When Too Much of a Good Thing Can Be Bad

Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded.

-- Yogi Berra

As more trees are cut down and more buildings are put up in urban and suburban areas, I've noticed it is rare to have a static piece of open space. It has to feature more things for people to do rather than boring stuff like walking, listening to the birds or sitting quietly on a bench.

These pieces of open land have to include soccer fields, playgrounds, areas for "special needs" people, cross-country running tracks and the occasional field hockey rink. This is known as "mixed use."

Boardwalk under construction at Great Swamp
(Margo D. Beller)

I can understand the need for such facilities. As there is less open land and more people living in new developments, those creating a park know residents need a place to run the dogs or get the kids outside to play in a supervised environment. It adds to the "quality of life," and is an attractive incentive to move to that development.

What I don't like is the effect of such thinking at federal "refuge" areas. 

There is a school of thought that if land is opened to more people, they will want to protect it. Or people who approve the construction of a park want to justify the cost because you can't collect property taxes on land where no one lives or works. In a state like New Jersey, where property taxes are the highest in the U.S. because they are used to pay for so many services, the latter is no small thing.

So, for instance, you have the Central Park of Morris County, created out of the old Greystone Hospital that was closed because of horrendous conditions. Empty stone buildings were taken down, including the historic Kirkbride Building, and the fields opened for soccer, cross-country running, even disc golf. The state had sold the land to the county for $1 at a time when people were yelling for affordable housing to be put on this huge piece of property. The park people won out, thankfully for me and my small town abutting the land, and the park is usually filled with people. If I go there birding, it is early in the morning and never on a weekend during school months.

Here's another example of how the law of unintended consequences could come into play.

In the central part of northern New Jersey lies a 12-square-mile piece of open land that is known as the Great Swamp. Most of it is overseen by the U.S. government through the National Park Service, with sections that became county parks run by adjacent Morris and Somerset counties. Private groups, such as the Great Swamp Watershed Association, also have a hand in making sure people are enjoying themselves responsibly, although park rangers do the enforcing.

Great Swamp entrance, not far from a network of boardwalked
trails (Margo D. Beller)

Half of the property is maintained as "wilderness" where the land is left alone for the most part - mud, overgrowth and all. There are no cinders on the trail, no boardwalks, very few signs. There are birds - wonderful birds - in season as well as deer, fox, possum and sometimes bear, among others.

The other half of the swamp is "managed." Fields are periodically burned to get rid of invasive plants or to open an area to a field bird like the woodcock.The main road through this part was once a real residential street. Little by little the federal government bought up the land. As people moved out the houses were knocked down. That empty road has become a tour road, allowing cars to drive through the sanctuary. Half the road's stretch is paved, the rest unpaved. In another part of the managed area trails are boardwalked to allow people to get to blinds or, in one case I'll get to, an "observation" area.  One particular trail in this part of the Swamp tends to get a lot more people who "find nature" while wearing sneakers or other footwear not suited for mud. On weekends and holidays they bring their kids, who usually rush ahead of them shouting.

Overlook, replacing a blind
(Margo D. Beller)

I avoid this particular trail.

The Swamp, located in the midst of suburbia, serves the same function as New York City's Central Park - a large area in the middle of a concrete jungle where migrating birds can rest before pushing on or arrive to spend the winter. Back in the 1960s, no doubt in the name of "progress," there was a serious move to make the Swamp the New York metro area's fourth airport. Protesters, led by Helen Fenske, fought over many years to get that plan blocked. 

When the Friends of Great Swamp decided to leave its old center at one end of the tour road to refurbish a larger property at the other end, the new visitor center was named for Fenske.

It is what is now taking place across the road from the center that sparked this musing on unintended consequences.

The old center was small. It had a bookstore, a bathroom and a kitchen where visitors could get a cookie, coffee or a glass of water. It had a very homey air about it. Outside were bird feeders, which attracted many birds as well as some of their predators, including a redtailed hawk and a kestrel. 

However, as a place where it could draw large numbers of people for lectures and showcase everything the Swamp has to offer, it was considered insufficient. After the Fenske center opened the old house was taken down. 

The larger center does not offer coffee and cookies. It has a larger bookstore, more bathrooms and more meeting areas, but is not particularly homey. There are still feeders, positioned so those inside can look through a plate-glass window without disturbing the feeding birds.

Winter, Great Swamp (Margo D. Beller)

When the Fenske Center opened several small trails were put in. However, another, much longer trail was soon blazed on the other side of the road. It was dubbed the "White Oak Trail" because, as my husband and I discovered when we walked it one winter, it leads to some huge oak trees several hundred years old. That winter the trail was icy, and I'm sure it became muddy in spring.

Now, it is being boardwalked.

The managed part of the Swamp, as I said, has long had boardwalked trails. And, unfortunately, there was precedent for taking a trail and making it more accessible with boardwalks. One trail I walked all the time was boardwalked until you came to the woods. Then you continued on to a blind. This trail is now fully boardwalked. No more trying to get around ankle-deep water after heavy rain. No more tripping over tree roots. 

No more old blind either - it was removed for a large "observation platform" named for a local environmentalist. It has plenty of seating. More people troop over there, climb the steps, look over the tall reeds at the distant waterfowl. When I am up there, which isn't as often anymore, most of those who come up do not stay long because they are not birding, they are only walking to the end of a boardwalked trail.

On the White Oak trail, before it was paved.
(RE Berg-Andersson)

As for the White Oak trail, even tho it is not completely boardwalked people are already on it. Perhaps one day MH, with his balky knees, and I will do it, too, if only to see what birds are still hanging around the area and check in on the old oaks (like the one in the photo above).

But I think something is lost when you open up an area like this in the name of making it "accessible" and getting people "back to nature." More people mean more erosion, more noise, less opportunity to stand in a truly quiet area.

I guess I am being selfish in wanting governments to leave parks alone. During Covid, this part of the Swamp was one of the few areas not closed down by a misguided federal government and thus available to people who needed to get out during a time of great fear. We came, too, and found the tour road crowded with cars, people walking (many with dogs on a leash) and riding bicycles. People fought over parking places. Cars crawled along the road, just like during rush hour.

It is nowhere near that bad now. But it could become that way again, and that is what I dread. 

Growing Concern

I like trees. I've written about my despair when they are cut down, including by me. But after a recent walk I had to wonder about the unintended consequences of planting some trees in a particular area.

Saplings, May 2023
(Margo D. Beller)

In the Central Park of Morris County not far from me a field was planted with tree saplings a number of years ago. All you could see were rows of protective tubing. In autumn 2021 I went for a walk in that area after a long absence and noticed the saplings had grown tall enough to be seen above the tubing.

The other week I went back and the saplings were even taller. I could now identify many of the trees including tulip poplars, maples, even at least one sweetgum. What happens when they all grow up, I wondered. Tulip poplars alone can grow 70 to 90 feet tall and have a 35- to 50-foot spread. It is also a fast-growing hardwood tree, which might explain why it was planted here.

Saplings, November 2021
(Margo D. Beller)

I can't remember exactly when Morris County put in the saplings. It could've been after hurricane Sandy blew through in 2012 and toppled trees in this field, once part of a working farm associated with the old Greystone hospital. The saplings could've been planted as part of the work the county did when it took over the land to turn it into a multi-use park.

The field in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012,
which might be the reason more trees
were planted. (Margo D. Beller)

During that time, the old hospital buildings including the wards, the farm and the Kirkbride administration building came down. Old or damaged trees came down with them. (Many other trees that came down in a different area were neither sick nor damaged. They were in the way of a very large planned soccer field.) 

This old farm field usually draws a lot of birds depending on the season. In past years I've found different types of sparrows, warblers, vireos and thrushes. But now I have to wonder what will happen when the trees grow to their full height. The area is already changing. The grasses around the saplings have not been cut and have become very long and weedy. This is good for some birds but not for others. 

Once the trees have grown and darken the area it will change even more. Will there be more forest dwellers? Bird that look for insects or build nests in treetops? I fear the sparrows and other grassland birds that prefer wood edges to deep woods will go elsewhere. 

I'll just have to see what happens when those trees throw shade.

Ant-mageddon

If an object A exerts a force on object B, then object B must exert a force of equal magnitude and opposite direction back on object A.

-- Newton's Third Law of Physics

If something happens, there is an unintended consequence.

-- Margo's corollary

Until we finally got some relief in the form of showers and some cooler air, it had been so very, very dry in August. What rain we got prompted the dogwood to put out some fresh leaves, but for the most part the tree is dry, brown and forlorn. What birds came into the yard - including, briefly, a hummingbird -- came to the water dish to drink before flying off to forage.

Then, with a turn of the calendar page, cooler air came with winds out of the north. Overnight, birds that were scrounging for whatever they could eat took off to the south and wetter, greener pastures. Fall migration has begun.

Meanwhile, our house got carpenter ants.

Carpenter ant (Pixabay)

According to the Orkin pest control people, there are 24 types of carpenter ants ranging in size between 6 millimeters and 20 mm. They are not like termites that eat wood and weaken structures. These ants are so named because after mating (and the male dies): 

"The queen typically seeks a small crack in a wooden structure. She then closes herself inside that chamber, and lays the first batch of eggs. She remains inside the chamber until her first batch of eggs becomes adult workers. During this time, the queen uses her stored fat reserves and wing muscles for nourishment.

"The queen provides food for the young by means of her salivary glands until they become workers capable of foraging. The queen looks after her first brood, and, once grown, that first brood of adult workers takes care of subsequent broods."

That includes tunneling out more wood to expand the colony. 

So when it got dry and the ground got hard somehow -- squeezing through a window screen? hitching a ride on my jacket? -- two queens got into the house, converged on the small bathroom off our bedroom and started creating colonies. 

I was slow to notice this. I would see one ant, grab it in a tissue and throw it out the bathroom window. If it was in the sink, I washed it down the drain. But then I saw a couple, got one and saw the other run behind the sink. Another time I turned on the water and two ants came out of the overflow hole.

(Muero/Wikimedia Commons)

I told my husband (MH). He went out and bought ant traps baited with poison. It didn't seem to slow them down. I told him I thought the ants were in the bathroom because they wanted liquid. He went back to the store and bought liquid-baited traps - sugar water with poison. The ants lap it up, take it back to the colony and regurgitate it to feed the queen and the young. When the queen and young die, the colony falls apart (the workers eventually die of the poison, too).

I base the rest of this tale on what MH told me because I refused to go into that bathroom until the colony was dead, and that took almost two weeks.

He put out the liquid bait and when he next checked he saw dozens of ants lapping it up ("like crack," he said) and following the scent trails of other workers back to their queen. I had thought there was only one colony, behind the sink. No. He said there were bigger carpenter ants climbing up the bathroom wall and going into a hole created when I put in a new towel rod in a slightly higher position. I hadn't plugged the old hole. Now there was a colony of who knew how many ants swarming behind the bathroom wall.

Dozens of ants.

MH, with his scientific bent, would check on the situation twice a day and report on what he thought was a fascinating situation. I made him keep the door closed and blocked the area at the bottom with a towel. Thankfully, he didn't film Ant-mageddon.

After about 10 days he said he thought things were done. Still, I was slow to return to using that bathroom. However, when I did finally go back and turned on the light I found a mess caused by sloppy, sugar-crazed ants that made things sticky everywhere. The next weekend I plugged up the hole and scrubbed both the wall and the floor (the traps were removed but put back after the floor dried). 

As invasions go, it could've been worse. It could've been hornets (we've had them nesting behind the bathroom window sill) or wasps (which have been found in the attic) or cockroaches (never, thankfully). We even once had a winter invasion of the smaller pavement ants. 

As long as houses are built in former forests or on former meadows and river valleys, there are going to be insect invasions. And as long as something -- global warming perhaps? -- creates heat and, in my area, drought, there will be creatures great and small doing what they must to survive, including coming into houses.

I am still finding carpenter ants, but they are in ones, not dozens. At least for now.

Watching the Neighbors: Mother's Day

This has been a topsy-turvy, Bizarro World type of week. On May 9 there was snow falling in upstate New York and much of northern New England. In my part of New Jersey the temperature fell to around the freezing level, making some of my sun-loving perennials less than happy.

Meanwhile, the strong wind made the high of 45 degrees feel like 30 degrees.

Map of conditions around 11 p.m. ET by Cornell University Ornithology Lab,
 screenshot by Margo D. Beller

That's why the migration forecast radar map put out by Cornell, seen above, shows a big, blank area over my part of the country while all the migrants are hitting the midwest, as the yellow and pink shows.

Did I mention it's May?

This week would be when, in years past, MH and I would've taken some time off to travel and look for northbound migrant birds. The coronavirus put an end to any planning. Like everyone else, I've had to make do and stick closer to home. That includes birding. But with work taking a lot of time my birding is mainly on the weekend.

MH and I have found some interesting birds - worm-eating warbler, a Blackburnian warbler, an American bittern posing for the camera I didn't have on me - but so far we have not seen some birds I've seen more regularly such as the northern parula and the indigo bunting. There has been a house wren in my yard but it is not using the nest box I hung in the apple tree. For a time some other small bird that could fit inside, perhaps a chipping sparrow, was using it but now it seems to be empty.

The weather had not helped either. When we had a rare warm and sunny day the crowds (most of them nonbirders and minus face masks) hit the state parks just as the birds did. (We stuck to a smaller, local park.) But most of the time it has been rainy, cold, windy. In those conditions you can't plant many types of vegetables and during a recent dawn walk through my town's community garden before work I saw most of the plots filled with weeds or cold weather crops such as lettuce.

That's where the law of unintended consequences comes in.

With less human traffic in the community garden (and, until recently, at the nearby Central Park of Morris County) creatures have become emboldened, and they sometimes wander out of that area and into my neighborhood.

"Fox pup" by gm_pentaxfan is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Deer are a given, and usually in May I watch anxiously for pregnant does that might want to drop a fawn or two (or three) in my yard, as has happened in years past.

This time it's a different type of mammal.

For the last two mornings, around 6:30 a.m., I have gone outside with the feeders. A small fox, likely a female (vixen), has popped up from behind the flood wall in the corner of my property and then trotted quickly away. We've had fox pass through before, which might be the reason we haven't seen a rabbit in the yard in many years.

This morning, however, was quite unusual.

I was in my porch chair, relaxing in the sun with my coffee, when I heard a house wren sing, loud. I slowly got up, turned and saw the bird on the patio. Then it flew to the top of my garage. The next time it sang it was somewhere in the front yard. Since I had my binoculars with me - I had hoped for migrants in the seeding oaks - I walked to the end of the back path and scanned the trees across the way from the top of the driveway.

There was the vixen, across the street, quickly trotting in a neighbor's yard not far from the community garden. She stopped to give me a long look and I quickly saw why.

A couple of playful pups in a nearby backyard. Then another. Then another. Four baby foxes.

Mom took off, spooking some nearby squirrels. The pups continued playing until a neighbor's dog barked. They stopped playing and huddled together. You must know they were in the yard of the neighbor who had put the hole in the sky and would not think twice about calling Animal Control. But never underestimate the power of a mother. To my relief, when I turned to go back to the house Mom must've called her pups to her because when I turned back for a last look they were gone.

At the time I took this picture, the sticks poking out from the bottom
showed an occupant. But lately the nest looks abandoned.
(Margo D. Beller)

And to think, I was worried about deer dropping fawns.

It is obvious to me now the vixen behind the flood wall was hunting to feed her babies, just as the nesting birds are doing once the eggs hatch, presuming the recent cold didn't kill them. It is also obvious to me the den is somewhere in the woods that are on the other side of the community garden from the side that abuts the neighbors across the street.

Why should I care about foxes? Besides the fact they are really cool animals there's the down side. According to the field guide to mammals co-authored by Kenn Kaufman, foxes eat rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, lizards and birds.

Birds. Oh boy.

Did I mention I saw Mom and babies on Mother's Day?

I thought I'd dodged a bullet when the Cooper's hawks abandoned their nearby nest. I guess not. If it ever stays consistently warm and more people are in the community garden growing their tomatoes, peppers and zucchinis, the foxes will stay hidden. They are smart enough to know to stay away from people.

At some point my plants will go out on the porch or in the yard and the feeders will come into the house for the summer. The birds will go farther afield for food since they'll have no reason to drop by at, say, 6:30 a.m. when there's a fox in the yard.

Perhaps I'll even be able to go farther afield, too.

Apples and Unintended Consequences

“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
--Henry David Thoreau

There are several important annual events in my backyard. When will the first hummingbird show up at the feeder I put out? When will the ornamental grasses start to grow? When will the house wrens leave the nest box? When will I have enough apples to make apple sauce?

I got the answers to the last two questions on the same day. I discovered the house wren young had left the box and were following their parents around the yard, calling to be fed while being shown how to do it themselves.

That same morning I realized there was not one apple left in the tree. No apple sauce this year.

Apple tree leaves (Margo D. Beller)

This apple tree is peculiar. While most apple trees produce their fruits in the summer going into autumn, this one flowers in the spring and starts producing fruits in June. I don't spray the trees so when I pick these apples (either from the tree or whole ones that are dropped to the ground) I always have to cut them open and cut away the not-so-good stuff.

As a friend of mine once said, the only thing worse than biting into an apple and finding a worm is finding half a worm.

Like birds and people, trees want to survive and perpetuate the species. To do that, the trees fruit. The tree draws insects with flowers. When apples form from the pollinated flower, other insects burrow into them, which in turn draws the birds. In summer, squirrels will climb into the tree to take an apple for the sweet moisture. What they drop will be eaten by deer unless I get to them first.

The seeds from all this eaten fruit will be, to be polite, disseminated all over the place.

Many apple varieties aren't grown from seed but from grafts. That doesn't stop the plant from flowering and fruiting.

Apple from my tree (Margo D. Beller)

This particular apple tree's fruits are sweet and, if allowed to fully ripen, grow to be medium sized and red. I showed one to the head of a local farm market and he said it was a macintosh variety, although not like the type you can buy in grocers.

I rarely get apples fully sized and red because the squirrels start going after them when they are yellow and big enough for them to take a bite. 

When MH and I bought the property decades ago, there were five apple trees, a blueberry bush and a cherry tree.

The cherry tree died of rot and was removed. The blueberry bush had to be removed when we had foundation work done on the house. The smallest of the five apple trees was literally rubbed to death by bucks sharpening their antlers, scraping off all the protective bark. Of the remaining apples trees, we removed one because it got so big we could not get at the fruit until it hit the ground with a splat, at which time the deer would get it.

Two more trees, whose apples were yellow-green, hard and not particularly sweet, were removed because they were too prolific and there was no way I could deal with all those apples drawing the deer, which pooped all over the yard. The blue spruce and the dogwood we put in as replacements don't interest the deer but they do provide shelter for birds.

We now have the one apple and that is still a challenge. For one thing, there's the wren box hanging from one branch. The young growing too big to allow their parents inside to feed them seems to coincide with when the apples start getting large enough to interest the squirrels. The constant visits stress the parent wrens.

It is no surprise that the parents are very eager to get their brood out of the box and flying elsewhere just around the time I start picking apples. I rarely see a second wren family at the box because of all the activity.

Usually in late June or early July I go out in the early morning and pick up all the apples either dropped by the squirrels or by the tree. It takes a lot of energy to produce an apple so the sooner the tree can drop the fruit the better, particularly when hot summers and low rain can weaken the tree. Self-preservation rules.

I throw any chewed apples into a corner or the yard and take the whole ones inside for later processing into sauce. Squirrels and birds are messy eaters, and unless I clean up there would be much more deer mess under the tree than there already is.

Unlike the two trees that were prolific each year, with this tree I'm not always assured of a large crop. Several years ago we had the tree pruned. The following spring, it flowered prolifically and produced a bumper crop to make up for what it lost in the pruning. Quarts of apple sauce for the freezer to last me into the winter months.

House wren box in apple tree (Margo D. Beller)

This spring, however, either because of last year's bounty or the relatively mild winter or the lack of rain or the increase in mad-made pollution, there were few flowers. Few flowers = few fruit. I've managed to get a few apples here and there, not enough for sauce but enough to put into pancakes. I went outside on a Tuesday and picked one relatively large apple just so the squirrels didn't get it.

The next day, I discovered an empty wren box and an empty tree.

While the lack of apples means less work for me, it creates some unintended consequences.

Deer that were expecting apples look for other sources of food - such as what bits of flowers and plants they can get at through my deer netting. Squirrels that used apples as a source of moisture are now hitting the water dishes I have out for the birds. Birds that were using the apples for moisture or to pick off the insects now have to find another food source.

However, there is the chance a second house wren will discover the box, start singing his territorial song and draw a mate to create a second brood. That would more than make up for the loss of apples.

His Eye Is on the Sparrow (Mine, too)

I am only a sparrow amongst a great flock of sparrows.

-- Evita Peron

When you put out feeders, as I do, you can't pick and choose which birds come to eat the food. (Or bear, for that matter.)

There are many birds I have enjoyed at the feeders, resident birds and colorful migrants such as the rose-breasted grosbeak.

Rosebreasted grosbeak (Margo D. Beller)

But there are many I do not enjoy. And this year my backyard has turned into an ecological disaster because of an overabundance of house sparrows. The unusually warm weather for December has not helped.

House sparrows are everywhere. They are common as dirt. You see them in the cities, frequently dull with soot. They make their nests in any opening they can find -- awnings, hinges, street lights, tiny spaces around window air conditions. They are just as active in the suburbs, breeding prodigiously.

House sparrows aren't even true sparrows. They are related to the weaverbird of Asia and Africa, not native to the United States. They likely hitched rides with vessels coming to the New World from the old and, like the starlings, found the new land to their liking and bred enough to take over.

These chunky, gray and brown birds have no song but you'd know their calls, the "cheep cheep" coming from bushes. They are very opportunistic eaters, grabbing bread if they can't find insects or seeds, preferably small seed such as millet. But if they find sunflower seeds -- such as what I put out -- they will sit and crunch it up in those large bills.

Or maybe I presume you know what a house sparrow looks like. They are so common as to be ignored by most people. When I try to remember what kinds of birds I saw growing up in Brooklyn, long before I became interested enough to go out in the field to really see birds, I could remember "sparrows" -- meaning house sparrows.

My old, open, house-shaped feeder -- the only one that will accommodate a big bird such as a cardinal or jay -- provides easy access to the seeds, which is why these pests prefer to eat there, only moving to a second feeder that is harder for them to get into -- a tube feeder surrounded by a cage -- when there are too many of them at the house feeder.

When I put out the feeders, the birds are hanging around in the bushes, giving the occasional "cheep," waiting for another bird -- a titmouse, a chickadee -- to come to the feeder first and take a seed. That's when the sparrows consider it safe and hit the feeder in such numbers they will spend as much time fighting each other as eating, blocking access to other birds and generally making such a mess the squirrels sit below and wait for the droppings.

This is the point when I come out on the enclosed porch and stand by the window. The birds retreat to the bushes. If I stand long enough they fly to bushes at the edge of the property. Even when I go outside and walk to the edge, the sparrows never go far. They are not going to leave a rare, easy food source.

Cardinal pair (Margo D. Beller)

Hence my problem.

I used to have a neighbor who had a feeder and filled it with cheap seed, mainly millet. She'd feed the birds all year long, even when she didn't have to because of the surfeit of insects. A few sparrows came and soon there was a large family. The neighbor moved elsewhere. The new homeowner used the feeder for a year but since it has been empty.

The house sparrows were happy to hang around and multiply. I ignored all this until I put out the feeders this fall.

Thanks to all the house sparrows now in attendance, the number of cardinals coming to the house feeder is way down. Cardinals are big birds but they are skittish. They will fly off when they feel threatened, unless conditions are so dire (or another cardinal is on the feeder) they fight to stay. The eastern blue jay is another big bird, but being of the same family as the American crow, it is feisty and doesn't care what is in the feeder when it flies in.

The chickadees, titmice and even the white-breasted nuthatch will fly to the caged feeder if the house feeder is besieged, or will wait for me to scare off the house sparrows, at which point they quickly fly in to grab seed and go. They don't mind my standing at the window. They have learned I mean them no harm. They are very smart.

But so are house sparrows, I'll give them that. The ones coming to my feeder have learned to grab and go like the other birds. They've learned when they sit and eat in the feeder I am going to come out on the porch. They've even learned the sound of the door opening, and they can see so well a mere movement sends them flying.

As I said, these are common birds, in all senses of the word. People have used house sparrows for metaphors because they are so lowly and common. The idea is, you can never be too lowly or common to be ignored. Here are some instances.

The old TV show "Baretta" had a theme song, "Eye on the Sparrow," sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.

A gospel hymn with the same title -- recorded by a number of people including, in her last movie role, Whitney Houston, says, "I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free/For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."

Evita Peron -- the real-life "Evita," wife of Argentina's dictator Juan Peron and quoted at the top -- used the sparrow to downplay her great power and appeal to the masses as one of them, a lowly sparrow.

Meanwhile, the British scienctist, J.B.S. Haldane reportedly quipped, when asked to reflect on what science had taught him about the mind of God, that “God is incredibly fond of beetles.”

He could've said house sparrows, too.