I didn’t chance it and spent the morning by myself. But I wasn’t alone, for the meadows were alive with the songs of savannah sparrows. Every little bit you’d see one of these little brown birds singing its heart out. I had the refuge to myself for the first hour after sunrise, so I parked the car and let the songs wash over me.
It’s a good thing I wanted to sit for a while and listen to the sparrows sing praise, for it took me a while to get the picture I wanted. The plant the sparrow is perched on was the tallest in the meadow, so I knew one of the sparrows would be using it. I didn’t have to wait long for one to show up and serenade me, but it often had its back to me — because of course it wasn’t singing to me, but to the other sparrows in the meadow.
The plant was a ways off the road and with a little bird like a sparrow, I needed to use a 2X teleconverer with a 500mm lens. I thought I’d like the vertical format best given the long slender stalks, but as it turns out I prefer the horizontal shots I took, I like the out-of-focus meadow in the background. With savannah sparrows, they really put their full body into the song towards the end of the song, so you have to wait to take the picture until they’re already in mid-song.
In the spring, savannah sparrows might be seen singing their little hearts out from any high point in a meadow, anything raised even slightly from the ground, from man-made structures like fence posts to plants like teasel or even a low-to-the-ground blackberry vine.
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Bug Breakfast
A song sparrow and a red-winged blackbird were both collecting what I assume are the larval form of insects in this little patch of sticks and duckweed in front of a culvert. After determining that they didn’t mind my presence, I lay down on my stomach atop the culvert and photographed them.
Each bird had a different hunting technique, the blackbird cleared an area by using her beak, while the sparrow kicked at the duckweed with its feet. |
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Winston, Is That You?
“I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.” Winston Churchill
When I saw this plump song sparrow holding out this bug like Winston chomping on his famous cigar, I couldn’t help but think perhaps he was reincarnated as a little brown bird as punishment for his quip about colors.
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Why I Can't Kick My Ridgefield Addiction
I go to Ridgefield a lot. A lot. There are a number of places here in the Northwest that I'd like to visit more, but Ridgefield is a hard habit to give up, offering up beautiful looks at even the Little Brown Birds.
I found these singing song sparrows in the spring of 2008 at the edge of a marsh. They mostly stayed down and out of the way of the marauding blackbirds but did pop up occasionally to belt out a song. |
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On The Lookout
Our song sparrows are very active late in the winter and early in the spring, you can see and hear them from a variety of places around a refuge like Ridgefield. This little fellow appears to be on the lookout from the tall vantage point provided by the cattails, but I was the one on the lookout.
I always check this little batch of cattails on the auto tour, as the cattails make for some beautiful perches and foreground elements, yet the surrounding slough behind fades to a pleasing blur. You can sometimes find marsh wrens, blackbirds, and sparrows here, and on this day it was the song sparrow that was there to greet me. |