White-throated Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis 

 

 

I'm not sure when I first learned about white-throated sparrows.  It was sometime when I was in college- I remembering seeing one on the grounds of a motor inn in Bar Harbor, Maine sometime after I had purchased the Peterson's Birding By Ear C.D.s  I learned the song of this sparrow before I had knowingly seen the bird.  The whistling "Oh Sam Peabody Peabody" or "Oh Sweet Canada Canada Canada", whichever you prefer, is easy to learn and hard to forget.  So when I saw one singing for the first time from atop a planted blue spruce, I knew exactly what I was looking at.

I've gone on to see many white-throated sparrows both in Ohio and Maine, where I captured this image in early October.  Also residents of the northern coniferous forests like the Pine Siskin, these birds are regular common winter visitors here in central Ohio.  I've been encountering flocks of a dozen or so birds on my daily lunch break walk around the Delaware Wildlife area.  I encounter them most often in thickets and edge habitats.  It's neat to think that there is a chance, all be it minuscule, that I might encounter the same bird in Ohio that I may have photographed during the summer in the woods of Maine.

Tom