Working together is a really smart strategy, whether
you�re dodging hawks or providing yourselves with electricity.
I�m an amateur naturalist, meaning I love studying the
natural world, but no one would pay me for my rambling field studies or even
more rambling insights. Despite � or perhaps because of � being an amateur,
I know how to spot outstanding professionals.
And one of the very best of the last century was Edwin
Way Teale, an informed and informative writer and photographer who
beautifully captured with his pen and his lens our natural landscape, and
its plants and animals large and small. He is perhaps best remembered for
his epic study of the seasons.
His four-part series (naturally) began with springtime.
In the late 1940s, he and his wife traveled thousands of miles by car,
beginning in the Florida Everglades and following the march of spring up the
Eastern Seaboard. The result was North with the Spring, published in 1951,
and followed over the next 14 years by Journey Into Summer, Autumn Across
America, and Wandering Through Winter.
These four volumes constitute one of the greatest classic
sets of non-fiction writing in the American literary canon, as they recount
the Teales� journey over 75,000 miles of the American landscape. Surely at
least in part to acknowledge the excellence of the entire series, the final
volume covering wintertime was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General
Non-Fiction 50 years ago, in 1966.
Of the four, my personal favorite is North with the
Spring, as Teale unrolls a green carpet and gently ushers the reader through
this most welcome of seasons. He devotes one of the chapters to �May at
Monticello.� In it, he describes emerging from Mr. Jefferson�s residence,
when suddenly �all the small birds feeding in the open dashed pell-mell into
the bushes.�
Next, he sees why: a Cooper�s hawk circles in the sky
above, awaiting its chance. Yet, instead of remaining silent, the small
birds enter into �a confused babble of bird voices.�
As soon as the reader wonders why a flock would get
louder, rather than quieter, Teale offers the answer: �By flocking together
in the air, small birds are able to divide the attention of the hawk, to
distract it by many shapes in motion.
As long as they keep together, and the hawk is unable to
cut one individual from the flying mass, all escape.�
He points out that �the calls, coming from all sides at
the same time, apparently disconcert the bird of prey. At any rate, the
Cooper�s hawk swept on without pausing, reached the edge of the
mountainside, and slid down out of sight. The twittering chorus ceased � Now
that the danger was past, there remained no visible remnant of haunting
fear. Monticello in May was once more a place of sunshine and of peace.�
To which any Virginian would add: Just as it should be!
This snippet from a nature classic speaks to a point much
larger than small birds avoiding the reach of a raptor. It reminds us of the
power of cooperation in the human realm too. Rural folks in the mid-1930s
handled a different kind of crisis in much the same way as Mr. Jefferson�s
chipping and English sparrows.
In the first few decades of the 20th century, the marvels
of electricity were transforming cities, midwifing the birth of suburbs, and
creating for metro-area residents what would ultimately become the highest
standard of living in history. In the 1930s, though, rural areas were still
in the dark. Time-saving, labor-saving, money-saving devices were largely
dependent on electricity, and only 10 percent of rural people had access to
it.
But by joining together, they
were able to create their own utility � a cooperative � to provide
themselves with power, at cost. This effort that began in the mid-�30s was
repeated over and over in communities across Virginia and across the nation,
to the point where today there are over 900 local cooperatives in 47 states.
And after 80 years, even as Virginia�s rural areas shrink
and her suburbs grow, the member-owned cooperative model still works. It
does so because the focus has always been on local people providing other
local people with responsive service. If there�s money left over at the end
of the year, it�s assigned to the members as patronage capital, and later
returned to them.
Member ownership also means member control. A
cooperative�s policies are set by a board of directors consisting of
members, elected by their fellow members, working for the benefit of all the
members.
So, whether deterring imminent threats or providing
ongoing needs, bird brains and human brains both recognize the power of the
flock sticking together.
