Of Hyperreality and Eider Ducks

I was on Inner Farne a few years ago. This is the Island where, in the middle of the 7th Century, the once-soldier Cuthbert, later St. Cuthbert, established himself in a hermitage and gave protection (probably his own physical protection in the early days) to the birds that nested there. The local name for the Eider Duck that are found nesting on the island in the spring and early summer is “Cuddy Duck”; Cuddy after Cuthbert.

Inner Farne, just visible on the horizon in this picture taken from the ramparts around Bamburgh Castle

Nowadays many people visit the island during the bird breeding season. Most of the birds exhibit little fear; the tiny but fierce Arctic Terns pecking the heads of passers by and the shags and eider ducks sitting tight on their nests regardless of the close proximity of the curious visitors. Some of the ducks nest right next to the boardwalk that meanders around the island. Eider Ducks dive for crustaceans and molluscs, with mussels being a favoured food. The mussels are swallowed whole and the shells are crushed in their gizzard. To remove a mussel from a rock you have to have a firm grip - in the Eider's case a strong bite.

A sleepy looking female Eider Duck (above) and a pair nesting right next to the boardwalk on the island of  Inner Farne. Don't be fooled by the expression; beneath the benign exterior there is a wild animal.

I noticed a couple kneel down by a nesting Eider to get a closer look and a nice photo; all I heard then was (something like) "ah what a sweet little duck".The man reached over to pet the duck which, no surprise here, gave him a long and hard bite. This was followed by a stream pure Anglo-Saxon invective that Cuthbert himself might have understood and the man hopping around being consoled by his partner. Ouch!

At some level the attraction of petting any cute looking animal is almost too great to resist, wild or not and regardless of the consequences; but this made me think about our modern relationship with wildlife, one that is nowadays for most people conducted mainly through the medium of a TV screen. Not reality but "hyperreality", which leads me to...

Umberto Eco's Travels in Hyperreality which I read almost 25 years ago. I still remember many of the chapters, each of them a short essay on a chosen theme. His dissection of the movie Casablanca, his (re)presentation of the Superman 'myth' (replaying the story of Jesus in a modern American context - his arrival heralded by a star, a superior being with human fallibility, etc), and, of course, hyperreality itself.

The opening scenes of "Action" comics #1 where Superman's origin is shown (on a single page). Later the rocket ship occasionally mutates into a comet or meteorite that hurtles across the sky heralding his arrival and in which the super baby is held safe.

So, in the realty of TV and film everything is more real than reality itself. He cites the example of American tourists who prefer the mechanical alligators of Disneyland and the 'certainty' of the experience ("we will see an alligator") to the real Florida everglades. Many of us in North West Europe also have a hyperreal relationship with our environment and nature. The TV wildlife experience can be more satisfactory than that of the wild; you are guaranteed to see the animals and plants exhibiting all aspects of their behaviour in a kind of hyperreal environment.

It is not only the animals. In hyperreality deadly creatures are confronted by heroic presenters and rendered impotent; this is simply reinforcing the age old paradigm of "man's dominion over nature" - which, as well as the 'heat of the chase', may be why we love it so much. I am afraid that at some level it is like watching children rushing around trying to catch the pigeons in Trafalgar Square only in this case there is no parent to tell them to "stop harassing the poor creatures". I also don't see enough respect being shown for the animals themselves.

In the hyperreal world, natural born killers turn out to be devoted and caring parents and the gore of the kill is often edited out. Nowadays life for these animals is presented as a 'struggle for survival' in which, against all odds, they prevail. Whilst  I notice that there is much less said in current presentations about the impact we make on their habitats and environments - too depressing I suppose (people just got tired of hearing about the loss of the rain forest and started to reach for the zapper).

The marvellous Steve Backshall of the BBCTV programme 'Deadly 60' (but could just as well be Freke Vonk of Dutch TV) puts another wild animal in its place somewhere in Costa Rica: "...look at my big croc..." 

Hyperreal wildlife does give us problems - it clearly encourages the idea that "wildlife is doing fine". Politicians watch TV too - ask yourself why presently they do nothing for nature? Okay there are plenty of other reasons but this doesn't help. It also gives us a 'skewed' idea about these creatures and makes them 'less wild' in the popular mind, more accessible and potentially less worthy of protection. Should we be worried?

Well, biodiversity continues to decline across Europe. The European Union 2010 target to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity was missed by all of the Member States. I'm taking bets on the 2020 targets. South American rain forest is still being lost and, in a dismal view of the future, will be found in little fragments surrounded by intensive cattle agriculture... just like the former forest and woodland in most of north west Europe. Maybe its time for a bit more reality...

The Teacher

More than 10 years ago my friend Jim Elsworth and I published a report on public participation and governance. In it, we included a short story that was meant to illustrate the reluctance that people have for doing something new or different. I've since heard the story told a number of times but then it was new to me. It was a Sufi story. Sufism is the concept in Islam that, for many, involves following the path of spiritual advancement. Sufi masters traditionally use short stories to teach people important life lessons. The story (at least as we told it) went as follows: 

A policeman came across a man on his hands and knees searching the road under the light of a street lamp. "What are you doing?" said the policeman. "I'm searching for my keys" said the man. "Where did you lose them? " asked the policeman. "On the other side of the road" replied the man. "Then why aren't you looking for them over there?" the policeman asked him. "Because this is where the light is" the man replied. The message being that, in order to get what you want, you sometimes have to move out of your comfort zone.

A couple of years ago I was in Bodrum, Turkey. One evening I had a meeting with a university professor about the possibility of future project collaboration. We met in the hotel bar and he told me a story about himself that on reflection sounded very much like a Sufi parable, and here is my interpretation:

There was once an assistant professor at a Turkish university. He was passionate about his chosen subject, entomology. Once, when on a field trip with a small number of students, they discovered a species of cricket that was thought to have become extinct in Turkey. Delighted, he collected one or two individuals to take back alive to his lab so that he could confirm the identification. On the journey home their minibus was stopped by the Jandarma, the Turkish military police who were checking for draft dodgers (which is a relatively routine activity on Turkish roads). When questioned by the officer in charge, he explained what they had been doing and, one thing leading to another, they ended up having dinner in a roadside restaurant with the soldiers.

After dinner and raki (an aniseed flavoured alcoholic drink that is popular in Turkey) the assistant professor was talking animatedly about his new find. Curious, the officer asked to see one of the insects. Excited that the soldier was interested, he ran to the minibus and brought back a live specimen in a collecting tube. He handed it to the officer who looked closely at the insect and then shook it violently! The cricket was a fragile animal whose long, delicate antennae were used for prey detection. Shaking it like that could potentially cause irreparable damage to it. 

At this point in the story, it is also important to know that touching a soldier's uniform (when the soldier is wearing it) can get you into trouble in many countries and in Turkey is strictly forbidden. It is therefore a potentially rash and foolish act. Thus, the assistant professor, enraged at the treatment of his prized specimen, leapt up and tore it from the officer's grasp. He then grabbed him by the lapels and shook him violently, shouting: "There, now you know how it feels!"

When he stopped there was silence. The soldier stared at the entomologist; his troops, hands on their weapons, waiting to see what would happen next. Then he smiled and said: "Hocam (my teacher) why did you have to do that in front of my men?"



We can see who was the real teacher here. The assistant professor was lucky; and the cricket indeed turned out to be the supposedly extinct: Schizodactylus inexpectatus.

Stories from real life

This is a place for stories, mainly real life ones, that I have experienced myself or heard from others. I had some idea that the name of this blog should at least have some personal significance; "Theridion Spins Webs" therefore came to mind. Mainly because I thought the blog would have stories in it and I am an ecologist with a (past) specialism in spiders. Hence "spins webs". Then "Theridion" because it is a genus of spider that spins a thick and tangled web often with a matted platform; so there is maybe some further story-telling metaphor in there as well.