Charles Lindbergh's comment about birds

I enjoy watching not only wild creatures in flight -- I enjoy watching flying machines also, such as this vintage airplane that flew over my house today. And even though I have by now traveled several hundred thousand miles by air, I still enjoy all the sensations associated with being airborne.
However, the words of Charles Lindbergh, as spoken or written shortly before his death in 1974, remind me that man-made flight can never be as remarkable as the flight of birds, and that the achievement of our technology has apparently not been a good thing for birds:

"Lying under an acacia tree with the sound of the dawn around me, I realized more clearly the facts that man should never overlook: that the construction of an airplane, for instance, is simple when compared [with] a bird; that airplanes depend on an advanced civilization, and that where civilization is most advanced, few birds exist. I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes."

I agree, and that goes even for the scruffy Scrub-Jay that spent the afternoon in my backyard finding hiding places for sunflower seeds.