Spring Comes on Thursday

By astronomical reckoning, spring will arrive this Thursday, March 20. Meteorologists already started spring on March 1. For me, it begins the first time I hear this bird sing. It's a white-throated sparrow. I heard one singing this morning! Click on this sentence for a recording on the Cornell Lab or Ornithology website.  Let the spring begin!

 

White-throated Sparrow

 

White-throated sparrows are singing in my neighborhood. Their song is a loud, clear, attention-getting whistle that stands out among the other sounds of spring. Birdwatchers think the song’s phrases sound like “Po-or Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody.” Or “My sweet Canada Canada Canada.” Click on this sentence to hear the sparrow sing. Yay, spring!

The Sound of Spring

 

Spring really begins for me when I hear this bird sing, and that’s happening right now! White-throated sparrows are ready to breed and brightly-colored males like the one above are singing to attract mates. The song is an attention-getting series of clear whistled notes that you may have heard lately, too. Click on this sentence for a nice You-Tube video performance. Birdwatchers use this mnemonic to help remember the rhythm of the syllables in the white-throated sparrows's song: Old Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody.

Spring Song

The white-throated sparrows that have quietly spent the winter scratching in the underbrush are now bright faced and singing for spring. Click to enlarge.

    Birdwatchers make mnemonics to help them remember bird songs, mnemonics that mimic the cadence and count the syllables of bird songs. Black-capped chickadees seem to say chickadee-dee-dee chickadee-dee-dee. Brown thrashers sound like they are saying drop it, drop it, pick it up, pick it up. And chestnut-sided warblers politely repeat pleased pleased pleased to meet cha! 

 
    White-throated sparrows sing something that sounds like Po-or Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody, or O-old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody. North of the U.S. border I’ver heard people  say it’s more like Oh sweet Canada Canada Canada. The song is a loud, clear, attention-getting whistle that stands out among the other sounds of spring: a long note, a lower note, a third even lower note repeated in two or three sets of three.

 
    People who know I’m a birdwatcher sometimes whistle this song to me in spring, wondering what they’ve heard. Rachel Maddow once recorded it on her Blackberry while walking in the woods and played it on her news show, seeking identification. It is that kind of sound. 

    This sentence links to a Cornell Lab of Ornithology recording of a white-throated sparrow singing – click to hear the song. 

 

Not quite as flashy at other times of the year, but still cool.

A White-throated Sparrow in the Winter

 

We had a great snowstorm this week. Click to enlarge.

I took a walk a few days later. Most of the ground was still covered with snow, except for spots like this shielded area under an evergreen shrub. A white-throated sparrow was foraging for food there. It was scratching with both feet while taking little hops backwards to turn over leaves and stir up insects or seeds. 

Can you see the sparrow? I was attracted by the activity and might not have seen the brown bird in the dark shadows.

There. It's a pretty little sparrow with a white throat and stripe over its eye and a patch of yellow between the eye and beak. Even when the ground is totally snow covered, it can find seeds and dry fruit that are still on plants. They visit bird feeders, too. 

Although white-throated sparrows seem inconspicuous right now, just look at this male from a few years ago in his bright spring breeding plumage. It won't be long.

Spring Song

Do you have a special thing that tells you spring is really here? I do, and the pretty white-throated sparrow above is it. It's not so much seeing one, because they are around my region in winter, it's the song they sing in spring.  Click to enlarge.

Birdwatchers remember the song with a phrase that mimics its cadence and syllable count: Po-or Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody...   Po-or Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody...

The song is a loud, clear, attention-getting whistle that stands out among the other sounds of spring. I listen for it every year. One night this week I slept with a bedroom window open for the first time in a long while. I woke up to a sunny day and a white-throated sparrow singing nearby. Click on this sentence to hear the sparrow sing.  Yay, it's spring!

The First Real Day of Spring

One of Brooklyn's white-throated sparrows, Zonotrichia albicollis.  Click to enlarge. 

One thing signals the start of spring to me -- when the white-throated sparrows start to sing. So, according to me, spring started this past Wednesday when I heard the first one right outside my window. Today they were singing all over Brooklyn.

The song is distinctive and once you know what it is you will easily pick it out above the city noise. Click here to see and listen to some white-throats singing. 

Sunday Breakfast

I scatter seeds on my porch in Brooklyn Heights for the birds when the weather gets cold. This morning I had lots of visitors. Click on the photos to enlarge.

House sparrows, Passer domesticus, are always the first to arrive. They like seeds and breadcrumbs.  They usually come in a group. 

The cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, eats seeds, nuts, and fruit. A male/female pair come together, and he usually comes out from cover first. She is less trusting and flies away if she sees me watching. They can open peanut shells, and often nibble some grapes and then fly off with one big peanut each to peel and eat in a more private place. 

I can always tell when the blue jays arrive from their loud calls of Jay! Jay! Jay! The jays, Cyanocitta cristata, target whole peanuts in the shell, carrying them off, one by one, until they have collected them all. They find a good spot and bury them for later. 

White-throated sparrows, Zonotrichia albicollis, mainly breed in Canada and then migrate south to spend the winter in the eastern and southern states, west coast, and northern South America -- and in my garden. They show up on the porch when I put out seeds, seeming mainly to be interested in the smaller ones, like millet. 

Pigeons, Columba livia, almost never come to the garden, but they seem to know immediately whenever there are seeds on my porch. Ditto breadcrumbs, another of their favorites. 

White-throated Sparrows

The white-throated sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis.

White-throated sparrows are back and they love black oil sunflower seeds! Three of them have been coming to my Brooklyn porch for breakfast all week.

Most white-throated sparrows spend the summer breeding season in Canada. Then they migrate south to spend the winter in the eastern and southern states, on the west coast, and in northern South America.

I usually hear white-throated sparrows rustling in the leaves before I see them. They forage for insects and seeds in brush piles and under bushes. They flick their heads to toss leaves aside. They use both feet to scratch backward and then jump on anything they scare up. They spend a lot of time on the ground, hopping instead of walking.

Their habitat is usually described as woods and forest edges, but they like parks too and they are at home in extreme urban landscapes like New York City where they forage side by side with house sparrows. The white-throated sparrow is brown above and grey below, like a house sparrow, but it is distinguished by a striped head, a yellow spot between the eye and the bill, and, of course, a white throat.

White-throated sparrows come in two genetically determined color varieties. One has bold white markings and the other has muted tan stripes. The color forms are maintained by a complicated set of mating preferences. Males prefer white striped females but females prefer tan striped males. White striped birds are more aggressive, so white striped females may have a competitive edge in pairing with  sexy tan striped males. The gene pool refills with both kinds.