Finally a Fox Sparrow

Another gray day – although the occasional drop of rain fell while we were walking….

Where yesterday had been a  ‘bird less’ day – today was the exact opposite.  This stretch of the trail was full of all the bird species you would expect to see scratching about on the ground – Varied Thrush, Spotted Towhee, Song Sparrows and – finally – for the first time this season – a Fox Sparrow.

Here is a lovely ‘rear end’ view -

and here, a slightly out of focus view of him on the ground. (My dog will happily sit and watch large birds like Geese, Swans and even ducks but she finds staring into the bushes looking for little birds just plain boring – she’d had it by this time so I gave up trying to get better pictures)

Fox Sparrows are a larger ‘chunkier’ sparrow with a plain brown back and dark ‘check marks’ on the breast – they tend to stick to the cover of places like blackberry thickets and when they scratch in the leaf litter, they move both feet together at the same time, sort of leaping forwards.

The above is from my files…