Consider the birds - The Beauty

A friend of mine calls sparrows "McDonald’s birds" because they’re everywhere. Some people refer to them as "junk birds". It seems like there are some birds that are just too ... something. Too plain. Too many. Too ordinary. Too common. And in all of this, not too interesting.

I beg to differ. The picture is of a juvenile Green Heron. These are primarily water birds. They like to feed on the edges of lakes, streams, and marshes. They're very wary birds; it's likely you won't notice them until you startle them into fleeing. But this little tyke wandered into our backyard ... in the desert, obviously lost. Poor guy. Lost and ugly. But the adult Green Heron is no slouch in appearance. Sleek and even colorful, like the proverbial "ugly duckling", this bird has the true potential of real beauty.


We have a bird here called the Great-tailed Grackle. This is a "junk bird" in the truest sense. They eat junk. They are scavengers, much like the crows of other areas. Grackles are "ordinary" as well. The males are … black. Not much there; just black. The females are dark brown mostly. No markings, striping, anything to set them apart. They’re just plain, ordinary birds. But watch them for awhile, and they come alive.

Grackles have the most extraordinary range of sounds they make. Sometimes they sound like parrots. Sometimes they sound like songbirds. I’ve even heard them make noises that had me looking for monkeys in the trees. They tweep and warble and titter and hoop and never seem to stop. While the birds themselves are ordinary, their sounds are anything but ordinary.

I walked by a female grackle the other day, and I was somewhat surprised. Sure, she was ordinary at first glance. But in that plainness she had a kind of gracefulness. Her lines, her smoothness, her shiny brown feathers, all bespoke a beauty that the initial glance belied. The male, too, has unusual appearance. His tail is unlike other birds, almost holding it in three dimensions instead of the normal two dimensions that most birds use. He uses this unusual tail configuration even in flight, like a steering triangle instead of a plane surface.

So I look again. You know, those sparrows sure have interesting coloration. Browns, dark browns, blacks. They have stripes and eyeliner. They are speckled in places and smooth in others. They are unique in their song and unusual in their flight patterns. Now that I look again, those sparrows are quite pretty.

And so it goes. It appears, despite our calm assurance to the contrary, that God doesn’t make "junk birds". They may appear ugly or mundane at first glance, but they are each individuals, carefully designed for their special needs, and uniquely beautiful in their own ways. I guess the same can be said about people, too, eh?