First of all, let me just ask whomever is going to tell me that these are just common sparrows to let me down gently. They are at least really nice sparrows.
Ok, so these two birds have been hopping around on the ground under the niger seed feeder. They don't actually perch on the feeder but I guess they're eating the seeds that have spilled. The one I assume is a male does this little back and forth hop when he's pecking at the ground. He has white stripes on his eyes and two white stripes on the top of his head. The one I assume is the female doesn't have markings that are as distinct, and she's more of a reddish brown. I think.
Here's where you can see the top of the guy's head (if you look really closely):
I looked in a bunch of bird books but I couldn't see anything that matched. The reason I thought they might not be sparrows is that there's just the two of them and the sparrows tend to hang out at the front bird feeder in a pack. Sometimes a couple of mourning doves join them (last week after Sara left there was a record number of doves - six!).
In unrelated news, here's a very juvenile knock knock joke told to me by one of my esteemed librarian colleagues at an all-day meeting where we were selecting travel guides for the library:
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Europe.
Europe who?
No, you're a poo!
I called Sally this morning to share this joke and was informed that she was out "scootering." When she got to the phone and I asked her how the scootering was, she said, "Is scootering really a verb?" She is eight years old and knows her verbs. I think her parents feed her a lot of parseley or at least the occasional parsenip.
Ok, you can go to sleep now.
4 comments:
Hey Kelly!!! I have a 4 year old great-nephew who would love the knock-knock joke...no offense intended. He wouldn't understand what Europe is but would love saying.."no you're a poo"...that birds looks a little bit like a Fox Sparrow...though I can't see it well. They always eat seeds on the ground and have rust and grey markings....
Ha ha ha.
I think you are at least parstially nutty.
Eee! Eee! Eee!
Kelly, I am going to go all Science Chimp on yo' -ss.
White-throated sparrows (which I agree are lovely birds, certainly far from ordinary sparrows) have two color morphs, which have nothing to do with age or sex. There are white-crowned ones and buff-crowned ones, and either can be male or female. The white-crowned morphs tend to pair with buff crowned morphs. I know this sounds confusing but it's only been discovered in the last 20 years and it's very cool. And there may be something similar going on with the beautiful white-crowned sparrow. Everyone assumed the brown-striped ones were youngun's--but apparently not!
OK. You confused yet? Good. I have done my job.
Science Chimp, over and out.
Sara's birthday party post is adorable. I loved the combovers and nosepicking. Liam does the same thing when you point a camera at him.
Sara, can't you BUY a cord? Need more pintail pix.
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