{"id":216,"date":"2008-10-20T21:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-21T02:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=216"},"modified":"2008-10-20T21:09:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-21T02:09:00","slug":"white-throated-sparrows-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"White-throated Sparrows Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This afternoon \u2013 a sunny day with temperatures barely reaching around 70 \u2013 our first two White-throated Sparrows of the season appeared in the front yard. Their familiar <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">tseet<\/span> calls caught my attention as I was walking down the driveway, and sure enough, I found them in the shadows of the loropetalum and wax myrtles, where their neat white throats identified them quickly.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s nice to have them back, but I\u2019m a little worried about whether they and other birds that need good low shrubby habitat will stay around this year. Last spring both we and our neighbors severely pruned a lot of wax myrtles, forsythia and other bushes \u2013 they had gotten pretty overgrown and needed a trim, but I had planned to plant many more shrubs this fall and haven\u2019t been able to do it, so I\u2019m now afraid that we won\u2019t have as many ground-loving birds as we usually do in winter. The Hermit Thrush that usually comes for the winter, the Eastern Towhees, and Brown Thrashers, as well as the White-throated Sparrows \u2013 I can only hope there are still enough bushes around to provide them the cover and the food sources they need.<\/p>\n<p>Also out front this afternoon were two male House Finches, both a rather subdued red color, visiting the feeders and the bird bath and trying \u2013 unsuccessfully \u2013 to chase away the Chickadees and Titmice. Golden-crowned Kinglets called as they traveled through the oaks and pecans, and one Turkey Vulture and two Black Vultures soared in a cloudless blue sky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This afternoon \u2013 a sunny day with temperatures barely reaching around 70 \u2013 our first two White-throated Sparrows of the season appeared in the front yard. Their familiar tseet calls caught my attention as I was walking down the driveway, and sure enough, I found them in the shadows of the loropetalum and wax myrtles, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}