Tag: birding

‘There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’

‘There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’
There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

If it be now, ’tis not to come.

If it be not to come, it will be now.

If it be not now, yet it will come – the readiness is all.

— Hamlet

A sparrow fell from the sky and plopped down next to me on a sidewalk corner beside the church as neighbors, shoppers, and tourists bustled to their places.

“Damn! That’s disgusting!” Said a snap-back-hatted young man sidestepping around the splat. Looking the revenant himself as if returning from a dead weekend that probably started out fun on Friday night, he looked up. Was he searching for someone behind the clouds to blame?

“Look at it. So gross!” Looking down now, seemingly blaming the sparrow for its dead ugly existence.

Perhaps because I was headed to church, the sparrow’s lasting legacy in the bible came to mind. Scriptures tell us to look at how God cares for the lowly sparrow as a metaphor for how that same God cares even more for humans. But here I was, staring at a dead bird. Did that God in the bible throw the bird down beside me so I’d know who’s in charge around here? Is it an omen of a bad year ahead? A symbol of immortality? A sign to repent?

There’s a peregrine falcon nest directly east on Lake Michigan in the intake crib of Chicago’s water system. Those tricky raptors attack other birds in mid-air and sometimes miss their prey as they swoop down to catch them. On my dog walks, I’m constantly on the lookout for bird carcasses (sometimes impaled in the bushes) because Elsa will sneak a forbidden lick if I’m not vigilant.  I assumed the unfortunate sparrow was one of these victims.

If God set this complicated natural aerodynamic food chain in motion, so be it. I’ll accept that God. However, no God is going to snap me to attention about the upcoming election or remind me of some regrettable remark I’ve made by throwing foreboding dead birds at me. The same force may have set all the emotions of fear and regret in my DNA, but a god that powerful better not have my same human characteristics. I’m conscious of an impersonal force, something outside of myself, an unexplained presence. I believe there’s a higher power, that I call God. Holding that power out as a relatable, reasoned person that acts as a mean-spirited human, to get my attention is not my idea of a god. At least not today, or, not at this moment.

The ubiquitous house sparrow is not native to the United States, I’ve been told by birders. They chirp most of the US awake in the morning and nest outside our homes’ nooks and crannies. At Chicago’s Navy Pier, if you try to eat McDonald’s fries outside, you’ll be sharing them with sparrows. If you look at your phone outside the Pancake House to catch up on text messages, sparrows will swoop in and pluck at the remnants of your Dutch Baby. This diminutive invasive species is so plentiful that I give it short shrift, ignore it, as if it’s not important.

Until one drops from the sky on my way to church.

____________________________


Smelly Lilacs

Smelly Lilacs

The tulips were showing their last droopy colors. The iris’ were ready to pop for a week or two of runway-like exhibitionism. The trees in the small park were half-dressed, embarrassed by their young fresh leaves, waiting for their green siblings to fill in around them. 

And oh those smelly lilacs. 

Their short-lived incarnation makes me holler 

thank you Jesus. 

And then, the warblers.

Every spring is the same. Year after year. And yet, every single time, I’m shocked out of winter doldrums by the sheer variety of beauty and fragrance in the cultivated and in the wild city gardens. A text or an email or an article from birding organizations will remind me to listen for migrating warblers. They pass through as the tulips fade. I hear them. Never see them. 

Warblers visit Chicago on their way up north from Central and South America. They’re tiny. My old eyes are acclimated to spotting bigger birds—starlings, blackbirds, crows. Even sparrows are larger than warblers. I look, but mistake the warbler for a leaf or a twig, even a large bug.

But the other day, on an unusually seventy-five-degree May morning, I passed under a tree while Elsa sniffed around the ground cover for messages from new and old pals. I heard a symphony of birdsong overhead and looked straight up to see tiny bright-colored warblers flitting from branch to branch, hunting insects. 

I switched on my iPhone, pressed the Merlin bird app, and recorded a Tennessee Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Yellowthroat, and American Redstart all singing their wee hearts out within shouting distance. I suddenly realized I was in a bird “fallout,” a phenomenon that occurs when curious weather slams into migrating songbirds in the air and they descend into the trees below. 

The weather systems predict the number of songbirds that may be migrating over Chicago on spring nights. Attracted to their reflections in the windows of highrises, they accidentally kill themselves by flying into lit buildings.

The uncommon migration fallout happened twelve hours after Chicago’s unusual sky-drenching from the northern lights—yes, the northern lights! The aurora borealis: blazing bits shooting out of the sun, hitting the diluting atmosphere with undulating ribbons that lit up the Chicago night. All this only a month after a solar eclipse. 

Hyde Park residents Meghan Hassett and her husband Max Smith captured the northern lights from Promontory Point Friday, May 10, 2024. Provided by Meghan Hassett

In the park, a dog-walking neighbor neared with Zeus, stopped, and looked up. 

“Whatcha lookin at?”

“Warblers.”

“Oh,” and he continued on. He lives in my building and told me a few days before that he’s planning a hiking trip to the Rockies because he “likes nature.”

Me too.