Sparrow

I could never get very interested in birds. I like seeing them flying around, but mainly for the atmosphere – seagulls are part of the seaside; flocks of birds swooping around following a tractor are part of the ploughing season, and so on. But I wasn’t terribly motivated to learn the names of different kinds of birds, especially when most of them were brown and rather similar.
Someone gave us a bird feeder and we dutifully filled it with peanuts and put it up in the garden and felt mildly gratified when it attracted finches as well as the ordinary old starlings and sparrows.
Then, a month or so ago, a fantastic bird arrived, with a black and white striped head and little zingy bits of colour, and white dots on its tail. It turned out to be a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.
And shortly before that, a bird with hooded eyes like an eagle, only much smaller, was perched on the arm of one of our plastic garden chairs. That one was a kestrel.
It felt quite an honour to have these exotic visitors. I wanted to encourage them to come again. I didn’t know how, but more food seemed a good idea. So when I was in town I bought a fat ball (apparently loved by birds in winter) and my husband hung it up, along with a second feeder of nuts, so we now had a more generous feeding station.
And it worked, in that the more interesting birds that were getting pushed off the feeder by assertive starlings and sparrows now just flitted to the next food source and stayed around.
I started using the binoculars to see them in more detail, and even the bird book to check their identity – chaffinches, green finches, a wren, a mistle thrush, a garden warbler. Not bad!
Then, just as I was getting hooked on watched the various occupants of the feeders, my eye was caught by a sparrow. He had perched on the roof of next door’s shed and was eyeing the feeding station but instead of flying over to take his chances, he drew himself up to full height, opened his beak and let out a surprising volume of sound, followed by a lot of energetic hopping around, not moving much from the spot but jumping and landing facing in different directions.
I was struck by the sheer vitality of this tiny bird. So much energy and life emanating from something the size of a ping pong ball! So much confidence! He just radiated self-esteem and joy of living.
This was a bird who didn’t know he was ordinary and brown, or small. He was a herald of good tidings – food, garden, sunshine, morning – to the entire neighbourhood. He puffed out his chest, thrust his head forward, and sang his heart out, followed by what looked like an exuberant dance.
All that power. All that life.
Why do we think we’re powerless?
If so much can be contained in a creature that size – one of the most ordinary little examples of British birdlife – surely we contain more? Jesus said, ‘Not a single sparrow falls without the Father – God – knowing about it. And you are worth more than any number of sparrows.’
So – world poverty? War? Injustice? What makes us so sure we can’t do anything about it? Let’s go for it. It can’t hold out against us. And let’s make a song and dance about it.