My Year of Darwin 5/4/2014: The point of that birds is?

"When finding, as in this case, animals which seem to play so insignificant a part in the great scheme of nature, one is apt to wonder why they were created. But it should be recollected, that in some other country perhaps they are essential of society, or at some former period may have been so."  Charles Darwin,Voyage of the Beagle

At the time Darwin was on the Beagle, we was probably a creationist in the sense of organisms being created as we see them today by God, even if that time was in the deep past. 

I think it is a common conception in human society that every organism plays some important crucial part, perhaps even to the benefit of humans, in ecology. I'm not sure where this concept comes from - theologically or scientifically. I could see where you could argue that, since God said it was good, it is worthy of preservation. Unfortunately, this is by far the minority opinion of the religious people. Scientifically (a horrible term), every species does something - as it must. But extinctions are the overwhelming fate of species and life has gone on. 

But I do appreciate the attitude that all animals (and plants and fungi and protists and bacteria) play some part and this is a much better attitude than nothing matters (which we do see in some people).