Lovely leaves.
Yellow-rumped warblers are still around. This one alights on a winterberry branch.
Swamp sparrows too.
Cattails at the edge of the swamp.
Asters by the pond.
October color
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Tag Archives: Swamp Sparrow
At the edge of the swamp
Where’s Waldo?
Swamp Sparrow in the alder bushes.
Peekaboo.
Temps in the 40s this morning, but standing still in sunshine trying to photograph some birds I was hot in my jacket. The light is SO great for photography now.
I did not edit these photos at all, just slapped ’em up on the blog. These light conditions are good for my point-and-shoot bird camera, the Canon Powershot SX60, almost always on auto setting. Someday I will upgrade my skills and equipment. Meanwhile this camera has served me well for watching and learning.
Fence-perching swamp sparrow
One of the sparrows that hang around the garden poses on the fence, in the fog. I think it’s a Swamp Sparrow, which would make it backyard bird #58.
The habitat of a Swamp Sparrow is described by its name: Various wetlands, including freshwater and tidal marshes, bogs, meadows, and swamps.
The boggy red maple swamp begins not far past the garden.
Food: Seeds, fruits, and aquatic invertebrates. Interesting variety.
The swamp sparrow (Melospiza georgiana) is a medium-sized sparrow related to the song sparrow.
(Song sparrow was my first guess, but I kept googling photos of both.)
Adults have streaked rusty, buff and black upperparts with an unstreaked gray breast, light belly and a white throat. The wings are strikingly rusty. Most males and a few females have a rust-colored caps. Their face is gray with a dark line through the eye. They have a short bill and fairly long legs. Immature birds and winter adults usually have two brown crown stripes and much of the gray is replaced with buff.
Might be a young one…
Juvenile similar to adult, but with fine streaking on buffy chest.
If anybody knows this is a different kind of sparrow, please let me know!
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