The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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October 2021
Salish Sea, PacificNorthwest
Winter brings a couple of kinds of sparrows to the PacificNorthwest we don’t see in summer.
One is the Fox sparrow — Passerella iliaca — recognizable to me by their very dark brown coloration and chevron breast spots. From what I’ve read, not all Fox sparrows are like ours; in fact these foxy little birds are so various they’re divided into four different groups based on appearance and geographic range, and genetically into 19 different subspecies!
Fox Sparrows vary greatly across their range.
“Red” Fox Sparrows, widely distributed across the boreal forest of northern North America, are rusty above with some pale gray on the head and rufous splotches on the underparts.
The “Slate-colored” Fox Sparrow of the mountains of the Interior West is small-billed and dull gray above with brownish splotches below.
The range-restricted “Thick-billed” Fox Sparrow of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains looks like a “Slate-colored” Fox Sparrow but has a very large, chunky bill.
“Sooty” Fox Sparrows along the Pacific Coast are very dark brown above. www.allaboutbirds.org/...
Some bird experts expect the Fox sparrow to be split into four distinct species. Our local bird is the Sooty Fox sparrow (group name Unalaschcensis) ( subspecies Passerella iliaca fuliginosa). The other three groups — the Red, the Slate-colored, the Large-billed Fox sparrows — have more red in their plumage, which is where the overall name comes from, their color looking something like a Red Fox, so they say. Our Sootys are somewhat reddish back by their tails.
These birds are foxy in their behavior too. Secretive and clever, they hang out in the underbrush, busily scratching for seeds and insects, flipping and tossing leaves, and mostly hidden except for their movement. Their coloring matches the fallen winter foliage and general disarray of the season.
Between being in the woods, foraging lightning quick in fallen leaves, not to mention the overcast fall day’s darkness, it was difficult to get any pictures of them!
A video clip gives you an idea why it was so hard to get a still photo of these guys.
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Fox sparrows arrive in October and will stick around until April around here.
Same with the Golden-crowned sparrows. These are also ground feeders but much more sociable and they live out in open thickets as well as the woods. They’re also singing a little right now, fragments. Their song is quite beautiful, one of my favorites. I’ve read they have strong site fidelity, so it’s likely they are the same birds who were here last winter.
A rare visitor came through a couple of weeks ago, a White-throated sparrow. First one I’ve seen in years.
Our summer sparrows have departed, but these winter sparrows will join our year-round Song sparrows and our sparrowoids: the Spotted Towhees and Dark-eyed juncos. They all sure liven up the season.
Seeing any foxy birds in your neighborhood? Any of them sparrows?
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Windy in the PNW islands today. Blustery day. Temps in the mid 50s.
WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA TODAY?