Swamp Sparrow. Higbee Beach, Cape May NJ

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light…” Jesus

This is a very early post as we have Sunday morning plans. We are New Jersey, Cape May, for the Fall Birding Festival, and on Sunday morning we are at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House on Beach Avenue when it opens at 6:30, and then do a lap at the Meadows before the show opens at 10. If you have done the autumn thing in Cape May, you know exactly what I mean. Pancakes and birds! That is already enough to make this a good Sunday…with at least two forms of worship. 🙂

But seriously, take a look at this sparrow. I nominate the Swamp Sparrow, despite its muddy name, as the most beautiful sparrow in North America. I love the rusty tones and the sharply contrasting pure grays, the black accents, and the highly patterned nature of this little creature. Those who lump all sparrows into “little brown jobs” are missing the subtle beauty of the family. I posted a panel of “how we normally see Swamp Sparrow” yesterday…4 shots buried deep in reeds and brush, with only bits of sparrow showing…but every once in a while even a skulker like the Swamp has to get up and sit up and be counted in the early morning sun, as it did here at Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area yesterday early. Then you see the sparrow for what it is…and it is an eyeful…a generous eyeful!

Now, what Jesus said about the generous eye was not a conditional statement, though it is often taken that way. It is a declarative statement. It is not “if” your eye is generous, “then” your whole being “will be” filled with light. It is “if you eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” In such a statement the two phrases do not depend on each other…each phrase is simply testimony to the truth of the other. Fact. Those who are full of light have generous eyes. Fact. Those who have generous eyes are full of light. I point this out on behalf of the sparrow. There are those who can see the beauty of the Swamp Sparrow…many such…and those are the folks who are full of light…those are the folks with generous eyes. You want to get to know them…in fact…if you are a person of generous eye, you already know them as such, pretty much instantly, on meeting. There are a lot of generous eyed birders! Which is why a birding festival is so much fun for me. They don’t all know they are filled with light…but even so they are…and it is such fun to watch them watching the birds they love. Even the Swamp Sparrows. Especially the Swamp Sparrows. Happy Sunday!