish, birds, and other species along the cost, helped me realize that the PNW had already become something different from the place of my youth, they didn't prepare me to see the gorge consumed in the red flames of wildfire. So last week, when fireworks set ablaze the gorge's tinder-dry forest, which had been parched by months of relentless heat and rainless skies, I realized with new sadness and urgency the magnitude of our increasingly hot situation. Seeing the flames close in around Multnomah Falls, I felt a powerlessness akin to watching time slip away. To gain a sense of the awful scene still developing in the gorge, watch the video from The Oregonian below:



In recent years, I have increased my efforts to see places in the PNW precisely because I felt the need to race the changes that would alter them forever. In spite of the changes they've already seen, most of those places retain part of their essence and a good amount of their iconic beauty. For this reason, the trip to Multnomah Falls last year left a satisfying impression. I was glad I had taken the time to know and appreciate that place better; I felt at home below the high walls of the gorge; and I considered it a place I would hold in my heart despite any of the changes I imagined coming to it.

As it turns out, I haven't been racing change; I've been racing erasure. I will always have the memory of the 2016 gorge trip. Still, until last week, I didn't think the situation so dire that the drive would stand as my last time seeing the gorge in that state of beauty. Firefighters protected some of the area around Multnomah Falls, including the historic lodge, but much of that stretch of the gorge on the Oregon side went up in flames. The smoke and ash from that fire combined with the output from numerous fires throughout the region to blanket and choke the PNW in a hazy, red hellscape so alien I hurt to even think it the same place I once knew.

Nearly beyond our imagining but definitely beyond any doubt, we find ourselves in a race to the last and quickly disappearing remnants of something special.

The Sight of Silence

Birds make so many beautiful sounds, but they make one sound all bird lovers hate to hear: thud!

View of CollidEscape applied to the outside of a window.
The side panes have screens between the birds and the
glass, so we didn't apply the film over them.

Birds cannot see the glass in house windows. All they see is an opening through which they think they can fly. That's when they make that thud, slamming into the window (often at full speed). At best, they receive a bump on the head, but a familiar and unpleasant sight often follows the thud. Many times, I've rushed outside after hearing that dreaded sound to find a bird laid out beneath the window it struck. Sometimes, the birds just knock themselves unconscious. Other times, they die from the collision. Either way, I feel horrible each time I hear that unmistakeable sound.

Fortunately, other people hate hearing birds thud into windows as much as I do. The American Bird Conservancy, which prioritizes bird protection, offers recommendations for products and strategies to limit bird collisions with windows. One of the products the organization recommends comes from a company called CollidEscape, which makes several types of film window covers that allow birds to see the solid surface of the glass.

Looking outside through the CollidEscape film.

Last month, my mom and I finally heard enough thuds and installed the white version of the CollidEscape film on the house windows. It was pretty easy to apply. Also, as you can see from the pictures, it provides a privacy screen from the outside while allowing people inside to see out. Additionally, the film helps keep the house cooler on hot days by tinting the windows. Most importantly, since the installation of CollidEscape, the birds have gone silent (at least, as far as their thudding is concerned).

From the looks of the early results, we have reason to hope the birds will now make only the sounds they're supposed to make.