Scoping it out

An adult osprey was fussing with a stick, poking it very carefully into its lofty nest near the Illinois River, as fledglings looked on. It was nearly August. This late in the season it wasn’t building the nest, but rather doing a bit of housekeeping, perhaps in preparation for next year. The nest was far enough away that it would have been nothing more than a dark spot on the horizon, but thanks to a spotting scope, it morphed into a meaningful but mundane moment in the domestic life of the ‘fish eagle.’

A pair of peregrine falcons has been regularly roosting on the McCluggage Bridge. To a casual observer, they could be mistaken for pigeons, but through a scope, their large size and distinctive dark hood stand out. I’ve even watched one of them picking a pigeon to pieces as a steady stream of traffic flowed east and west just below. The predator/ prey drama adds a whole dimension. Were it not for the peregrine, it would be ‘just another bridge.’

A dickcissel is not a very common bird. It can be seen at Banner Marsh among prairie plants in mid summer. Binoculars or a spotting scope will allow you to appreciate color and field marks, where it might otherwise just look like a sparrow.

Don’t get me wrong. Magnification isn’t necessary to appreciate nature. But decent optics do help reveal some of the world’s complexity. Besides providing close-up detail, a spotting scope allows you to observe animal behavior from a distance. This way there is little chance of disturbing the critter. You get to see typical every day behavior. For example, a dinner-plate sized soft shell turtle stretching its legs and yawning in the sun, or a common northern water snake casually hunting along the shore for frogs. It makes easily accessible those critters that are otherwise way too skittish or just too far away to see.

Well-crafted lenses have been broadening our horizons for centuries.You can look upward through a scope, as did Galileo around 1600. The moons of Jupiter, while barely visible through binoculars, are vibrant and clear through a scope. Ironically, this was problematic in Galileo’s day. He took the revolutionary idea of our ‘sun-centered’ solar system, put forth by Copernicus a century before, and based on telescopic observations, verified it mathematically. This was not particularly well received by the religious establishment and poor Galileo spent years under house arrest, as a result. Although this was preferable to burning at the stake, it wasn’t exactly a desirable reward for his efforts on behalf of knowledge.

Or you can look down, as did Antony van Leeuwenhoek, whose discoveries were nearly as impressive as those of Galileo and Copernicus. He crafted such a fine lens that for the very first time, people were actually able to see bacteria (around the latter part of the 17th century). He forever changed the way we see the world. He once observed that the water “seemed to be alive.” Besides seeing bacteria, he was also the first to observe blood cells, foraminifera, rotifers, and other things, which before him, were unimaginable, simply because they are so miniscule, they had remained invisible.

Van Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of bacteria revolutionized the way we approach disease and medicine itself. He didn’t invent the compound microscope per se, but was able to grind exceptional lenses and position them in such a way that the magnification he produced far exceeded anything anyone else had been able to achieve. A whole new microscopic world suddenly was revealed in all its mystery and complexity.

The real magic about magnification is that it doesn’t just make things look bigger. It can actually make them ‘bigger’ in the sense of being more significant, important, deserving of attention, worthy of consideration. The world is an amazing and immense mosaic of life, particularly considering what Jonathan Swift would call the “Lilliputian” as well as the “brobdignanian” scale (small and large).

But seeing is more than just believing. Van Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries coincided with the so called “Age of Reason,” which was ushered in by Galileo. This, in turn, led up to the “Age of Enlightenment,” which more or less coincided with the 18th century. This was an exciting time of discovery. Science was evolving at a very rapid rate. Western philosophy was taking a decided turn away from theology. America’s founding fathers were said to be products of the Enlightenment. Our political system was rooted in reason, not steeped in superstition.

How we care for our world is determined by how we see it in relation to ourselves. Whether micro or macro, a scope broad ens our vision. Like philosophy, or science, it provides a window. Careful observation can reveal the unexpected. It makes everyday life more appreciated, more deserving of respect, and worthy of conserving. Even though science may be limited to the observable, it certainly broadens the foundations of philosophy.

We now have the Hubble Telescope probing the depths of the Universe, showing us that it’s far vaster, more colorful, and more mysterious than we ever imagined. Maybe some day we’ll find out there is actually a multiverse. Rather than just an ‘expanding’ universe, maybe there is expansion as well as contraction in an infinite cosmic dance, with neither beginning nor end.

There is a German concept of “gestalt” which basically means that a thing is greater than the sum of its parts. Whether peering at an osprey, or into a microscopic universe, or out into the vastness of the cosmos, the more you learn about nature the more you can come to appreciate how mysterious and unknowable it is.

Optics help us to gaze into the abyss, but no amount of magnification will ever measure it. Knowledge is more a journey than a destination. Knowing, after all, isn’t the ultimate goal. Appreciating is.

English poet, Willian Blake expressed the expansive world view reflected in the Age of Enlightenment:

“To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.”