Things with Wings

I have officiated at many funerals and memorial services in my years of ministry, but today was a first for me. I was able to serve in my pastoral role for my fellow birders as we gathered at the Old Pines observation platform at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge to remember Steve Leonard. It was a great opportunity for me to don my "alternate plumage" and have people in attendance actually able to identify the American Goldfinch and Rose-breasted Grosbeak on my stole. I also shared a scripture that I sometimes share at funerals and have those gathered further appreciate the deepness of the meaning for me. I read Matthew 6:25-34, where Jesus reminds us not to worry about our lives by pointing to the birds of the air and reminding us that they don't worry because God cares for them. In relation to remembering Steve, I tried to share the assurance that being carefree in the care of God was something that Steve taught us, in no small part by chasing things with feathers.

Steve had a wonderful and ancient quote that he used as a signature for his email; "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never know." This reminds me of the words of Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped, the conviction of things not seen." Sometimes those things with wings that we birders chase are "things not seen." But that never stops us from chasing them. That never stopped Steve either, because he had the assurance of things hoped for, yes, he had faith.

And so we gathered today to take some solace in the community of believers. We may not all have shared the same religious beliefs, but I know enough of those who gathered well enough to know that they believe in the goodness of life, the value of kindness and the spark of divinity in creation. Those are the things that sustain us regardless of what we name them. We also all believe in hope, otherwise there would have been no reason to gather. The hope that we shared today is that Steve now is also a "thing with wings." And just like those feathered creatures we pursue with our expensive optics, we won't always see our newly winged friend. But we will catch glimpses in our remembrances and we will smile. I hope we will also realize how our lives have been changed by knowing Steve and thus keep him alive not just in our thoughts, but also in our actions.

One thing that would have been nice to share with those with whome I share an ornithological passion is my "trademark" benediction, which mixes the ornithological with the theological. Since a benediction is a parting word, it seems fitting to share it now as a farewell to Steve.

Go in peace and in your life give glory to God the creator. May this creator God, who knows even the sparrow that falls, lift you on gentle breezes that you may soar with the eagles. Give glory also to the Christ, who comes to you still, and challenges you, in the form of the least, the last, and the lost. And give glory to the Holy Spirit. May God's spirit of love, gentle as a dove, be with you all, and all those whom you love, and all those whom nobody loves; now and forevermore, world without end. Amen.

Hole-y Peeping

Chickadees and titmice in particular are easily aggitated by the sound of a screech-owl. They are conditioned to flock together and work on driving out the predator. This group effort provides for their mutual protection. Birders know about this behavior and regularly seek to "call in" flocks of small song birds by imitating a Screech-owl (usually in hopes of finding something rarer than a chickadee or titmouse). I do this quite often.

So it was interesting to me to observe a flock of these little critters recently. The chickadees and titmice were already a bit worked up so I thought that there might be a live owl in the neighborhood. I thought this particularly because I saw some of them investigating a large hole in a tree--a perfect spot for a screech-owl to roost. So I tried imitating a screech-owl in hopes of enticing the invisible owl out of the hole. Sadly, that didn't happen. What did happen was that a number of chickadees and titmice completely ignored the source of the sound (i.e. me) and instead peered into the hole in the tree!

So I got wondering if this was at all common (I had seen this behavior at least once before). So I sent word to a local birding e-mail list. Well, I found that this was a rather common occurence. Most startling were the comments of a couple of people about how small birds would investigate holes even when screech-owls didn't occur in the area. Someone also alluded to a study where scientists tested whether the birds simply check out any hole by posting a box they knew to be empty of owls, and the birds still peered into it!

Apparently chickadees and titmice are "hardwired" to look into holes when they hear a screech-owl. Now this behavior may seem to us to be a bit of a waste of time, but if there were something as important as a potential owl in the neighborhood and you were a chickadee you would want to be sure. Well friends, there is reportedly something rather important coming to our neighborhood. That would be the child expected on December 25th! Maybe we should take a lesson from our feathered friends who can't help themselves from doing some hole-y peeping and be sure to do some holy peeping of our own!

Dickie Birds

Birders have an endearing term for those small common birds that flit and twitter in the brush and on low branches in the woods, dickie birds. These are the birds encountered on any and every trip into the field, chickadee, titmouse, nuthatch, and goldfinch being the most common. Dickie birds are so common that they are easily taken for granted. Many times when I make a list for the day I have to stop and think hard to remember if I actually encountered any dickie birds that day. While I find it hard to believe that there were none, I often cannot specifically remember one.

Although Jesus didn’t use the term, he was certainly talking about dickie birds when he asked the rhetorical question, “are not two sparrows sold for a penny?”(Matthew 10:29) He was not talking about birds that were being sold for sacrifice in the temple; they must have been for eating. A sparrow could not have provided very much meat, and at less than a penny they were nearly worthless. Interestingly, the very species that Jesus spoke of is likely the common, and pesky, sparrow that we know in our cities, the House Sparrow, passer domesticus. So this is one ancient metaphor that translates well to our time. Consider how easy it is to overlook a sparrow. Some day just try counting how many House Sparrows you see. I’m sure that you will be surprised at how many there are around you that you never noticed before. Yet, Jesus assures us, not one of these tiny creatures goes unnoticed by God. Indeed, every single hair on your head is counted! That is the nature of this God we worship. The logic is that if God cares for such small things, insignificant to and overlooked by us, then God’s care for each of us must be so incredibly great.

The corollary to this message is that since we are so loved by God we are free to be like God in showing the same compassion to others, even those (indeed, especially those) who are the least.

Impurity

Recently Blue-winged Warblers have returned to their breeding grounds. I’ve been hearing their two-part “bee-buzzzzz” song in a number of places around town. Each time I hear the song I make an effort to see the bird on the off chance that it is not a Blue-winged Warbler. The reason being that sometimes the closely related Golden-winged Warbler will sing the same song. The reverse can also be the case. Unfortunately it is usually safe to assume that whatever song one hears, it is a Blue-winged Warbler singing it, as Golden-winged Warblers are in the decline and may in fact be heading toward extinction. Curiously, the reason Golden-winged Warblers are disappearing is completely natural; they are being bred out of existence by the Blue-winged Warblers. Hybrids between the two species are common enough that they are named and depicted in field guides. These Lawrence’s and Brewster’s Warblers are capable of reproduction and Blue-winged Warbler genes are winning the battle.

With the mixing of the gene pool it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a pure Golden-winged Warbler. And once the impurity works its way in, purity can never be achieved again. Think about it, 99 and 44/100% pure is still impure. Picture a single drop of food coloring in a glass of water, once it goes in it spreads throughout the whole glass eventually. And isn’t it especially true that most of the time motives are something less than pure? This past week, one reason I was checking out the songs of warblers was that I wanted to attempt what is called, in birding parlance, a Century Run. That is, I wanted to locate 100 species of birds within Brimfield in a single 24 hour day. My motivation for this quixotic quest was similar to what long distance runners or mountain climbers have: the thrill of the chase and the satisfaction of personal achievement. Or at least that was part of my motivation. Truth be told, I was also highly motivated by competition. Last week, while I was competing in another birding marathon, the World Series of Birding (where my team broke its own record finishing ninth with 191 species), three local birders attempted a Brimfield Century Run. They fell short by four species. I was determined to beat that. In the end I ended up two species shy of their mark.

So what can be done about impurity? Can any of us ever have pure motives, even when we set out to do good? Honestly, I don’t think that we can ever make such claims as perfection is simply beyond our human capacity. Fortunately, God has a plan to deal with our impurities. Unfortunately, we won’t like it. A number of scriptural passages describe trials and tribulations as God’s way of refining us. The metaphor refers to the act of refining precious metals by melting them, removing the impurities that rise to the surface (known as dross), and then repeating again and again until the metal is pure. So we should expect to face troubles if we want to be the person God wants us to be. The wonderful truth about this process is that through it we reflect more and more of God. For you see, the way a refiner knows when a metal is finally pure is when he can see his reflection in it.

The Forest for the Trees

It is an open secret that I am what British birders would call a twitcher. I will take off for unfamiliar territory in search of a reported bird that I have never seen before. So I was twitching on Patriot’s Day when I took off for Deep River, Connecticut hoping to see the reported Swallow-tailed Kite. This was my third attempt to see this magnificent bird. Unmistakable in flight, with its long forked tail, striking black and white coloring, and its preference for snacking on insects at treetop height, I knew that I would have no trouble identifying this beautiful bird.

Thus, I stood accused when the local resident walked up and began subtly chiding the congregation of birders lost in their compulsion to see a single bird. Still, his monologue was fraught with irony. He practically ranted that we twitchers were oblivious to all the rest of the beauty around us, obsessed as we were with a tick on our lists. I’m not sure how he drew this conclusion, especially considering that I had just been wondering about the species of insect that was hatching and providing the food for the kite. Nor did he seek a dialogue during which I could have told him how my first foray in search of this bird had led me serendipitously to witness a fascinating dogfight between an Osprey and a juvenile Bald Eagle. But the greatest irony came when he told me of a close encounter he had had with a fisher while he was hunting. Not only did I have a nearly identical encounter recently, but it happened while I was doing what he was doing, that is, twitching is simply another way of utilizing our nearly instinctual urge to hunt. So he was showing how he too was guilty of what he was accusing me of, not seeing the forest for the trees.

It is a sad reality that it is all too easy to lose perspective when one’s focus is narrow. The current alleged Red State/Blue State dichotomy in our nation is a good example of the danger of a too tight single focus. And when we set our mind on one thing alone, the blinders that we put on can quickly lead us to self-justifications of unacceptable behavior. Birders have suddenly been presented with just such an ethical dilemma with the revelation that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is in fact not extinct but it is possible to score the ultimate twitch in Arkansas. Unfortunately, finding this bird would not be a completely passive activity. The very act of seeking this bird could harm its habitat sufficiently to cause its supposed extinction to become a reality.

Failing to see the interconnectedness of all people, and upsetting the delicate web of all life, are uniquely modern sins that we all too easily and all too often justify or ignore. Let’s commit ourselves to saving the forests, figuratively and literally, one tree at a time.

Update and a Miracle(?)

I finally got around to checking out the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee report for 2004. The importance of that report lies in the power I gave it to determine whether I listed Trumpeter Swan and Thayer's Gull on my personal lists (see Waiting for the Word). The news was both disappointing and inconclusive! The committee decided that the swan was indeed a Trumpeter, but given the lack of assurance that it was a truly wild bird (introduction programs have been instituted) they were unwilling to consider it "listable." As for the potential Thayer's Gull, apparently no one submitted a report for the committee to consider, so there is still no decision. I guess I will have to prevail upon those who reported it to the birding community to report it to "the powers that be" so we can get an official word.

In another post, The Lord God Bird, I talked about the wonder of the possibility of seeing an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Well, in what might be little short of a modern miracle, it appears that in the morning we will be getting official word from the government that they are still alive and kicking! You can read some leaked coverage here and here.

To Nest and to Nestle

After a long day, isn’t it wonderful to come home and flop into your favorite chair? If it has been your chair long enough then it probably feels like it has been molded to your exact measurements. If it is the soft, overstuffed sort then you can literally nestle into it. Not surprisingly, the word nestle shares its root with the word nest. The literal meaning of nest is a place to sit down. The connotation of the word nestle is of fitting comfortably or being drawn close. This seems to come from the less common use of nest to denote something that fits neatly inside a larger object, such as those popular Russian dolls. What confuses me is how this idea came to be since it certainly doesn’t seem to have a basis in nature.

Nearly every bird builds a new nest every breeding season, very few birds will reuse a nest; even those birds that lay a second clutch of eggs will typically do it in a new nest. The only birds that consistently return to a previously build nest are larger birds. Some birds of prey will add to a nest each year. Ospreys and Bald Eagles do this, sometimes to the point that the tree supporting it can no longer support the weight and it collapses! Some owls are notorious for not ever building nests but instead using the sturdier nests built by others the previous season. Herons are colonial nesters, so they return annually to what is called a rookery, where there are multiple nests (sometimes finding that a Great Horned Owl has taken up residence!)

None of these structures are particularly comfortable. That is, at least not until an adult bird literally feathers the nest with downy feathers plucked from itself and then settles down first on the eggs and later the nestlings. Perhaps this is the very image that brought forth the term nestle. Birds give us a great example of how to cope with change. In a way, each spring presents a whole new world to a bird, yet they find a way to make a new home and to nestle their young safely. Compare this to 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old is passed away; see, everything has become new!” When God brings change into our lives it is radical, hardly bringing the idea of nestling to mind!

None of these structures are particularly comfortable. That is, at least not until an adult bird literally feathers the nest with downy feathers plucked from itself and then settles down first on the eggs and later the nestlings. Perhaps this is the very image that brought forth the term nestle. Birds give us a great example of how to cope with change. In a way, each spring presents a whole new world to a bird, yet they find a way to make a new home and to nestle their young safely. Compare this to 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old is passed away; see, everything has become new!” When God brings change into our lives it is radical, hardly bringing the idea of nestling to mind!

Choosing a Direction

Well, it is almost that time of the year. The time when it becomes increasingly difficult to attract and keep my attention unless you have wings and feathers. May always brings the peak of migration to this area. Every day there is a bird to be seen that is a first for the year. Who am I kidding? Not a bird, many birds. And these are birds that often don't stick around for long. In particular, many warblers show up as night falls and take off the next morning giving the faithful only a brief early morning window to greet them.

This is also the time of year that I combine competition with birding. May 14th is the 22nd annual World Series of Birding. I will be there in New Jersey with dozens of other crazed birders competing for 24 hours straight trying to observe more species than any other team. This year I am captain of our team, The Friends of Salem Woods Wicked Witchities ("witchity, witchity, witchity" is the common description of the call of the Common Yellowthroat). The best we Witchities have ever done is 173 species and a 13th place finish. After the work of learning how to identify all these birds the real distinction between the top teams and the also-rans is route choice. With so many species scattered about the state of New Jersey, connecting the dots in the most efficient way is critical. That is not to mention the problem of uncooperative birds stealing precious time by not be present at the exact moment the team is there!

Of course, not all my birding is this intense. Indeed one of the most rewarding practices is simply wandering good habitat expectantly. This is something I do regularly as well. It is not unusual to show up at a site and have no particular plan as to where to go. That doesn't mean that I wander aimlessly and get lost. It may mean that I wander around to the point that I find it hard to return to the start, but that is different than being lost. I like to compare this type of travel to the way I think we should pursue our spiritual walk. When I wander like this I listen for voices, the voices of the birds, to choose the path to take. In our spiritual life we need to listen for God's voice to tell us where to go. Just like the birds, God doesn't usually speak so clearly that we have no doubt. Whether it is a matter of identification or interpretation, there is still a lot of guesswork involved. Only a commitment to following in the direction that the voice comes from will lead us to the increased experience that will make future discernment easier. I hope that you take the risk of following the voice of God in your life today…and every day!

The Shelter of God's Wing

One of the miracles of engineering is the feather On flight feathers, the veins coming off the shaft are barbed. These barbs interlock to create a seamless structure that is solid enough to sustain the bird in the air and to repel water. A wing full of feathers is a powerful tool, one that we humans at times envy. No doubt this is part of the reason angels are conceived as winged. A wing is also a welcome sight to a young bird. When confined to the nest, a bird needs all the protection it can get and a mother’s wing is sufficient for that task.

Whether shade from the sun or protection from the rain; a wing over a nestling’s head will do the job. While in the egg, a bird has a shell to protect it from the weight of the parent bird providing warmth. After hatching, a wing wrapped tightly around the clutch of young birds pulls them in to the warmth of the mother’s breast. The shelter of the mother’s wing also protects the young from detection by predators. Loons will ride on the back of their parents, sometimes completely concealed by their wings as they nestle down into the soft warm down of mom’s or dad’s back.

Seven times in the Psalms we read of taking refuge in the shadow of God’s wings. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem wishing that he could protect the people like a hen gathering her brood under her wings. This is a beautiful metaphor for God’s love for us. Some of the women of our church have begun providing a similar metaphor in the form of prayer shawls. These lovingly knitted shawls have begun to find their ways to people who need to find refuge in the shelter of God’s wing. Wrapped up in the warmth of the shawl, the hope is that one will also sense the love and prayers that have gone into its creation

There is one more way that some birds use their wings that demonstrates a remarkable form of love. Killdeer are most famous for this behavior, although other birds have also been known to demonstrate it. When the young are threatened, an adult bird will often feign an injury to its wing. Dragging along a wing as if it is broken makes it a more appealing target to the predator. Once the young are safe, the bird then is free to end the charade and fly off. Obviously, this behavior is not without risk. This should remind us of Jesus’ words that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. As Holy Week approaches and we draw near to Calvary these words have all the more power.

Dabblers and Divers

There are two basic types of ducks: dabblers and divers. The names describe the way that they feed, dabblers dabble and divers dive. Dabblers are the classic “puddle ducks,” mallards and black ducks for example. They can feed literally in a puddle because they eat emergent vegetation protruding above the water or within reach of their extended necks with their bottoms tipped skyward. These are ducks of the shallows. Divers are deep water birds. Like torpedoes they paddle along under the water to the vegetable or animal life present on the bottom of the lake or pond. There are more species of divers than dabblers, but they are less familiar to us because they are more migratory. They also don’t tend to come on shore to eat bread offered by humans. So there are scaup, goldeneyes, ring-necked ducks and mergansers that spend a few weeks a year on our ponds heading north or south.

Diving seems to be the preferred strategy since there are other species such as grebes, loons, and cormorants that also dive. Logic would dictate the preference since there must naturally be more food in the expanses of the pond or lake than in the shallows, since there is more deep water than shallow water. In Luke 5, when Jesus calls Andrew, Peter, James and John, he first tells them to push their boats out into the deep water. There they let down their nets and they become so full of fish that they almost break! The lesson here is that the fish are not in the shallows. The moral of the story is that if you want to know the miraculous truths that God has in store for you then you must get into the deep water. You need to be a diver not a dabbler.

Sure, dabblers and divers are both necessary to exploit all the niches in the environment. But a diver afraid to go into deep water will starve to death competing with the dabblers in the shallow end. Life is too full of rich blessing to do nothing but dabble. Don’t you want to dive in deep and learn all that you can about God and more particularly what it is that God has in store for you? It will mean some scary moments of holding your breath and moving through dark and murky places…but don’t you think it is worth the risk?

Colonial Life

One opportunity that winter provides is the ability to see all those bird nests that had been so well hidden when the trees held leaves. Most often we see confirmation that birds are pretty solitary when they nest. In the breeding season, birds of a feather not only do not flock together but they quarrel over territory in which they attract mates and then forage for food to raise the young.

But there are exceptions to this general rule. Some birds are what are called colonial nesters. That is, instead of defending an individual territory they build their nests close to each other. When birds nest in colonies they have to travel farther to find food since there is rarely enough in the immediate vicinity of the colony to feed the entire group. But this is offset by the protection provided by more eyes and ears. Colonial nesters come in all sizes from Purple Martens to Great Blue Herons. There is the beginning of a heron rookery in Brimfield that is visible from the turnpike. This year there was only a single pioneering family there. In time they will surely be joined by others.

More typically, the colony only succeeds because of the numbers. Such a species is the Monk Parakeet. These noisy, large green parrots made a foray into the southeastern portion of the state in recent years. Their large, active nest of sticks is the equivalent of a busy avian apartment building. It is truly a marvel to witness such a thing in a suburban back yard! But, to the best of my knowledge this colony has failed so one must go further afield to see this species.

We humans, like it or not, are more like Monk Parakeets than chickadees or even herons. We may quarrel about what is ours and work hard to obtain personal possessions, but in the end we desperately need each other. For the most part, a chickadee only needs other chickadees to propagate the species, but even they know enough to forage together when the going gets tough, say, in the winter. And while some of us may risk pioneering efforts like the solitary heron family did this year, the purpose of blazing a way is for others to follow. No, we are a species that is at its best when we lean on others for help. Together we are greater than we are individually. Jesus knew this when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that "they may all be one." Colonial living may try our patience. It might mean putting up with some that we would rather do without. But not one of us is indispensable, just as one body has many parts…and needs them all!