In spring, thousands of tiny birds about the size of your thumb, migrate from the jungles of South America to the Boreal forests of Canada. They are called warblers. In fall, they migrate back down again. These birds are rarely seen, except by the most determined bird watchers. You may have seen a flash of yellow or bright orange, as a feathered body disappeared into the leaves. Occasionally, a warbler hits a window and falls at the feet of a startled human.

        In spring or fall, when the weather fluctuates with high winds and cold rains, the warblers dart through the forests, backyard trees and orchards as they travel thousands of miles. The sharp-shinned hawks, a predator, is able to catch their fast-moving tiny bodies and devour them.

        Some bird experts say that warbler populations are declining. Yet the habitat they travel through, the forests, are actually increasing as farmer’s give up farming and open fields grow over with pines, locust trees, and maples. Could it be the data is not calculated as accurately as it should be? How could millions of tiny birds blowing across two continents, over millions of acres of fields and forests be counted by a few humans? There’s hope in miscalculations.

        But what about the hazards—always increasing as more skyscrapers loom, more planes take off, more cars hit the road.  Thinking about it, as a mere human, it seems best to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head. But warblers do not worry. They live as best they can, quickly snatching a caterpillar here and a beetle there. They build their nests and lay their eggs without any realization that in just a day, on the migration south, they could be gone from this world.

        Why don’t they stay in the warm tropical jungles of South America? The jungles are full of predators. The distant boreal forests offer a placid place to multiply. If only the warblers can get there. It’s worth a try. Worrying won’t improve the outcome, just open your wings and do what you have to do. It’s only natural.