I was reading the paper in the little light-filled den on the southeast corner of our house the other morning when I heard the telltale “whump” of bird hitting glass. I got up to assess the damage and was relieved to see neither chickadee nor titmouse lying lifeless on the floor of the deck. But as I turned away, a flutter of motion caught my eye. Under a little plant stand out at the edge of the deck I saw the small bird flapping a helpless wing. I went out and gently picked it up, easing the other wing out from between two deck planks. Once settled in my palm, though, the little bird just rolled over onto its side, breathing, but, I figured, probably not for long.

And what a pretty thing. No, this wasn’t a chickadee or a titmouse, or a nuthatch or a winter-faded goldfinch—the familiar birds whose gray-black plumage matches the fading year. Here was a bird with a bright yellow, black-streaked breast and a cheery little yellow rump-spot as well. As I freely confess in The Armchair Birder (see “Confusing Fall Warblers”), I’m no warbler expert—largely because they never visit me here in my little piece of woodland. But here came one of the prettiest—a magnolia, if my reading of Peterson is correct—only to crash and break itself on my all-glass deck door.

I turned it right-side-up in my palm, and it seemed to perch there steadily enough, clearly on its feet rather than crumpled on its underside, eyes open, breath still regular. I held it like that for a couple of minutes, then, with other things to tend to, I eased it down onto the deck rail, where it continued to perch. When I checked five minutes later, it was still there. After another five minutes it was gone.

I know there’s every probability that it didn’t make it, that it toppled off the rail and onto the ground underneath the nandina. But we’ve all seen instances of birds being stunned by flying into windows, then recovering after a few minutes and flying away none the worse for the mishap.

So I’m hoping. I’m not checking.

Have you read Providence of a Sparrow: Lessons from a Life Gone to the Birds by Chris Chester? It’s a great book: beautifully written, moving, insightful, funny, and full of wonderful information about birds in general and house sparrows in particular. That’s because the book chronicles the author’s eight-year cohabitation with, at first, one house sparrow (which he rescued as a tiny hatchling) and, eventually, several additional house sparrows, along with a handful of zebra finches and a couple of parakeets. I should emphasize that none of these birds lived in a cage. Chris and his wife Rebecca never saw it coming, but the entire upstairs of their house evolved into an aviary.

So, anyway, I’m reading along, thoroughly enjoying myself, when I suddenly come upon this sentence about Chester’s purchase of his first zebra finches: “Many pet store finches are products of a level of inbreeding that makes our southern states look incest-free.”

Excuse me? Here’s a guy who grew up in Pennsylvania, spent his adult life in Oregon, and, I’m guessing, never set foot as far south as Virginia. But, OK, I read on and get over it. Then I get to this passage, again about sex & finches, and the commotion they make while mating: “If that popular metaphor for the interconnectedness of things known as ‘the butterfly effect’ is correct in pointing out that a butterfly flapping its wings in China affects weather distantly elsewhere, our finches are probably responsible for meteorological upheavals in any number of places. Monsoons in India, twisters in Arkansas wiping out trailer parks.”

Listen. I’m not sensitive. I just want to help. Chester clearly doesn’t realize he’s offending a sizable percentage of the U.S. population. He needs a gentle reprimand. So I Google the guy to see if I can come up with an e-mail address or website, some way to get in touch. Well, what I find out is that Chris Chester is dead. Died in 2007 of an undiagnosed cancer—a cancer that may have been undiagnosed because he was too depressed to seek medical treatment. (A fine account of Chester’s life and death can be found on-line; it appeared in the Oregonian, May 5, 2007, by Inara Verzemnieks and Douglas Perry.)

So let’s forget the reprimand. Instead, here’s another sentence from the book, about the ants that have infested the house: “Now and then I’d see a pair of them in the kitchen moving at a brisk pace as though late for a meeting where they were expected to speak.” Actually, that sentence, with its combination of close observation and great wit, is pretty darn typical of what—despite my own thin skin—I’m happy to admit is an utterly wonderful book.

Providence of a Sparrow. Spread the word.