Fledge Day

 A mother House Sparrow feeding her baby (image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday C.Z. and I took a long walk in Riverside Park, from 89th St. to 125th St., in a loop. We saw the first fledgling House Sparrow south of 96th St.  It flew low and wobbly over the path at about waist height. C.Z. noted that it must be a baby, because its tail was so short.  

The timing seemed right. We remembered the week in early spring when every hollow traffic signal pole in the city boasted its male sparrow chirping to claim a bit of real estate, and then the morning we woke up to see them robbing neighborhood window boxes for dried grass, and then the short out-and-back flights of a couple of weeks ago (which must be for feeding, but make them look confusingly like Phoebes). We realized that now must be the time for the babies to fledge.  

We walked on. Up by the Amiable Child monument,  we followed another baby sparrow that was sitting on the iron railing until we found its mom and two siblings.  

Then, when we turned back south near the Drip, we almost stepped on a baby sparrow which had apparently just made its first flight and was sitting in the middle of the path.  When it saw us coming near, it careened across the path and then a short ways up to the railing, overshooting and hanging upside down for a moment by its feet before it righted itself.  There it sat, slipping a little on the railing and chirping at us frantically with its one-note chirp.  We watched it for a while, from a respectful distance, to see whether it would try to fly again. It moved around a post and almost fell off the railing again, but didn't dare take off.  Its wide baby beak, still yellow and turned down at the corners, gave it a disgruntled expression.

After a while we noticed another baby in a nearby tree.  It began to chirp at its sibling, and they set up a chorus as if to say, "Here I am! It's okay!" and "You can do it!" Just when we thought our first fledgling was going to sit on the rail for the rest of the afternoon, it took another flight of about three feet. Its sibling followed, barely catching onto a thin hanging branch and swinging wildly. The two birds continued to encourage one another until the sibling made another flight, but our first baby was too tired or afraid to follow.  

We could see adult House Sparrows all around us on the other side of the path. Eventually, a group of four or five females flew over at once and all started chattering at the fledgling like a bunch of grandmas. After a while, they flew off, and shortly afterwards a male House Sparrow showed up, making a different low chattering sound, and hopping from one branch to another, then back.  It was exactly as if he were saying, "This is how you do it."  Then it fed the baby an insect.  

"That really reminds me of last winter when Daddy was trying to get me to try my first black diamond," C.Z. commented.  We use Green & Black's dark chocolate instead of insects.

Still, it was no go for our baby bird. Daddy flew off, and then the bird's mother showed up with another insect.  Apparently learning to fly is a high calorie endeavor. 

When we finally left after watching for about thirty minutes, the baby sparrow still hadn't flown, but it was obviously surrounded by a loving family. Watching the sparrows for so long gave me a greater appreciation for these ubiquitous dull-coated city birds that dot every street. They're an invasive, gregarious species that adapts to city culture, but then, so am I. And they have their customs and their seasonal rhythms just like the glamorous migrant warblers and overwintering White-throated Sparrows, even if they aren't as well-appreciated. The House Sparrow is likely the kind of sparrow that Jesus was referring to when he said that "not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of the Father."  Watching the sparrows fledge yesterday gave me a whole new appreciation for what he meant.