The hope and poetry of bird-watching
I am a lover of birds. In my former studying and working life I did assignments and field studies on such delightful species as eastern yellow robins and dusky woodswallows. These days I am more of a casual urban observer, but I do have a badge that says ‘I dig birds’ and I dig birds enough that this passage below from Prayer in the Night by Tish Harrison Warren both snagged and amused me. It was a reminder to pay attention and to watch for the glory, never-minding being an eccentric birder, and even of why I actually love experiencing the seasons, though the winter be long and cold. So I thought I would just share it.
(I also dig birds enough that my phone photos are scattered with pictures of birds, like this one above of an eastern rosella, one of the poster birds where I live for its colours.)
My birder friends are masters of noticing. They study and catalogue the natural world with a care and earnestness I scarcely have for anything. They notice the inhabitants of distant trees more than I notice what I'm wearing or who's sitting next to me on the bus. They're always on the lookout, and this startling attention reveals my inattention, how little I watch out for anything at all, how often I walk through a world of beauty and mercy and never look up.
There is an overlooked, workaday poetry in the little-known world of birders. Like all great poets, birders speak out of their profound observation of the world. They remind us that glory comes only by watching and waiting, by keeping an eye out for what most of us miss. Birdwatching websites and magazines are positively endearing to anyone who has ever been a jaded urban dweller. It's a breath of earnest fresh air. One birder's report reads: "The first species that I noticed tuning up this year was a tufted titmouse singing Peter, Peter, Peter in our orchard on a sunny Sunday afternoon in late January. His song was my first aural reminder that winter will eventually fade.”1
If we have any Hope at all, our Hope is eschatological—that God will at last make this sad, old world new again ... Jesus is our first aural reminder that winter will fade. His resurrection is a real and fleshy promise.
Bill Thompson Ill, "Top 10 Long-Awaited Signs of Spring", Birdwatcher's Digest, https://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/learn/top10/signs-of-spring.php