GOLDFINCH FEATHERS AND EASTER JOY
I read in the news that a bird watcher named Peter Kaestner has recently achieved the nearly impossible task of having identified 10,000 of the International Ornithologist Congress’ 10,770 worldwide bird species. His 10,000th bird sighting was an Orange-Tufted Spiderhunter that he saw near the seaport town of Bislig, Philippines. My grandfather and grandmother were enthusiastic birders too. I keep their well-worn Peterson’s Guide on my bookshelf for purely sentimental reasons. They recorded along the margins of its pages when and where they saw a particular bird. Sometimes, when I see an unusual bird, I pull down their Peterson’s Guide and see if and when or where they might have seen it too.
My ambitions as a bird enthusiast are much more modest than Peter Kaestner’s. My most exotic discovery was an American Woodcock hiding under some shrubs in our yard a few years ago. American Woodcocks may be a declining species in Massachusetts, but they are by no means a rare bird according to the Audubon Society. Jan and I mostly hang our birdfeeders so we can enjoy watching the usual assortment of New England’s backyard winter birds while we sit at our kitchen table for morning coffee.
This week I noticed that the goldfinches are losing their drab olive-green winter feathers. We can see hints of their beautiful, yellow feathers starting to return. Unlike many other birds, goldfinches molt twice a year. In the fall, their yellow feathers give way to a winter’s olive-gray camouflage. While these winter feathers protect them from predators, their bright spring and summer feathers apparently are useful for attracting mating partners. The colorful spring molt is apparently caused by springtime’s longer days and increased sunlight. These feathers come in one by one, giving them a ragged, patchwork appearance for a few weeks until all the olive-gray ones are replaced by bright yellow feathers.
Across the centuries, the goldfinch’s colorful habits have become associated various Christian legends and symbols. Which is why European goldfinches show up in museum collections of medieval religious art. Paintings by Veronese, Tiepolo, and Raphael all include a goldfinch in their paintings of the Madonna and Child. As many as 500 medieval and renaissance paintings by more than 250 artists feature a goldfinch perched on Mary’s fingers or nestled in Jesus’ hands.
The goldfinch’s springtime molt happens around the time of our Easter celebrations. It thus serves as a harbinger of the church’s proclamation that drab death cannot prevail over Christ’s vibrant resurrection. But that’s not the only reason why so many medieval and renaissance painters tuck a goldfinch into their religious paintings. The female goldfinch gathers the most fragile things to build her soft nest: Moss, lichens, and thistledown. Once the nest is finished, she gathers spider silk to attach it to a branch so that not even the most blustery spring winds can blow her nest to the ground. John Clare, the 19th-century English naturalist poet, wrote of the goldfinch:
In early spring its voice is heard
While searching thistles brown and bare; It makes a nest of mosses grey
And lines it round with thistle-down;
Five small pale spotted eggs they lay
In places never far from town.
The goldfinch’s nestbuilding thus becomes a logical symbol for God’s efforts to create for us a strong shelter from life’s storms.
The goldfinch has still another association with the Christian faith. Thistle seeds are its favorite food; and the spiky thistle plant favored by goldfinches came to symbolize Jesus’ crown of thorns. When Jesus was carrying his cross to Calvary, according to medieval legends, the merciful goldfinch fluttered down and plucked a thorn from the painful crown embedded on Jesus’ bleeding brow. Now the European goldfinch, unlike its American cousin, has a tiny red spot on its beak. And this red spot became a sign of divine gratitude for the bird’s lovingkindness in easing Jesus’ pain on his way to the cross.
On these March days when we see goldfinches at our feeders slowly molting into their summer feathers, our imaginations can take us beyond the wonder and beauty of the natural world itself and remind us of larger truths. May we find in these small, golden birds harbingers of Jesus’ overcoming drab death in the bright sunlight of Easter morning. May they remind us– as they have reminded religious painters and artists across the centuries – of the Christian virtue of lovingkindness toward all who suffer from life’s thorns and wounds. And may the flash of their bright, undulating flight deepen our trust in a God who builds soft nesting places out of life’s most fragile materials where we may shelter safely from the blustery, disruptive winds that gust through our lives.
On the Lenten journey with you,
Pastor Thomas