Ice Storms

The ice storm that hit during the third week of February threw everything off-kilter for a while.  The ground was crunchy (and, later, slick) with a layer of ice, the roads were impassable, tree limbs sagged, and being outdoors was tolerable for only a few minutes at a time.  I had taken down the bird feeders in the backyard, mainly because I was concerned about freezing rain coating them and clogging up their openings.  If the ice rendered them unusable for the birds, then there would be no point in keeping them up.  However, my mom and I did put birdseed inside the rotting stump (mainly for the benefit of the tree-dwelling birds) and on the frozen ground (for the shrub- and ground-dwellers).  This turned out to be a reasonable solution, and it meant that I didn’t have to worry about continually scraping ice off the tube feeders.

Obviously, the storm system was highly unusual for this region, so it’s probably fair to say that it caused most of the birds and other wildlife to struggle.  Most of the time, birds don’t actually need the food that we put out for them; we feed birds because of the enjoyment we get from watching their activity.  During extreme weather events, however, feeding can sometimes help.  Seed-eating birds, such as sparrows and finches, may have a hard time finding food after a storm buries ground vegetation under a sheet of ice.  

Insectivorous birds may have it even worse.  Freezing weather kills most of their prey, making it difficult for them to find anything to eat.  I was reminded of this fact just a few days into the freezing weather event, when an Eastern Phoebe turned up dead on our front porch.  The bird seemed to be extremely thin, with its keel—the part of the sternum to which the flight muscles attach—very bony and prominent, which makes me suspect that it starved to death.  An American Robin was found on the driveway a couple of days later, dead for the same reason, I would guess.  I stored these birds in the freezer until I could give them to the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture at Mississippi State University.  They’re going to be part of the ornithology collection.

The deceased Eastern Phoebe

 

The American Robin specimen -- after I'd bagged it for the freezer

Although some omnivorous and insectivorous birds will come to feeders for mealworms, I didn't have any of those available, and phoebes tend to feed more on flying insects than on crawling ones, anyway.  I doubt that anything I could have done would have prevented the deaths of the phoebe and the robin.  Other birds, however, seemed to benefit from the easy pickings in the backyard.  The cold weather drew out many small groups of birds, including some species that I don't see very frequently in this area.  For example, the makeshift feeding station attracted at least fifteen Fox Sparrows.  On normal days, I'm lucky if I see one or two of these large, rust-colored sparrows in the neighborhood.  Some of the sparrows even serenaded us with snippets of their songs.

Fox Sparrows foraging with White-throated Sparrows

Like this Fox Sparrow, most of the songbirds fluffed their feathers out in order to stay warm!

A couple of Rusty Blackbirds also showed up.  Although I occasionally see larger flocks of this species, it isn't an especially common bird around here, either.

Rusty Blackbirds -- with a Fox Sparrow in the background

In the fields between the creek and the end of the driveway, a few Killdeer scavenged for whatever dead insects they could find in the icy grass.  I see Killdeer flying over the neighborhood on a semi-regular basis, but it's less typical of them to forage in these fields.  I think that the grass is usually too high for them.

Killdeer in the field

 

The other species were more common birds for this area, but they were still enjoyable to watch.  Here are some photos of the avian activity in our yard:

Perhaps surprisingly, Brown Thrashers came to eat the seed.

 

American Goldfinches fed on the ground.

A female Eastern Towhee showed up at one point.

White-throated Sparrows (front) were fairly numerous, but I saw only one Song Sparrow (back).

 

Northern Cardinals always put in appearances, even during foul weather.

"Snowbird" is actually a nickname for the Dark-eyed Junco.

Cardinals and juncos used the stump feeder.

 

And Purple Finches did, too.

Although this event is definitely not one that I was eager to experience, I think it provided some interesting perspective—enabling me to think about ecosystems and bird communities in ways that I hadn't considered before.  I'm sure that the birds appreciate the much warmer temperatures that have followed this historic event, though!

Fox Sparrow seemingly enjoying the sun!

Sparrows!

It’s that time of year again: sparrow season!  The subtleties of plumage and behavior in the various sparrow species make them a lot of fun to study, as most birders will affirm.  Because North America is rich in sparrows, I’m going to limit my focus mainly to the common sparrows of the Southeast.  Since I’ve also spent a lot of time in northwestern Arkansas, I’ll throw in a few species from that region, as well.  Who knows?  Some of them might show up in your backyard.

Probably the most abundant sparrow in woods and thickets in southeastern North America right now is the White-throated Sparrow.  Even when you can’t see these birds, you can usually find them by listening for their sputtering pink! calls.  They also sing quite frequently on the wintering grounds, and the song is a plaintive, whistled melody that is very easy to learn (a couple of helpful mnemonics are “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” and “Oh, sweet Canada, Canada, Canada”).  Some White-throated Sparrows have white “eyebrow” and crown stripes as well as white throats, while others are drabber, with buff-colored stripes.  

White-throated Sparrow

The White-throated Sparrow has a slightly larger cousin, the White-crowned Sparrow, which also has bold stripes on the head.  While White-crowned Sparrows are apparently very common in the winter months in many regions of the continent, they seem to be scarce where I live; I have seen them at only a handful of locations in Mississippi.  When I lived in Arkansas, however, I observed them regularly, usually from October to early May.  They even showed up at my feeders.  In my experience, you might have good luck searching for White-crowneds in habitats that are slightly more open and brushy than the usual places where you find White-throated Sparrows.  

White-crowned Sparrow

If the habitat is really open, as in fields and pastureland, you will likely find Savannah Sparrows.  These are small, short-tailed, brown-streaked sparrows with yellow lores (that is, the areas just in front of the eyes).  These birds have high-pitched, insect-like calls and usually forage in loose flocks.

Savannah Sparrow (perched in willows, yes, but in a marshy field)

The Chipping Sparrow and the Field Sparrow are other common sparrows of more open types of habitats.  The Chipping Sparrow is numerous throughout the year in the Southeast, while the Field Sparrow is a bit harder to find.  However, like the Chipping Sparrow, it commonly breeds in southeastern North America.  The bouncing, trilling song of the Field Sparrow is one of my favorite sounds to hear in old fields and brushy cedar groves in the summer.  The Chipping Sparrow’s dry, almost mechanical-sounding song, on the other hand, may not be as aurally pleasing, but hearing it always reminds me of the open pine woodlands where the species usually nests.

Chipping Sparrow being banded

Field Sparrow

As far as plumage goes, both Chipping and Field Sparrows have plain underparts, prominent wing bars, and long tails.  Field Sparrows’ outer tail feathers are white—a useful field mark to remember when the birds are flitting away from you.  The Field Sparrow’s white eye ring and pink bill are distinctive year-round, while the Chipping Sparrow becomes somewhat drabber after molting into winter plumage—although it does retain its eye-line and crown. 

Song Sparrows commonly occur throughout most of the United States during the colder months.  In many regions, they are year-round residents.  In Mississippi, however, they are gone by mid-spring, even though the males will occasionally sing their territorial songs in the winter.  I finally heard actual breeding Song Sparrows—not just the out-of-season songs—in northern Alabama and Georgia this year, which was a treat.  Away from Song Sparrow breeding territories, you’re far more likely to hear the nasal, raspy call that the birds use for contacts and alarms.  The Song Sparrow is pretty distinctive in appearance, being fairly large and long-tailed.  It has brown streaks on its breast and sides, and a very prominent central breast spot.

Song Sparrow

All that said, the Song Sparrow may be confused with the Lincoln’s Sparrow in places where both species are common.  In my part of the southeastern U.S., Lincoln’s Sparrows are quite rare during the winter.  However, when I lived in northwestern Arkansas, I saw many of them.  They’re smaller than Song Sparrows, with shorter tails and more grayish coloration on their heads.  If Song Sparrows look as though their jagged breast markings were drawn with crayons, then Lincoln’s Sparrows look like they’ve been finely penciled. 

Lincoln's Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrows are closely related to the more abundant Swamp Sparrows, which—true to their name—love skulking in marshes, wetlands, and moist thickets.  Unlike Song and Lincoln’s Sparrows, Swamp Sparrows lack bold underpart markings; the patterns on their breasts and bellies are more like smudgy watercolor.  Their reddish wings and gray-and-brown heads make them easy to recognize, and their chip calls are louder and more emphatic than those of most other sparrows.  

Swamp Sparrow -- note gray head and reddish wings

Swamp Sparrow underpart view

The Fox Sparrow is another of the relatively common wintering sparrows.  As its name suggests, it—or, at least, its eastern form—is patterned with bright rufous streaks and stripes.  In western North America, there are other color forms in addition to the “red” one.  To be honest, I don’t see these large and flashy sparrows particularly often where I live.  My tip for finding them is to check in thickets of berry-producing shrubs and vines in wooded areas.  When I find Fox Sparrows, they are usually single or in very small groups.  Keep alert for their loud smack! calls.  

Fox Sparrow -- note yellow bill, gray on head, and extensive rufous coloration.

Now let’s look at a sparrow that isn’t brown, but slate-gray and white.  The Dark-eyed Junco is a common wintering species in thickets and open woods all over the U.S.  If you have bird feeders, you may see it feeding in small flocks on the ground.  When startled, the birds give trilling flight calls and flash their white outer tail feathers.

Dark-eyed Junco

For good measure, here are some other sparrow species that I saw when I lived in Arkansas.  Unlike the previous birds, all of these are very rare in Mississippi.  My time spent observing them out-of-state will hopefully come in handy, though, if they ever show up around my current birding spots!

One of my favorites, mainly for its flashiness, is the Harris’s Sparrow.  This is an enormous sparrow, even bigger than Fox Sparrows, and its bold black crown and “beard,” along with the salmon-pink bill, draw the eye.  I spotted this particular Harris’s from my apartment window while I was working at my desk one day in late April.  You can tell that it is in breeding plumage rather than winter plumage, since its head is pale gray instead of buff-colored.  This was an interesting day for migratory birds, actually; a Rose-breasted Grosbeak landed in the thicket shortly after I snapped pictures of the sparrow.  Harris’s Sparrows are mainly western birds and occur very rarely in Mississippi.

Harris's Sparrow

The bird in the photo below appeared, along with a companion that I didn’t manage to photograph, in the woods near my apartment on a warm day in May.  Although the identification of these birds was quite evident to me—despite the fact that I hadn’t seen this species before—  I thought that, in looks and behavior, these Clay-colored Sparrows were uncannily similar to Chipping Sparrows—but also just different enough that they stood out from the other birdlife in the area.  While Clay-colored Sparrows pass through Arkansas (and much of central North America) during migration, relatively few of them travel through Mississippi. 

Clay-colored Sparrow

An even more unusual species for Mississippi is the American Tree Sparrow.  American Tree Sparrows showed up in my “yard” in moderate numbers during a snowy winter in Arkansas.  Like Chipping Sparrows, they have very plain and pale breasts—at least, for the most part: one of the key field marks of the American Tree Sparrow is a single dark spot in the center of the breast.  This species is commonly found farther north than the area where I currently live, but there have been sightings in more southerly regions.  At any rate, I’m glad that I have had the chance to see it.

American Tree Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos

Although sparrows can sometimes be confusing to sort out in the field, the key is to pay close attention to their plumage, behavior, and habitat.  Familiarizing yourself with the common species in your area will also help you to detect rare and unusual species more quickly.  Happy sparrow-watching!