One of my favorite sights is the imprint of bird feet in a light snow. It reminds me of feather stitching. I grew up surrounded by a love of birds. It started when I little, and my older brother came home with a standard third grade assignment: build a bird feeder out a milk carton and see how many common birds you can identify over the next month. One feeder led to two led to several dozen by now. My family was never the same. I had the same project a year later and by then there were multiple feeding stations, binoculars and birding books about the house. My mother acquired parakeets, cockatiels, and canaries which she bred and raised for many years. One day, my dad came home from a client's house and declared we would be getting pheasants. Our old swing set was converted into a coop and viola, two varieties of fancy pheasants took up residence. People used to ask me, "Why do you have pheasants?" and I'd reply, "No reason at all, we just like birds."
It is true to this day and has been passed on to the next generation.
My Sophia will sit in the snow for hours covered with bird seed waiting for a chickadee to land on her hand and our family's affection for Mr.T, our bantam rooster, and Brown Hen and Creamy, the two banty hens, borders on an obsession. Our first building project at the farm was to put up the bird feeder tree. We like birds.
And we are not alone. Matthew 10:29 says, "Aren’t two sparrows sold for only a penny? But not one of them falls to the ground outside your Father’s care." So God is a "bird-watcher" too, and He knows each one by name. Jesus' point is that we are more precious than birds and so can rest assured that our lives are just as much in God's hands as the insignificant sparrow, but I think it also testifies to the truth that God cares about it all, every bird, every tree, each day. They are His, what an assurance of His care and prescence.