Dan's Feathursday Feature: Song Sparrow
On a recent walk at Chicago’s Park 566, I found this note rolled up and impaled on a piece of barbed wire at the north end of the park.
*****
March 2, 2020
Dan Lory
Poster Child for “Get a Life”
Hyde Park, IL
Dear Dan:
The purpose of this letter is to recommend to you the Song Sparrow as a subject for your next essay on birds.
They say “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” Well, that’s obviously not my motive for addressing this letter of recommendation to you. Seeing you here at Park 566 almost every day, I am impressed at your obvious abundance of free time, apparently unencumbered by the commitments that seem to weigh down the typical human. So I write to you not with any real hope that you will convert word to action, but simply because you are likely to actually find and read this note.
I recognize, of course, that only a man of leisure can find time to write essays of the sort that flow from your pen. Yet as much time as you seem to have on your hands, I also find it amazing that until now you have not deigned the lowly Song Sparrow worthy of even an iota of consideration.
It’s not a flashy bird, the Song Sparrow. To a man of apparent appreciation for fashion like yourself—with your patched brown pants (the same ones every day!), threadbare moss green jacket, and beanie hat that looks like it was lifted from the reject bin at Goodwill—I can understand how you might overlook the simple accoutrements of the Song Sparrow. Spotted brown and gray and soft white, with not a single splash of bright color, it is the epitome of plain. But if you take the time to look closely, you will see there is a great variety to the shades and patterns in the coloration of the several dozen Song Sparrows that you’ll encounter in this park during the peak season. The pair who nest near my family both have very pronounced dark areas in the center of their chests, where the brown spots are splashed more closely together. Others at various points around the park—I hear through the grapevine—have much more uniform spot patterns. Surely you could find something to write about the Song Sparrow’s ability to make use of the simplest of materials for maximum variety.
I know for a fact that you do pay attention to detail, at least as well as humans can, with only your senses of sight and sound to rely on. When you make your strange “pishhh, pishhh” sound, any Song Sparrow within a hundred feet will pop up curiously from its place of rest, posing patiently as your machine-gun-shutter camera rattles off a volley of shots. I estimate you must have upwards of 5000 photos of Song Sparrows stored in that little computer of yours. Did maybe one or two of them turn out well enough to use in an essay about this cooperative bird?
I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the Song Sparrow’s song. If you would stop humming old rock & roll tunes from the ‘60s as you walk, you would surely hear them yourself, and appreciate this vivacious bird’s pipes. Morning, noon, evening. Spring, summer, fall, winter, you can count on a Song Sparrow serenade. Each individual has a slightly different take on it, but they all stay true enough to the basic score that you can tell a Song Sparrow when you hear one. They almost always start out with one note, crisply repeated three times, followed by a drawn out sparkle of trills and arpeggios. Imagine: “Ho…ly…Cow! Have you ever seen such a beautiful sunrise!” or “Ho…ly…Cow! I wish this guy would stop taking photos and just get on with his walk!” The Song Sparrow brings to this city park the same exuberance that Harry Caray brought to Wrigley Field.
Dan, as I write, I fully expect that this letter will move from your hand to your pocket to the bottom of your inbox, while you focus instead on the eye-catching warblers, or the fearsome raptors (damn their talons). But let me make one last appeal to your sense of decency and remind you that in dead of winter, when the warblers are still in the Bahamas in shades and flip-flops, and local raptors are more intent than ever on inviting scarce meadow inhabitants to lunch, so to speak, the humble Song Sparrow stalwartly maintains a regular presence. You know what I’m talking about. Picture those days when a strong northeast wind blows in off the lake, driving eight-foot swells against the rocks and creating a bizarre landscape of sideways-hanging icicles on the trees along the shore. Not to worry; even then you will see a Song Sparrow, or two or three.
Have a heart. Get a life. Write about the Song Sparrow.
Yours empathetically,
Meadow Vole
Park 566
NE slag shoreline, fence pole #23
PS: This LOR was started five weeks ago by my great grandmother. She was unable to get beyond the intro diatribe before meeting her demise at the talons of the local kestrel. My grandfather and my mother both valiantly continued writing until each ended up in the digestive tracts of a coyote and a garter snake respectively. Though this missive has been a labor of four generations, I assure you that the sentiments expressed herein are shared by all who contributed to its penning. -MV
*****
I know the Meadow Vole has a reputation for empathy and consolation among its own, but now I see that this good will carries across to its neighbors as well. For the record, I do not have 5000 photos of Song Sparrows in my computer. There are 118, to be exact. But if you count the many that I have deleted over the years, well….
Despite the shrewd wit (pun intended), I am so grateful to the Meadow Vole(s) for writing such a compelling LOR that I am posting it here in its entirety. It’s always wonderful when a bird essay just writes itself.
Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and pictures of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.