The Splendid Sparrows

What a magnificent, birdful morning! Is there a time of year more full of excitement and potential than May? Flowers are beginning to bloom as the trees bud out, tiny unfurling leaves in shades of pale green, pink, and red. On the ground cheerful yellow dandelions and demure violets add color to the recently-greened grass.

White-throated Sparrow

And the birds! The summer residents return from their winter homes and begin to settle along the Greenway: this week, Common Yellowthroat and Gray Catbirds made their first appearance (that I'd seen and heard, at any rate), joining the assorted swallows, Brown Thrasher, Red-winged Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, and other earlier arrivals.

The Yellowthroat's witchetty witchetty song can be heard from the low cells of the Greenway, and a close inspection will see the little warbler with his eponymous throat and black mask singing away from a small branch or twig on a distant shrub. I catch a glimpse of a Towhee's black back coursing low over the grass from one clump of trees to another, disappearing before I could think of the camera.

White-crowned Sparrow

And then there are the sparrow!  Some sparrows, visiting for the winter like the Dark-eyed Junco, have mostly moved on. Other winter sparrows are surging in numbers as they prepare to head north in coming weeks. And then there are the year-round stalwarts, the Song Sparrow and those two European imports, House Sparrows and Eurasian Tree Sparrows.

And just passing through, look-quick-or-you-may-miss them migrants, including today's favorite, the charming Lincoln's Sparrow. The first encounter was with a particularly composed individual at the fence near the water treatment facility; any question of its identity was put to rest by the quotation included in the sparrow guide by William Brewster: it was said to be "too cool-headed and experienced to be subject to the needless and foolish panics which seize upon many of the smaller birds." With its finely-striped breast and spirited, erect crown, it lingered in the open fencing seemingly unconcerned at the toads trilling and the lumbering human passing nearby. Quite a contrast to its more secretive, skulking sparrow cousins that rarely show themselves above the grass!

Though they can be tricky to identify, with their similar brown, streaky plumage and generally humble reputation, sparrows are extraordinarily satisfying to get to know and well worth taking a few minutes to inspect the little bird scratching in the leaf litter or making a brief appearance on an open branch before disappearing into the undergrowth. Look at colors and patterns on their face and head as well as the existence and fineness of streaking on the breast as a couple of initial points of reference to get started.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

Song Sparrow