This morning as I sat down at my computer in the yurt I wondered what to write about and then wham! a small bird flew directly into the window in front of me - I watched her as she flew straight at me. She was a tiny songbird, a Golden Crowned Kinglet … a messenger.
Golden Crowned Kinglets are named from the Latin word rex and Greek word satrapes meaning a king wearing a golden crown. These tiny birds can be smaller than hummingbirds. They are important predators of insects and their eggs, especially in coniferous forests where they live and breed, eating aphids, bark beetles, scale insects and other insects. Their diet also includes some tree sap. In winter, instead of migrating south, they socialize and roam with flocks of Chickadees, Brown Creepers and Woodpeckers. They are natural weather forecasters - if you see them in a feeding frenzy then you know that rain is on the way. As she sat on the ground under my yurt studio window, dazed, but alive I wondered what had caused her to lose her bearings. Was it Wi-Fi signals? Perhaps she was also a Wi-Fi forecaster?
Smart Meters had recently been installed at many of our neighbour’s homes. They are being installed all over the world and with little thought or consequence as to how they may be changing the environment that we share with all other living beings. There is mounting scientific evidence that EMFs from cell phones and Smart Meters are detrimental not only to human health but, perhaps even more importantly, to the health and well being of bees, birds and wildlife.
Beginning in 1990s bees began to disappear and die - this phenomena became known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Originally Varroa Mites were blamed but new studies are emerging that implicate wireless sources and the biological stresses they cause as a major contributor to colony collapse disorder. Bees use the Earth’s electromagnetic field to locate food, communicate with the rest of the colony and find their way back to the hive. Smart Meters, as well as cell phone towers, create disturbances in the electromagnetic field. Any interference with the electromagnetic field causes confusion and eventually death for the bees. Bees are not the only ones who use the Earth’s natural fields of energy as a navigation system, it is also used by birds, bats and other insects.
Perhaps the person quoted in the Daily Courier in Prescott, Arizona on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 was saying this tongue in cheek, or perhaps was just not aware of what they were saying:
“I love my smart meter. We had a bee colony close to my meter. When the APS guys came to put in the smart meter, I warned them of it. One told me, “Don’t worry, this will get rid of them.” After a few days, they abandoned and never returned. So, I am a giant smart meter fan, since it got rid of possible killer bees. My bills are a little higher than comparable periods in the past, but I am willing to pay that price to stop worrying about the bees.”
Researchers believe that birds can actually ‘see’ the Earth’s magnetic field. Recent studies prove that birds have different reactions in their eyes depending on which way the field is spinning. What a beautiful and mysterious world we live in…birds navigating their way through the world by relying on geo-magnetically sensitive biochemical reactions in their eyes!
Without bees and other pollinators - that also navigate using the Earth’s electromagnetic field - we humans are at great, and very real, threat of extinction. How ironic that we have an opportunity to make informed choices - we are under no serious emergency to quickly install a Smart Meter grid system worldwide. We do not need a Smart Meter grid to survive but we do need bees, butterflies, bats, birds and other wildlife.
As I’m writing this the yurt has become surrounded with bird song - Chickadees, Golden-Crowned Kinglets, Flickers, Thrush, a lone Woodpecker - all adding their voices to this beautiful morning. It makes me sad to think of all of the Smart Meters that have already been installed on our mountain and close to our home, which is also the home of birds, summer bees and butterflies who will have a harder time navigating their way around their sacred mountain home.