I really like birds. I especially like mourning doves, mostly because they are one of the few birds I can reliably identify by both sight and sound. Bird guidebooks are fantastic when you have the book and the bird side-by-side, but often I don’t, and later there is always a question I can’t answer: Was the tail ringed? Was the beak straight or curved? Were there stripes on the head? A page filled with birds so similar, yet not the same, and names so different. Was it a whimbrel, a curlew, a godwit?

While I say I like birds, I am certainly not a birder, because any birder worth her salt would be easily able to answer those questions. Last week I looked at a site of a birder couple who recently traveled to Antarctica and posted 1000 of their 7000 photos, mostly of birds, all tagged with both common and scientific names. Whether because of my struggles with identifying birds, my seeming inability to memorize scientific names, or my phobia of excessive digital photos,  I found this compendium staggering.

Back to mourning doves, whose coo is often likened to a lament, though I find it tranquil and comforting. Mourning doves are monogamous for the most part, and extremely fecund, breeding up to six times per year in warmer climates. They eat mostly seeds, berries, and an occasional snail, and are able to drink brackish water.

Most of the world’s population is in North America, home of 350 million.  They are also the most popular game bird on our continent, with 20 million shot each year. I am even less a hunter than I am a birder, but on investigation I found that hunters like them because they fly fast–a challenge–and can be shot with a smallish–easier to carry–gun.  Hunting is allowed but regulated (for the time being) in most states.

Whether you like to watch mourning birds or shoot them, find them boring or comforting, think of them as pests or assets, we can perhaps agree that they are thriving now. They are on my mind because I’m trying not to think of all the creatures that may be threatened by the current proposals to gut the Endangered Species Act. It’s all about “land use,” sponsors say, yet the US doesn’t set aside much land: of all states, only Alaska has set aside more than 25% and only California, Wyoming, and Florida more than 10%*. “Set aside” includes lands with any level of protection at all, often combined with commercial uses, including extraction.

This month I also learned that many people support dumping coal mining debris into streams. Finding commonality with the 46.4% who voted for Trump feels harder than identifying birds sometimes.

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• Based on this chart, which for some reason I can’t get WordPress to turn into a link: https://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/protected-areas-stats/