Not a Hudsonian Godwit. But what?

By Mike Lubow

An award-winning creative director, now retired, Mike Lubow has channeled his love of birding, nature, the Colorado mountains, and writing into his first novel, The Idea People. A nature-inspired adventure romp, the book is garnering praise for this skilled and witty storyteller. Lubow also contributes to the birdwatching community as a staff writer for the popular blog, Two-Fisted Birdwatcher, where he shares his insights and experiences in ornithology.

We’re in Southeastern Florida. It’s not a vacation. C’mon, the season’s late summer. In other words, hot, humid, really hot, and likely to have a hurricane. But this isn’t about the weather. Our visit is a family gathering. But this isn’t about that either. This is—what would you expect, considering where you’re reading this—about a bird.

A Southeastern bird. A bird of the semi-tropics we call Florida, and the flat-out tropics we call anyplace near there where a bird can fly. And we see a bird. Okay, for the moment, all else is out the window, off the table, no longer worth wasting words over. What we want to focus on is this bird seen in hot humid Florida.

But before we get to the I.D. here’s a fun fact: the bird is not on the wing, not in a tree, not in water, not in a palmetto or shrub, not on the ground, no, the bird is joining us for breakfast. It is in a restaurant. An indoor restaurant. Sitting on a chair at a nearby table.

Folks are having breakfast. (Eggs make an ironic appearance, but they’re ignored by this bird). The thing you’d probably want to know, considering you’re someone who reads this bird stuff, is: what kind of Southeastern bird was it?

Maybe you’re hoping it was a Painted Bunting. The jackpot of Southeastern bird sightings, but you think: get real. That wildly colored bird is only going to be spotted in the wild. So what was it?

Could it be a Hudsonian Godwit? They do show up along the Atlantic coast during fall migration. But not the case. We just like saying that name. Hudsonian Godwit. (And it is actually on our life list).

Could it be Miami’s own national bird, the state bird of Florida…the Mockingbird? Sitting in a restaurant mocking us. But no.

How about an American Coot. Well, the restaurant did have some coots, but of the human variety. Yeah, and it wasn’t a gull, or a Booby—Blue-footed or any other kind, even though South Beach is near.

It wasn’t a Merlin, a Pied-billed Grebe, or Peewee. Not a Boat-tailed Grackle, Scrub Jay, Swallow, or Oriole, nor any one of the myriad warblers that flock up our field guides and life lists. No. So what was this interesting restaurant-going wild Southeastern bird?

Answer. Common House Sparrow. The kind we see up north, and everywhere else. Year ‘round. A bird that is nothing to write home about. One of the most common birds in America, and probably the whole world. That little brown and gray house sparrow. So what’s the big deal?

It was sitting on a chair.

In a restaurant.

And it was a bird.

If you enjoy this guest post, Mike Lubow has written a novel titled “The Idea People) which is available on Amazon.

Photo by Chris Peeters, taken from Pexels, a source of free stock photos