A Letter to Reckon

 

Dear Red Knot,

            I hope this letter finds you well, though, from what I hear, you probably aren’t. You may not be aware, but you are struggling. Along with many of your counterparts, you are categorized as vulnerable or declining in almost every measurable metric imaginable to our intelligence. You are suffering so much that we—who are very well likely completely responsible for pushing you toward your demise—are beginning to realize your tribulations. I have been fortunate enough to work with a select few that have walked among you, observing you in person and in my distant non-coastal town. Those of you who I have seen in person, thank you for allowing me passage into your world. You’ve given me purpose. I can say I know many Reds and Knots, but only one Red Knot.

            Unfortunately, those that are more tenuously tied to your life have been careless with it. Ecosystems have been exhausted to nothing but uninhabitable wastelands where food is scarce and breeding habitat is beginning to dwindle. Up and down the coasts I see it, all you’ve known is disappearing. Others and I have always been fascinated by your long migrations, but for some reason we’ve mindlessly mutilated many of those as well. For that I am sorry. I will try to do better and promise to share your story so others start to care the same. But I think it’s important you hear my story too.

            The first time I met you I had no idea what I was looking for. I was a lost photographer wandering only with wonder. I had seen you before in bird books and online resources, but never with my very own eyes. In my little town, the Red I knew was that of Sugar Maples in October, and Knots were what I tied when I played ball. I never thought they would lead me to you. When I see them now, I’m reminded of the Red Knot that may be sinched only to extinction by the time I see my last Maple leaf fall. Saying goodbye after having just said hello is not something I want to do.

            Because of much of our collective carelessness, we’ve become the enemy, and you are afraid. Maybe not afraid of the same things I am, but certainly of us—and rightfully so, we are probably the only species capable of annihilating yours. I cannot speak about your other fears, but I assume you have many. You’ve experienced things I can only imagine, yet my imagination can’t help but picture a world without you winging along the coast. For that I am terrified, because I know a world without Red Knots isn’t completely unbelievable.

I’m afraid, even though I know, that I will never have it all figured out. I’m afraid whatever I do won’t be good enough and, even though I tried my hardest with others who did the same, you may disappear like raindrops descending into the open ocean. I’m afraid of missing the shot of shots…that the bristles on my toothbrush might start falling out at any second…that they’ll never make a normal gas can spout again. What I find most frightening, I think, is the consequences that may come from those of us who sit in rain-pattered tents with blister-laden feet being outnumbered by those who don’t.

In those same tents, we wonder and theorize about the complexities of your life. We ask ourselves why some of you migrate from one tip of a continent to the opposite tip of another, and why some take a migration less traveled. We wonder why those of you who may be most helpful can’t just be at the edge of the flock, or why you can’t walk a little slower and fly only when our task is complete. We theorize what moves you to mirage sooner than we’d like. I doubt anyone else does, but I wonder how many times I can listen to “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses before I actually lose it. We all contemplate what caused you to flush. Was it us? The Jaeger? The tide? Because you just really wanted to be like Andy Dufresne and vanish like a fart in the wind? A good majority of the time we chalk it up as “unknown.”

I often feel like I’m cornered between an incoming tide and an inevitable monster, lost without any sense of place in a place-labeled world, wondering what to do and thinking it would be best to fly. I look for a way out…an easy route…for guidance. But taking the easy route isn’t always best, you know that. Sometimes the hard way is the only way. I was on one of the hardest ways of my life when we crossed paths, and I learned a valuable lesson from facing my own inevitable monster.

I once knew someone as a mentor and a coach who was in my life as I faced my difficult path. He would guide me and my flock, teaching us wrong from right, deciding what was best for us. He was our shepherd, a role model of sorts; our Black-bellied Plover. When he flushed, we followed. Last fall he flushed to a different flock as we were preparing for our peak migration on our wintering grounds. He left us when we needed his guidance the most, and it was when most of us couldn’t follow. Some of us stayed, some joined different flocks, but we who endured that migration together know it was the hardest one yet. We’d get lost for days, looking to align stars and get back on track. Faith was nearly lost each night as we practiced flock formations and built our muscles for big weekends when tensions would grow even tighter after failures. It seemed like all hope was lost, but we flew anyway. We never gave up, and we made it to the promised land—one where “can” is followed not by “not,” only “try.” Where “try” can transform life. Sometimes we need to stick our feet in the mud, grit our beaks, accept our shepherd’s departure, and find our own migration.

The Plovers know little of your struggles, and I am concerned the point of no return may be far too near for you to risk following your shepherd that flushes too soon. They are on their own journey and don’t hear the “poor me” David Allen Sibley says you call out. But when we’re together, it’s all I hear. Others hear it too. We are not all tied to the same careless rope that has strangled your life and left you dangling on the edge of no tomorrow. Nothing will ever untie my Red heart to yours, but I don’t want the pictures I’ve taken to only be a memory. For that I need your help.

A few of you probably know, but I am what we humans call a “photographer.” What you probably don’t know though, is that I often wear a bracelet that has one of my greatest hardships engraved on it. I wear it as a reminder of my own migration. When it happened, it was the start of an unknown migration I never thought I could make. Now it is a symbol to prove that that too did pass and I landed right where I am meant to be. I don’t like to show it off, it is simply a personal reminder of the hard way paying off. But every time someone asks about it, or wants to see it, I remember how proud I am to have made it this far and how thankful I am to those who have helped me get here. They helped me eventually re-tie my Knots and regain the strength to make the best of time.

Though they may be a little different than mine, some of you wear bracelets too, and I think you are hesitant to show them off. Maybe because you feel left out or like losers and outcasts, shunned from society—at least that’s what one of my colleagues believes. There is some truth to that—you do have it harder; you have to worry about me trying to get close enough to read it. You may feel a little less fit, like it makes your daily life harder, that you’re too different, or that the world doesn’t need Knots like you. But it does, and you have the strength to make the hard way easy.

You probably don’t want your picture taken, but sharing your story may give you a feeling of peace when you know it made lives better—and just may save a species. In order for me to help share it though, I need photographs. I need photographs to show the inevitable monster what they are destroying. I need photographs to tie the next generation to rain-pattered tents and blister-laden feet. I need photographs to reach the souls in the “unknown.” It is the best way I know how to share your story so a better life can follow.

So, if you get a bracelet in Washington, Mexico, Texas, or anywhere in between the poles, please, walk a little slower, flush a little less, come a little closer, and meet us somewhere in the middle (or at the edge of the flock). It will help those of us who care attempt to reverse the ruthlessness we have released on the Red we both cherish, and we’ll both become a little less afraid.

 

With hope and admiration,

 

The Photographer