(6) If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young.
Some say this is an act of compassion (see excerpt from Ramban below). But the compassionate act is not to take either, according to this midrash. There is a more powerful reason...
Midrash Tanhuma Eikev 2:1
But the eagle is merciful, as it is written (in Deut. 32:11), “As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young]; it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions.” As it is not confident about them because of other birds who pursue them. What does it do? It places them on its wings and says, “Better that the arrow should go through me and not through my children.”
AND THAT YOU MAY PROLONG YOUR DAYS. As you did not exterminate all of the nest but left its root.
Midrash Tanhuma, Ki Tetzei 1:1
This text is related (to Prov. 4:23), “More than any observance preserve your heart, for out of it comes life.”...
Of all the commandments, none is as easy as leaving a nest alone. And what it its reward (according to Deut. 22:7)? “In order that it may be well with you and you may lengthen your life.” A parable: To what is the matter comparable? To a king who brought laborers into his field to plant it but did not reveal to them the reward for their planting. At evening he gave one gold coin to whoever planted a tree. They all began to be amazed and say, “Now if the one who has only planted a small tree [has received] one gold coin, how much the more will there be for us who have planted many!”10Cf. Deut. R. 6:2. So if the reward for leaving a nest alone has a lengthening of life as its reward, how much more will be the reward for a commandment in which there is material loss, hardship, ... For this reason the Holy One, blessed be G*d, did not explain the rewards for the commandments which are in the Torah, so that Israel of its own accord would fulfill them and thereby increase the remuneration. ....“More than any observance preserve your heart, [for out of it comes life].”
(א) כי יקרא קן צפור לפניך גם זו מצוה מבוארת מן אותו ואת בנו לא תשחטו ביום אחד (ויקרא כב כח) כי הטעם בשניהם לבלתי היות לנו לב אכזרי ולא נרחם או שלא יתיר הכתוב לעשות השחתה לעקור המין אע"פ שהתיר השחיטה במין ההוא והנה ההורג האם והבנים ביום אחד או לוקח אותם בהיות להם דרור לעוף כאלו יכרית המין ההוא וכתב הרב במורה הנבוכים (ג מח) כי טעם שלוח הקן וטעם אותו ואת בנו לא תשחטו ביום אחד כדי להזהיר שלא ישחוט הבן בעיני האם כי יש לבהמות דאגה גדולה בזה ואין הפרש בין דאגת האדם לדאגת הבהמות על בניהם כי אהבת האם וחנותה לבני בטנה איננו נמשך אחרי השכל והדבור אבל הוא מפעולת כח המחשבה המצויה בבהמות כאשר היא מצויה באדם ואם כן אין עיקר האיסור באותו ואת בנו רק בבנו ואותו ...(שמות כ ב) קבלו גזירותי לא יהיה לך וכו' (שם פסוק ג) אבל במדרשו של רבי נחוניא בן הקנה בשלוח הקן מדרש שיש במצוה סוד אמר רבי רחמאי מאי דכתיב שלח תשלח את האם ולא אמר את האב אלא שלח תשלח את האם בכבוד אותה בינה שנקראת אם העולם דכתיב (משלי ב ג) כי אם לבינה תקרא מאי ואת הבנים תקח לך אמר רבי רחמאי אותם בנים שגדלה ומאי ניהו שבעת ימי הסוכה ודיני שבעת ימי השבוע וכו' והנה המצוה הזאת רומזת לענין גדול ולכך שכרה מרובה למען ייטב לך והארכת ימים:
(1) IF A BIRD’S NEST HAPPENS TO BE BEFORE YOU. This also is an explanatory commandment, of the prohibition you shall not kill it [the dam] and its young both in one day, because the reason for both is that we should not have a cruel heart and be discompassionate, or it may be that Scripture does not permit us to destroy a species from its root, although it permits slaughter [for food] within that group. Now, he who kills the dam and the young in one day or takes them when they are free to fly is as though they cut off that species.
Now, he [Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon] wrote in the Moreh Nebuchim that the reason for the commandment to release the mother bird when taking its nest and the prohibition against killing the dam with its young on one day is in order to admonish us against killing the young within the mother’s sight, for animals feel great distress under such circumstances. There is no difference between the distress of man and the distress of animals for their young, since the love of the mother and her tenderness to the children of her womb are not the result of reasoning or [the faculty of intelligent] speech, but are produced by the faculty of mental images which exists among animals even as it is present in man. ...it is more correct [to explain them as prohibitions] to prevent us from acting cruelly.
And the Rambam [R' Moshe ben Maimon] said further: ....We follow the second opinion that there is a reason for all commandments.” ...it is to recall the miracles and wonders of the Creator, blessed be the Holy One, in order to know the Eternal. ... it is to teach us the trait of compassion and that we should not be cruel, for cruelty proliferates in man’s soul as it is known that butchers, those who slaughter large oxen and asses are men of blood; they that slaughter men, are extremely cruel.
...However, in the Midrash of Rabbi Nechunya ben Hakana...states that there is a secret in this commandment. “Rabbi Rechimaie said, What is the meaning of that which is written, You shall let the mother go,177it did not say ‘the father?’ only... let the mother go with the honor of that ‘understanding’ which is termed ‘the mother of the world,’ as it is written, ... Thus this commandment alludes to a great matter, and therefore the reward for the observance of it is abundant, [as it is said], that it may be well with thee, and that you may prolong your days.
We are living in a not-so-slowly unfolding catastrophe on a heartbreaking scale. Climate change, habitat destruction, and more are creating death to G*d's creatures, and the ecosystems that sustain us. Human greed is the cause of this Sixth Mass extinction event, and it threatens our children and their children. It is a spiritual ailment at its root, according to Rabbi Arthur Waskow in his book Dancing in God's Earthquake. https://www.orbisbooks.com/dancing-in-gods-earthquake.html
Emotionally, this poem expresses the loss on a scale that is understandable
Red, by Mary Oliver
...I wanted to see gray fox.
Finally I found him.
He was in the highway.
He was singing
his death song.
I picked him up
and carried him
into a field
while the cars kept coming.
He showed me
how he could ripple
how he could bleed
Goodbye I said
to the light of his eye
as the cars went by.
Two mornings later
I found the other.
She was in the highway
She was singing
her death song.
I picked her up
and carried her
into the field
where she rippled
half of her gray
half of her red
while the cars kept coming.
Gray fox and gray fox.
Red, red, red.