Warbler’s Wisdom is a weekly column by Jocelyn Hartley, our Creation and Justice Fellow from Disciples Home Mission and Green Chalice.

I may have mom in sight ahead of me and turn around to look for dad, and discover he’s nowhere in sight. When I go back to fetch him, he’s looking intently into the trees in search of the singer of an unfamiliar bird song.

How and when exactly it happened that the family got so enthused about our feathered friends is hard to pinpoint. But how the enthusiasm continues to grow is no mystery. Once you’ve started noticing who lives in your neighborhood, you also start noticing where they hang out, where they make their homes, and where they hunt for food. And so it is that while I couldn’t tell a flycatcher from a finch two years ago, I can now tell you that’s a Verdin family cheeping in the Palo Verde or a Gila Woodpecker poking its head out of a mighty saguaro.

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