Hi Tweeters,

I just finished reading Providence of a Sparrow,
Lessons from a Life Gone to the Birds by Chris
Chester.

It is a great book. I will never look at House
Sparrows quite the same again. Here is two
paragraph's from the book after the author has been to
see the Vaux's swifts land to roost in the chimney at
Chapman Elementary in Portland, Ore. The reference to
B is the name of the House Sparrow that fell from the
nest outside the author's door and changed the
author's life.

"Because I am convinced that B has consciousness, it
seems only sporting to assume that each Vaux's swift
must own a measure of the same commodity. Within six
months of B's arrival, I could no longer walk outside
without the eerie sensation that hundreds of bird
minds were ticking away in the vicinity-not
necessarily taking notice of me but capable of it.
That Vaux's swifts amass, swirl in perfectly
synchronized flight, and then ultimately disappear
inside a smokestack is, if nothing else, a triumph of
communication. You just can't have thousands of birds
flying in tight formation, changing speed and heading
as a single entity, without commands and feedback
passing to and from each individual bird. I mean to
say, creatures flying wing tip to wing tip do not have
much margin for error. The rather lovely thing right
now is that no one knows exactly how they do it.

Solving a mystery ends speculation and the fun of not
having the facts. Still, I'd be the first to look up
the explanation of how the swifts do what they do,
fully aware of how dissappointing and prosaic the
answer might be. Despite how wondrous it is that
Earth is not supported on the back of a giant tortoise
or on the shoulders of Atlas and despite how marvelous
it is that we derive light and warmth from the fusion
of hydrogen into helium within a flaming ball of gas
and from Phoebus Apollo driving a fiery chariot acrss
heaven's vault, surely some part of us is diminished
by this knowledge. Wordsworth said, "We have given
our hearts away, a sordid boon!"

Happy reading and birding,

Kathy
Roosting in south King County






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