Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

February 9th, 2015. Song Sparrows winter in this area. We don’t see them very often but I spotted four of them on a fence when I was riding a few weeks ago. Two of them were cheeky enough to stay on the fence when I drew level with them.

I couldn’t resist the temptation to try to get a couple of photographs in spite of them being some distance away.

Photoshop allows us to do some sneaky things with photos and I was able to ‘zoom’ in on them to confirm my identification. 

We don’t see Song Sparrows around the house too much. They tend to stay at the periphery of the feeder area. They sneak in at the edges and hunt quietly in the undergrowth, in our case, some Japanese Honeysuckle vines. They are quite shy and fly away at the slightest noise.

So I was surprised to see one hunting in the open close to one of the feeders a few days ago. 

That made me go back and look at photos I took last winter. I found several more...

that show off this attractive bird. 

The Song Sparrow is larger than the Chipping Sparrow and about the same size as the White-throated Sparrow which also winters in this area and which we see quite frequently. I do wish that these sparrows bred in this area that that we’d be able to enjoy them year-round.