November 8 2019. Downtown Burlington, ON. No doubt experiences with frost vary widely. Where we live we get touches of hoar-frost in mid-October, just a light touch and most tender plants scrape by. As the month wears on, the overnight cold visits us more often, but usually only as a touch of frost. Last night the touch turned to a smack, enough that I’m glad I drained garden hoses, enough that several trees within sight are dropping leaves in a steady, tumbling rain.
Warm indoors, I was looking at our outdoor thermometer, the falling leaves and reflecting on seasonal changes when a subtly different looking bird flew to our nearly naked Alternate-leaved Dogwood, I could see it was a White–crowned Sparrow, not an everyday sort of sparrow, but one I always enjoy when I find it. It eyed the seedy debris below our bird feeder and flew down to feed.
I’ve taken to filling the feeder every few days even though it’s usually empty within 24 hours. I fill from a heavy bag of sunflower, safflower and millet mix that I bought knowing nothing would go to waste. I suppose it depends what you mean by waste, because House Sparrows promptly move in to pick out the best bits and flick the rest to the ground below. But that spillage provides several days of clean-up for Dark-eyed Juncos, Mourning Doves and Black Squirrels. The White-crowned Sparrow was nervous but fed briefly, hugging the more sheltered margins as it could and, within a few minutes, left. It is probably a migrant on its way from northern Ontario or Quebec to a warmer wintering spot a bit south of us, anywhere from Ohio or Pennsylvania to central Mexico.
White-crowned Sparrows are handsome little creatures, close cousins to the far more common White-throated Sparrow. Always worth trying to get a photo of and so far, today, My Bird of the Day. Here it is above – and others below.
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