Field Sparrow
Late this morning on a sunny, cool day, a Field Sparrow perched on a ragged branch of a privet thicket in the old field. It was a day when a good many sparrows were active in the field – more than I have usually found there this winter. Most were White-throated and Song Sparrows, coming out to forage along the roadside in the rough, dry weeds and grasses. This one was a little different, a drab-colored sparrow with pale rufous and gray-striped head, a white ring around its eye and a pink bill. Unlike most of the other sparrows, it did not disappear back into the thicket when alarmed, but flew to another exposed spot on the edge of the bushes, and then to another, several times as I watched.
Field Sparrows used to be very common here, but in recent years they have become much less widespread, and around our own neighborhood and here in the old field, I see one only infrequently, and seldom hear their cheery, bouncing songs – and I especially miss those songs.
Field Sparrow populations are declining throughout their range, though they are still considered common and fairly abundant. They nest in scrubby, second-growth habitat like abandoned old fields and the edges of woodlands, but do not generally nest in developed suburban or urban areas, so in a county like ours, where fields and woodlands are being replaced with subdivisions and shopping centers, their habitat is being lost and I see and hear them much less often.