Current Topic: Sparrows

Around the Neighborhood in Early Spring

It took a while, but spring is finally here — though it still seems to be fighting with winter. I knew that the nice weekend we had in early March was just a folly, but I did not think that it would be this tough! After some nice weather the birds started to move, only to be stopped by more bad weather. Migration is slow, but the birds are slowly trickling in. Earlier this week, I wrote about my birding trips that involved migrating birds and fallout. Today I want to share some of my local year-round residents and new arrivals.

Sparrows

The Song Sparrows are filling the air with the variety of their tunes!

Song Sparrow

Juncos have been hanging around in full force. I get over 20 at a time under my feeders. I am glad they they do not eat from the feeders otherwise they would clean me out! I had multiple incidents where over 30 Juncos would fly from one single area. They are everywhere!

Dark-eyed Juncos

I enjoyed the songs of Fox Sparrows for the first time. They hung around for over two weeks and I had up to six at a time near my creek when they flew right at.

One of many Fox Sparrows who passed through

Finches

I still have some Pine Siskins hanging around at the feeders with the Goldfinches (who, by the way are starting to look very gold!).

Pine Siskin

The lingering Redpolls wish they moved on sooner. I suppose they learned the hard way that staying south did not mean sunshine and warm weather.

Common Redpoll in a rain storm

My newest feeder-bird arrival is the Purple Finch. I started with just one for about a week and yesterday I had three pairs.

Purple Finch

Waterfowl

Every walk at the creek produces at least one Common Merganser. I was able to get pretty close to them at times just by staying still near the edge of the woods.

Male Common Merganser

Female Common Merganser

For the first time, I had Geese across the street from me. I think the creek was too high and rough for them so they wandered a little bit in search for food.

Canada Geese across the street

Woodpeckers

The Pileated Woodpeckers seem to be a bit less shy then usual when they are looking for insects.

Pileated Woodpecker

Since I had no tripod I layed down on the ground across from him and used a stump and my knees to keep the camera steady so that I could shoot this video

I’m pretty sure that I found the nesting cavity for my local Red-bellied Woodpeckers. They are hanging around this tree and especially this cavity an awful lot!

Red-bellied Woodpecker at possible Nest

Other local birds

The air is also full of the loud songs of my Carolina Wrens.

Singing Carolina Wren

Brown Creepers are everywhere.

Brown Creeper

And last week marked the return of my favorite flycatcher, the Phoebe.

Eastern Phoebe

This past weekend I also had a long-awaited yard bird: while standing in my driveway talking to a friend an adult Bald Eagle flew low following along the creek. This happened not ten minutes after my friend and I were talking about having Eagles as yard birds. Talking about being at the right place at the right time!

Backyard Birds: Sparrows

Sparrows are a family of bird that we are all familiar with. In North America, we can blame the non-native Eurasian Sparrow who is a very widespread and invasive bird.

House Sparrow, the Non-Sparrow

This Sparrow is not, in fact, related to our Sparrows. Ours are more related to old world buntings. I am lucky to only have a few visitors every now and then rather than larger numbers that often raid feeders. This invasive bird seems to prefer my neighbors feeders instead!

Now on to the true American Sparrows. You may think that they are just another “little brown job,” but look closely and see that they can be very unique and beautiful. I get three yeah-round residents, the Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow and Dark-eyed Junco.

Song Sparrow in the winter

Song Sparrow in the spring

White-throated Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow, tan morph

Dark-eyed Junco

The numbers increase greatly during migration, but I get a few who stick around throughout the winter. My other winter sparrow is the American Tree Sparrow who I am still trying to get a good photo of.

American Tree Sparrow on my snow-covered deck

During the summer, my feeders are raided with Chipping Sparrows. They are my one summer-only Sparrow that I have actually seen on my yard. The other two summer sparrows are ones that I heard only from my yard, Field Sparrows and Eastern Towhees.

Chipping Sparrow

The Chipping Sparrows typically come in full force once their young fledge! They are the one sparrow that I get to enjoy watching as they feed their young.

Chipping Sparrow Fledgling

Chipping Sparrow adult feeding young

Other young birds have also found their way to my yard. I did not realize that I had breeding Juncos in my woods until I finally saw some young ones during the summer!

Immature Dark-eyed Junco

Dark-eyed Junco Fledgling

I also spotted young White-throated Sparrows foraging around.

Immature White-throated Sparrow

Along with my more usual visitors already mentioned, I get two types of Sparrows who move through during migration only. This White-throated Sparrow was my first one!

White-crowned Sparrow

And my favorite local sparrow seems to visit once per migration season, the Fox Sparrow.

Fox Sparrow during Fall migration

There are other great local sparrow species that I cannot call yard birds due to their need for specific habitat, but maybe one day they will pass through and I can add them to my growing list.