Light of the World

On a recent Monday afternoon, I parked along the power canal in Turner’s Falls, pulled out my lunch and started waiting. A thorough scan of the geese resting on the water made it clear that the bird I was looking for was not present. Amongst the Canada Geese, the small, white Ross’ Goose would have stood out like a sore thumb. So I enjoyed my lunch, listened to Car Talk on the radio, talked with my brother on the phone, talked with other birders who showed up for the same reason and well, mostly just waited…and waited…and waited.

Waiting is the most common activity of birders. The problem with waiting is the pressure to do something else. Sometimes it is the pressure to abandon the stake out in order to look elsewhere. Other times it is the pressure to do other things, like laundry or like getting supper. Sometimes it is the pressure just to admit defeat and go home. This last is the one against which we always fight the most. But when the rest of the area geese finally started to fly in to join the original group the sun had already begun to set. Each small group of geese coming in for a noisy landing of flapping wings and squawking honks brought with it a ray of hope even as the rays of the sun slipped away

Then in what turned out to be the final group of geese there was a smaller white bird. It was now full fledged twilight but the white of this goose was still quite visible. Surely this was the bird—but how were we to see it well enough to be sure? At this point I was glad that I had driven the minivan instead of the sedan. I turned the van so that the headlights, just barely higher than the guardrail, shone on the water where the goose was.

This is the time of year when we watch the light slip away as days grow shorter. Thus it is not by chance that we celebrate Christmas during this season. Humanity is lost in the dark without God, so we look for the coming of the light. Sometimes we feel the pressure to stop waiting, to stop looking. The darkness falls around us and we think there is nothing more that we can do. But if Christ is indeed the light of the world then shouldn’t we keep waiting…and waiting…and waiting?

And then when the gift of God comes in the dark of night don’t you want to be there to see it? And here is part of the great mystery of each Christmas since the first one. Since Jesus has already been born we are not waiting for that child. In fact, we believe that this baby is now the risen Christ…whose new birthing place is not a manger, but our hearts. So, in a way, all this waiting is just to see if we will understand that the light of the world can and should now shine from each of us. Will you help those in need around you by letting your light shine? There is no greater gift you can give this Christmas.

I Hear Music in the Air

Bird vocalizations can generally be separated into songs and calls. Typically songs are the music of courtship, heard almost exclusively in the spring. Birds use calls for basic communication. They tell each other things like, “there’s food over here,” or “stay away,” or “danger!” Songs are usually melodious and sometimes complex, very often providing conclusive identification of the species audibly. Calls tend to be chips and twitters, often similar between species. Even after years of experience it takes some real chutzpah to claim to be able distinguish between the chip notes of most sparrows. A few calls are distinct enough to distinguish like the lispy chip of White-throated Sparrows or the nearly ultra-sonic squeal of an agitated Tufted Titmouse. Agitation is often a reason for calls. Ironically, when a large congregation of small birds chip and twitter together in a scolding tone it doesn’t matter if you can identify the noisy birds since they are aiding you in identifying a silent one. Hearing a racket coming from chickadees, titmice and nuthatches in the yard a week ago I scrambled for my binoculars in hope of seeing the bird that had upset them. Typically this would mean seeing an Eastern Screech-owl roosting, but this time of year it could equally likely be a Saw-whet Owl. I saw neither, but just because I didn’t see an owl didn’t mean there wasn’t one there.

The experience reminded me of the words of a wonderful spiritual: “Over my head, I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere.” What a sublime expression of hope! Hope is a precious commodity, too often in limited supply. Our lives are enriched and empowered when we can allow simple gifts like the songs of birds lift our spirits and confirm our belief in God. Harriet Freeman was a person who knew both how to receive and give these simple gifts. When we were laying her to rest at the cemetery last week I could hear bird calls including the high squeal of a titmouse. I had to agree, none of us, even the birds, wanted to let go of her. And then, on some unseen signal, the whole flock took off over our heads. I’m convinced that they were Harriet’s companions on her flight to that place where God lives, our true home.

Waiting for the Word

Every birder has to decide what rules will govern his or her lists. For example, I will count birds that I’ve heard but not seen, others will only count those that they get good looks at. There are two birds that are currently “asterisks” on my year list. Ironically, both showed up in Northampton this winter. The first was a bird whose identity is still up in the air, the second is a bird that may not have been completely wild.

The first bird may have been a hybrid between Thayer’s Gull and “Kumlien’s” Gull. I definitely saw the bird in question, but don’t have the experience or expertise to settle the identification question. The second bird was by nearly all accounts a Trumpeter Swan. The problem with counting this bird is that there is a chance that it may have flown here not from traditional breeding grounds for this species, but from a population that has been reintroduced to the wild. So I have decided that for the sake of listing these two birds I will abide by the decision of the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee (MARC). This committee examines the evidence as submitted to it and renders a decision. I have not always chosen to abide by their rulings. Once I saw what I am sure was a Henslow’s Sparrow but my report was not accepted by MARC. Needless to say, the sparrow stayed on my list. Sometimes personal experience trumps external authorities.

This made me think about the Bible. The books of the Bible were written by a variety of authors and gathered by the faithful. There has not always been agreement about which books belong in the canon and which don’t. Thus, there are the books of the Apocrypha which are accepted by Roman Catholics but not by Protestants. Each of us has to approach the Bible with our own “rules.” Some will attempt to take every word literally; others will see the truth of stories in the message more than the content. Regardless of your own approach, you are beholden to mere mortals who penned the words and other people who chose to call them holy. We all must accept the human factor in the process. Sometimes we all find ourselves choosing personal experience over external authorities, but at all times we should be carefully waiting for the word…of God.

Morris Island's Lofty Heights

I first saw a Black Skimmer in Virginia in 1993. Since I started competing in the World Series of Birding I pretty much count on an annual glimpse of this species in New Jersey. But for over a decade I have been chasing Black Skimmers in Massachusetts with no luck. I go where they are supposed to be. They breed, albeit in small numbers, somewhere near the “elbow” of Cape Cod every year. I make at least one annual shorebird pilgrimage to South Beach in Chatham. Relatively inaccessible and inhospitable to humans they are a hot spot for southward migrating shorebirds in late summer. Often I have read reports of skimmers at these places, sometimes even from the day before, or the day after. Or most disturbing of all, I have come home only to read a report that a skimmer was seen while I was there!

And so it was that I set out on the quest yet once again this year, only there was a serious wrinkle in the form of a Red-footed Falcon on Martha’s Vineyard. Considering that this bird had flown across the Atlantic from its normal range of Africa and Eastern Europe, and it was the first of its species to do so made this a must-see bird. Unable to resist, I took off in the wee hours for Wood’s Hole. I got there, got the first ferry to the island and the first taxi to Edgartown. Only a few steps from the van and someone was already calling out, “there he is!” Sure enough, sitting on a yellow sign was the bird …and it was only 7:35 AM. Since there had been a steady stream of skimmer reports from South Beach it looked like I would have my cake and eat it too!

That is when I heard the devastating news that the boat to South Beach would soon be hauled out of the water in advance of tropical storm Charley. Not giving up that easily, I took the next taxi back to the ferry. The traffic was relentless, but I arrived at Morris Island in time to see some birders returning from South Beach. They had had their fill of skimmers, and had their sights set on a dessert of falcon. Later reports confirmed that they indeed had made the right decision.

Had I been a bit more patient I could have had skimmers in the morning and the falcon in the afternoon. But instead, there I stood, like Moses on Mount Pisgah, staring off at the Promised Land. But Moses didn’t have the luxury of a 20 to 40 power Kowa scope, so I decided that I would scan the island in hopes of picking up this bird. But two hours of scanning did not produce a single skimmer.

I wonder how Moses felt that day. Was it enough simply knowing about God’s blessing? Or was he bitter that he didn’t get to go there himself? I had had a wonderful day, but was still empty, and yes, even bitter. But in the end I realized that the struggle is filled with lessons and its own blessing. The happy ending is that by not seeing a skimmer on Saturday, I chose to go back on Tuesday and got up close and personal with 14 of them! So don’t be too quick to complain about God’s ways. Not only are they mysterious, but sometimes they hold unexpected blessings.

Hearing Is Believing

Some birds are only active at night like owls and goatsuckers (yes, that actually is the family name of whip-poor-wills and the like). This is not a rule written in stone since it is certainly possible to see an owl roosting in the daylight, but some birds just require late night excursions if they are going to make your list. That explains why I was at Jake’s Landing, a marsh in New Jersey, at midnight. I was there in search of a Black Rail, a tiny, secretive bird that is vocal almost exclusively at night. I had the marsh to myself that night, even though other World Series of Birding teams had had their scouts out there earlier. I discovered later, to my chagrin, that those scouts had heard Black Rails. I had no luck with that species, but this turned out to be my lucky night.

Literally in the still of the night, I was able to hear all the bird song around me. There were Clapper Rails, Marsh Wrens and even Seaside Sparrows calling and singing. Then I heard a song I had never heard before. Chip, chip, chip, churrrrr. It took a moment or two to recognize what I was hearing. I was pretty sure that the live version I was hearing matched a song I had on the CD in my car. So I played the CD and sure enough, I was listening to a Sedge Wren! I had never seen a Sedge Wren before…technically I still have never seen a Sedge Wren. There was no way that I was going to see this small bird hidden in the sedge in the dark, so I had no choice but to report it and list it as an audible. I have long since given up requiring visual confirmation before life listing a bird, but since this was going to be a bird worth chasing for World Series teams I was a bit concerned about being believed.

As I shared this report in the following days, not one person doubted me, at least not to my face. The bird was probably a migrant that moved on the next day since no one ever reported it again. The record breaking cumulative total of species seen by all teams during that Saturday’s World Series did not include Sedge Wren. I was the lone witness to this bird’s brief appearance. I’m not sure what I would have done if some didn’t believe me. I’m not sure that there was anything I could have done. Isn’t that the same problem we have when we witness to our faith? Your experience with God is very personal and nearly impossible to describe to another, particularly someone who has never had a similar experience. On top of that, our still-speaking God is full of surprises for us, giving us new experiences as often as we are willing to accept them. So how are we to spread this good news? I think the other birders believed me because they could see my dedication and conviction. That my story was only a little abnormal certainly helped. To many people we encounter the story of a transformative, liberating God active in the world and in our lives today is going to sound pretty far-fetched. I hope that you are able to demonstrate your conviction and dedication through your living. This way, your words will be backed up by the actions others can see, and of course, seeing is believing.

Love Your Enemies

Last month some well meaning birders directed me to what quite possibly might be the stinkiest place on the planet. In Port Norris, New Jersey there is a pile of clam shells that must be at least 30 feet high. Someone suggested that a way to endure the smell was to think of it as leftovers from last night’s seafood dinner. That would be OK except that it smells more like last month’s seafood dinner! On top of that, to find the birds, one must walk on grassy impoundments that are a tick nursery. After my short visit there I picked a dozen ticks off various parts of my body. Joining the assault are swarms of winged blood-suckers of varying shapes and sizes.

It may seem at this point that the birders weren’t so well meaning after all. Considering that they, like we, were scouting for sites for birds in advance of the World Series of Birding perhaps they were tossing us a red herring (it certainly smelled like a dead fish!) Standing downwind of the malodorous mountain of shells, being eaten alive by tiny flying insects in the sweltering heat, knowing that ticks were at that very moment anticipating the taste of my blood, and all the while not seeing or hearing the King Rail that I was there to find, I was still willing to trust the information. Our team had been told about this bird and this location by the team that won the previous year (and repeated this past year). Actually, I had no good reason to trust them beyond the fact that the whole event hinges on trust. When the teams arrive at the finish line with their bird lists they have been running around New Jersey for the previous 24 hours completely unmonitored. The only system preventing rampant lying and cheating is the honor system. All in all, that is a pretty good system. Not only does that encourage trustworthiness, it also makes this perhaps the friendliest competition in the world.

Out on that miserable dike I met a very pleasant fellow scout who confirmed that he had previously heard a King Rail at this location and shared a wealth of other information with me. He told me of a place to find a Prothonotary Warbler. Later that week when I saw him again I was able to thank him for that with the news that additionally I had found a Kentucky Warbler at the same location. Teams were also free with tips and tricks on finding birds and getting them to reveal themselves.

This got me to thinking about Jesus’ command that we should love our enemies. It is too easy to approach much of what Jesus taught with the attitude that it is a lofty ideal beyond our reach. But my experience with the generosity of my competitors at the World Series of Birding made me realize that the best way to defeat your enemies is to treat them as your friends. I don’t ever expect our team to win the World Series, but since I could never muster any animosity toward other teams I could never feel like a loser. This “love your enemy” stuff is actually more practical than lofty. If more of us could truly believe that it works then maybe some day they will have a war and nobody will show up!

Snipe Hunt

Did anyone ever send you on a snipe hunt when you were young? By definition a snipe hunt is a search doomed to frustrated failure because of the non-existence of the sought after item. Searching for a left-handed monkey wrench would be a true snipe hunt. Diogenes is said to have taken a lamp in broad daylight out in the streets in search of an honest person. He used a snipe hunt to sarcastically make the point that there were no honest people.

I’ve got bad news for all those intent on sending naïve initiates out into the dark night with a bag…there really are snipe! I recently went in search of snipe, actual snipe. Wilson’s Snipes are birds of wet meadows and bogs that occasionally breed in this area and regularly pass through on migration. If you have ever looked for them in the wet fields that they prefer you will know why they are said not to exist. It is quite easy to look over the field and see nothing only to notice some movement, lift your binoculars and find the area literally crawling with snipe. They accomplish this because of their build and coloration. They are squatty birds with mottled brown patterning, meaning that they are low to the ground that they resemble.

My snipe hunt took me to perfect habitat where others had reported the species only days before. I even donned my boots and walked the wet field, all to no avail. If there were any snipe there that day they were indeed invisible. Who knows, perhaps they possess the power to become transparent. Certainly no one could disprove such a theory. Or perhaps they have the ability to transmogrify. This I might be able to accept since I went out with hopes of adding Wilson’s Snipe to my year list but instead added a (not surprising but unexpected) Savannah Sparrow.

In reality, the power of a snipe hunt is not in the snipe but in the hunt. I love the post Easter story of the two disciples walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Just like a snipe in a field, Jesus was invisible to these disciples. They were unable to see what was right in front of their eyes, until they looked with the eyes of faith. They saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

Where do you see Jesus today? When you come to the table of Holy Communion can you see Jesus in the breaking of the bread? And once you are fed do you go out into the world on a snipe hunt for the Christ? I’ve got news for you, Christ is as real as snipes and often just as difficult to find, until you know how and where to look. The best habitat for finding Christ is anyplace where God’s love and justice are needed. I’m sure that you encounter this habitat regularly, try using your faith eyes to find Christ the next time you are there.

The Lord God Bird

Two years ago scientists scoured the bayous of southeastern Louisiana in search of what was believed to be an extinct bird, the ivory-billed woodpecker. Since the last confirmed sighting in the 1950s, people have often claimed to have seen one, but proof has been as elusive as the bird. That was until the story of a forestry student held up to cross-examination, convincing two teams to investigate.

The ivory-billed woodpecker was an impressive bird: a huge white bill that seems too large for its head and a wingspan the length of your arm. Even when they were being seen they were rare. Their nickname is ‘Lord God’ bird because that is said to be the normal exclamation upon seeing one. One person involved in the recent search unashamedly said that he expected to “burst out in tears” if he were to actually lay eyes on one!

I don’t have any illusions about ever seeing one. At least if I did it would be easy to identify given its distinctive appearance. But that is not true of every bird. Some can be infuriatingly difficult to identify. Currently there is an immature swan in Northampton that is easy to see but next to impossible to identify. It is either a tundra swan or maybe the first state record of trumpeter swan. Many of us who have seen this bird will be waiting for a decision of the avian records committee before we mark our lists in ink.

What these two stories have in common is the desire of faith. In both cases there is a great desire to believe that the rare bird is being seen. The Northampton swan was reported as the more expected tundra until someone suggested that it might be a trumpeter, and then the hordes descended to check it out. After hours of observation and multiple photographs the jury is still out. In this case Jesus’ words, “blessed are those who have not seen but yet believe” do not apply. It is akin to Mary’s encounter with the risen Christ, mistaking him for the more expected gardener than the miraculously resurrected Jesus.

These stories are also about doubt. There is good reason to doubt that there are any ivory-billed woodpeckers alive. But if there were proof the reaction would be dramatic to the resurrection of the ‘Lord God’ bird. How much more dramatic doubting Thomas’ proclamation must have been when he was confronted with the presence of Christ alive again. Can you imagine what he thought and felt beyond his potent words, “my lord and my God”?

Courage and a Cardboard Box

Last week there was a report of a Common Murre in Rockport. While this species is rarely seen this particular bird was reported in the same location for a few days in a row. Unfortunately, the reason for its remaining in one location was that it had apparently been through an oil spill. It had been seen sitting on the rocky shoreline. This is bad news for a murre. Murres are part of a group of seabirds known as pelagics. Pelagic birds spend all their time on the water, coming to land only to breed. One birder commented that someone with courage and a cardboard box could retrieve this bird and get it to a wildlife rehabilitator. Sounding like a reasonable proposition, I set out in hopes of seeing and possibly helping this bird.

When I got to the location I couldn’t see the bird anywhere so I took off over the rocks searching. The pounding surf and uneven footing were enough to make me cautious but not actually fearful. Not finding the murre, I scanned the area carefully. Then I realized the potential risk involved in this rescue mission. Where the water met the shore the rocks were green with plants that would make them quite slippery. And there were perilously steep drops and numerous small loose rocks ahead. Had I located the bird, saving it would certainly have involved a good deal of courage.

One thing Mel Gibson is attempting to do with the movie, The Passion of the Christ, is make this very point. Telling just the part of the story involving the passion, i.e. suffering, of Jesus places emphasis on the high cost of salvation. The viewer is compelled to consider the courage necessary for Jesus to remain true to his calling knowing the incredible pain that lay ahead, including death. My minor attempt at salvation for one bird required a small dose of courage and a cardboard box. Christ’s work of salvation for all humanity required nearly inconceivable courage and a cross!

The pale comparison continues when I consider that it was my passion for birds that drove me…what level of passion for undeserving humanity drove Jesus to accept such dire consequences? Finally, I realized that when that birder commented on the need for courage he was assuming another element. What he assumed and we cannot ignore when considering the passion of the Christ is a closely related, yet indispensable element—compassion. God’s compassion for you and me is more than immense. Forty days is not nearly long enough fully to know this truth, but Lent is a good time to reflect on God’s mad love for us.