Harbringer of spring

 Not a fancy bird, but the chipping sparrows show up in the early spring about the same time as the tree sparrows leave.



Rondeau Provinciaal Park, Ontario, Canada, April 9, 2024.

Spizella passerina. 

The early naturalists had a gift for description you just don’t see anymore. In 1929, Edward Forbush called the Chipping Sparrow “the little brown-capped pensioner of the dooryard and lawn, that comes about farmhouse doors to glean crumbs shaken from the tablecloth by thrifty housewives."

source -allaboutbirds-org

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