In Oakland, California, postal officials looked at the area around the main office and found it flawed. There was a parking lot for mail trucks, and a street with wide sidewalks adorned with flourishing ficus trees, and there was bird shit all over everything. I mean.

The trees were full of nests. They had become a rookery for Black-crowned Night Herons and Snowy Egrets, who were squawking and flapping and delivering fish to their chicks, who vigorously alleged they were starving to death. These birds are colonial nesters, apparently under the delusion that there’s safety in numbers. Cool wildlife spectacle! But in the process the sidewalks and the tops of the trucks were getting whitewashed.

Rather than focus on hosing things off or covering the trucks, the PO hired a tree service company to trim the trees. The small company, based in a town 16 miles away, came and began chain-sawing branches that extended over the parking lot. Branches fell to the ground, and so did baby black-crowned night herons. The crew set the chicks to one side.

Neighbors appeared, and began objecting passionately. Most Oakland residents are proud of and delighted by the wild birds. Not to mention the trees themselves. They wanted them to stay, and they certainly didn’t want to see nests cut down and chicks plummeting to the ground. The crew continued. Tree companies are probably used to neighbors ranting about trees and Oh woodman spare that bough, and used to ignoring them.

To the added horror of onlookers, the crew fed the litter into a wood chipper as they worked. AAAAAUGH!!! Were there chicks among the litter going into the chipper? (Quick, I’ll turn to the back of the book: Despite early reports, it seems NO BABY BIRDS WERE CHIPPED.)

The police appeared and made the crew stop. Thank you. Those egrets and herons

are legally protected. Harming their nests is a violation of the Migratory Bird Act. The PO neglected to give the city advance notice. You’re supposed to get a permit to hack away more than 25% of a street tree. Oakland’s public works employees know to leave the birds alone, and not to prune the ficus trees in spring.

The five chicks that had been set aside were sent to International Bird Rescue (IBR), a wildlife center specializing in aquatic birds. Where, full disclo, I’m a volunteer. One was treated for a broken beak. All are effectively orphans now, and have to be raised, a process that will require insane amounts of fish (and a lot of washing and scrubbing).

Let’s pause to reconstruct the chain of shifting (dodged) responsibility. Some postal official, powerful enough to say SPEND MONEY, knowing there were birds in the trees, decreed the trees should be trimmed to get rid of bird problems. They waved a hand and said “Make it so.” Probably they didn’t hire the tree company themselves, but had an underling do it.

The PO shifted responsibility for doing the right thing to the tree trimmers.

Did they tell the out-of-town tree company there were herons nesting in the trees? We don’t know.

But tree trimmers know that birds nest in trees in the spring. Often people who hire them to trim trees have no idea there’s a nest there, because most birds are secretive about their nests. Private. But tree trimmers do this for a living. They know. Responsibility falls on them.

In this case, there was no secrecy, no privacy. Heron rookeries are blatant, noisy, messy, obvious things. The PO knew they were there. Nests were the problem.

The tree trimming crew arrived. At that point they had to have seen and heard herons. That was their time to say no. And probably lose the job.

Which they should have done. They should have said no ethical tree trimmer would do it at this time of year. That it was illegal. Instead they apparently chose the view that the responsibility was on those who had told them to do it, so they went ahead.

Rather than risk his job, the crew chief told the workers to cut the branches. Rather than risk their jobs, they did so. Each let the other have the responsibility.

They were not willing to let furious, distressed bystanders take the responsibility of telling them to stop. Presumably they didn’t think that would content their bosses.

Finally the police arrived and told them to stop. They took the responsibility.

When more people became aware of these events, the whitewash really hit the fan. Newspaper stories included photos of dead night heron chicks and that, along with ghastly wood chipper visions, really upset and angered people.

Apologies and explanations ensued. The tree-trimming company said it was an accident. A supervisor said, “The crew didn’t know the baby birds were in there. They were new. It’ll never happen again. It’s a big deal, though – we don’t want to destroy anything.”

A USPS spokesperson also said it was an accident. “I can certainly understand why people are upset. The post office would never do anything to hurt wildlife. In fact, we issue stamps to protect birds. This is very unfortunate.”

Lousy explanations. If a crew is untrained, they should have received instructions. Been given hints about not doing bad things or breaking the law. Tree services put energy into avoiding other accidents (falling out of trees, touching live wires, dropping branches on passers-by), and they should put energy into this kind too.

If the crew – or anyone in this mess – didn’t know baby birds were there, it was because they didn’t want to know. They didn’t want to think about it. The crew probably couldn’t see the chicks, but the nests are visible from the sidewalk, and the birds are constantly yakking. And GODDAMN IT, it’s FRACKING SPRINGTIME. What do you THINK is up there making that RACKET? Crickets?

As for the USPS, – you would never do anything to hurt wildlife? YOU JUST DID. What do stamps have to do with it?

But wait. The reaction was so heated that a followup story came out with new apologies. The tree company’s crew chief talked to federal investigators and then to a reporter, who said the man was “beside himself.” He said, “I screwed up. They were trees I probably shouldn’t have worked on. I’m a human being like anyone else. We all make mistakes. I’m not hiding anything. I’m responsible.”

He described himself as an animal lover. He said he didn’t think any birds were being hurt when they fell out of the trees. He said he didn’t think any birds went into the chipper. “If there were birds in there, there would have been blood, right? I didn’t see any blood.” He hasn’t slept well. He said it’s been a big nightmare. People have been harassing his family, so he moved his pregnant wife out of town for the time being. (Which is why I’m not giving his name.) He also called IBR and said he’d pay for the care of the heron chicks. That’ll probably run $3,000-3,500. You would be stunned by the quantity of fish those chicks can put away. (Also? They can eat and scream simultaneously.) IBR issued a plea to leave this guy alone.

Ah, the USPS. Yes, they had more to say. The same spokesperson said no birds were hurt during the trimming. Any injured or dead birds must have gotten injured or killed some other way. Because stamps. “We would never do anything intentionally to harm any living creature.”

In the next story, that rollicking spokesperson declared, “We’re putting this behind us. We’ve learned our lesson and we apologize and we’re very glad that the American people, or the residents around this area, are rallying around the birds and letting us know what we’ve done wrong.” Oh please.

Mr. Spokesperson, please note: That’s not a convincing apology. But even a superb apology would be undermined by the mood-killing ‘We’re putting this behind us.’

Didn’t you learn anything in Spokesdroid School?

Certain phrases drastically devalue apologies. “I don’t want to talk about this, but yes, sorry, I did cheat on you.” “Okay, I shouldn’t have hired a hitman to take out your mom, but don’t try to make this a thing.” “All I’m going to say is I really needed the money.” “You have my apology for setting the fire. Now I’m moving forward.”

The crew chief’s apology is pretty good, although I would have been happier without we-all-make-mistakes. And he’s put his money out there to make good some of the harm.

A couple of things about black-crowned night herons (Nycticorax nycticorax). Like other herons and egrets, it’s not unusual for them to fall out of nests even in a state of serene wildness. Herons and egrets often build flimsy structures or have to employ substandard trees. Siblings are often aggressive and may push each other out without waiting for a tree-trimmer to come by. Nature is red in beak and claw.

But if they get to grow up, they’re amazing birds. Not only beautiful, and delightfully willing to hang out in human-tainted habitats, but occasional bait-fishers. If you see a black-crown grab a piece of bread some misguided person has put out for the birds, it’s not because it eats bread. It will drop the bread into the water, freeze, and watch fixedly until a fish comes up to nibble the bread. Zap! It grabs the fish. If there’s no bread around, night herons have been seen to fly to a place where there is bread, and carry it back to a better fishing spot. No, they are not bread-dependent. They’ll also bait-fish with dragonflies.

Is there an up side to this incident? Maybe the old “raising awareness” thing. The following week, when scaffolding began going up on a church in another Bay Area city, endangering a nest of baby ravens, a worried neighbor made some calls – and within two hours the church had promised to stop construction while the chicks are in the nest.

Because they’d heard about the herons? I don’t know. But I suspect the speed of their actions had something to do with that publicity.

So the guy from the tree trimming crew has offered to pay for the rearing of the young herons. I haven’t heard that the Post Office has made any such offer. Perhaps they’ll be fined if prosecuted by the state or federal Fish & Wildlife departments. Maybe they can pay in stamps.