Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Even in its brightest breeding plumage the Tennessee Warbler is not what you’d call a dynamically attired species. Cloaked in shades of gray and green, this common nesting species in the boreal forests of Eastern Canada becomes even less distinctive once it molts into its winter wardrobe. To me it then looks a great deal like the Warbling Vireo, a familiar resident across much of the United States. But the warbler’s bill is much longer and more pointed. The difference is in the details.
A few years back an interesting book came out titled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff. I’m sure the author’s intent was noble, to encourage us to look at the big picture and not get bogged down in minutia, but what I find in Scripture is that details are very important to God, and therefore should be important to us as well. Leviticus 18:4-5 seems to confirm this idea: “You must obey only my laws, and you must carry them out in detail, for I am the Lord your God. If you obey them, you shall live. I am the Lord.” (NIV)
If I were designing aircraft, to slide over the details could prove to be fatal, and from a casual glance it seems like maybe God made one in the construction of this warbler. It’s the only North American passerine I know of that goes through its Prebasic molt where its flight feathers are replaced during its fall migration. This means it must cover long distances with less than ideal feathering for such. A miscalculation on the part of the Creator? Well, apparently not, for those Tennessee Warblers just seem to keep coming back each year. Our glimpse of creation is just that, a glimpse. As one ornithologist put it, “This merits further study.”