Sing Me A Song

The Song Sparrow, a native species appears to be a plain, little brown bird. But, they are more than their boring appearance. Yesterday, a bird landed on the fence near the roses in my little garden. It was very nondescript. But, then it tilted its tiny head backwards and produced this lovely, melodic song. I tried to get a picture, but it flew to the ground, nabbed a seed, and flitted off. Today, I was SUPER fortunate to catch it, with what I suspect is its mate. They were on the fence by the Bluebird house, so I had my camera angled right.

I suspect these birds are a mated pair, as they were spending a lot of time flitting around together. The bluebirds were feeding their chick (which are inside the birch-look nest box in the photo above), but didn’t seem terribly upset that the sparrows were in their turf. If there were House Sparrows, we would have seen some aggressive “chasing off” behavior, as House Sparrows (which are not native) compete with the Bluebirds, and can even kill their chicks.The Bluebirds would never have tolerated them so close to their nest, especially since there are chicks inside.