On Sparrows and the War in Ukraine
The song sparrows are back. They fall into the category that birders call “little brown jobs”: small birds that are mostly brown and seemingly indistinguishable from one another, especially moving fast through leaves or grasses. In fact, the song sparrow has a very distinguishable dark spot in the center of its chest; it is one of the easiest sparrows to identify. And as you might expect from its name, its song lifts the heart. It captures the joy of a spring or summer morning in the grasslands — perched near the top of a long stem in a meadow trilling away. It is also one of the first birds to come back in the spring, at least where I live in New Jersey. In mid-March, I suddenly hear the song outside my window and know that the season is turning at last.
The deeper reason that I love the song sparrow, however, is that becoming a birder is in part learning to care about sparrows — a genus that is nothing but “little brown jobs” and is the second most populous in the world. When I am watching one, I often reflect on the ways in which birding has taught me to look more closely and find beauty in unexpected places. The handsome brown and buff stripes on the head, the delicate dark streaks on the side of the breast, the dark feathers that neatly outline the throat and always make me think of a drooping 19th century mustache.
