New Yard Bird--Fox Sparrow

It has been way too cold for me to go outside for anything but the mail. I've been watching birds the last couple of days by peering over my computer screen (sometimes the cat sitting on a shelf behind it) to the feeders we've placed in the backyard. Right now we have a thistle feeder, a seed feeder, and a seed cake which is a big squirrel magnet. Squirrel baffles don't. The squirrels are seemingly desperate since, according to the NY Times, the acorn crop this year was very low. I've actually started to feel sorry for the little critters and have left peanuts and acorns I've gathered from other spots on the ground (stealing from their friends down the road, I know), hoping it will also distract them from the seed cake--which works if you have an inexhaustible supply of peanuts and acorns. (For pictures of acrobatic squirrels on the seed cake, see Shari's blog: All Me All the Time)

Photo: Shari Zirlin

However, the squirrels do occasionally hop off the metal cage, leaving it free for the chickadees and titmice to peck away at. This morning I was very surprised to find a Carolina Wren poking away at the cake. I don't think of wrens as feeder birds, but it's cold and bugless right now.

The real surprise came when I called Shari to see the wren. She spotted a brown sparrow on the ground and I said, without looking, that it was probably a White-throated Sparrow, which we have but not in the numbers I would have expected. But it pays to look, because the bird was instead a fine looking Fox Sparrow, our first one here and always a good winter bird to see.

Photos: Shari Zirlin

Fox Sparrow was one of the 3 birds on my winter wish list--the other 2 are Pine Siskin and Red-breasted Nuthatch. Shari is hoping for crossbills and redpolls, but I think those are extremely unlikely. Even siskins seem improbable according to eBird research I've done. But that's what's great about birds--they have wings and can wind up anywhere. Right now there's a Common Chaffinch in Hunterdon County--we've seen them--in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris!
Little list for the day.
9 species
Mourning Dove  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Carolina Chickadee  4
Tufted Titmouse  2
Carolina Wren  1    
Fox Sparrow  1   
White-throated Sparrow  2
Dark-eyed Junco  4
American Goldfinch  3