A beautiful Fox Sparrow paid a brief visit to our yard late this morning. This is a rare visitor to our area normally only seen, if one is very lucky, during spring or fall migration. I got a few photos before it departed, presumably heading south.
The Fox Sparrow is one of our largest sparrows. Our surprise guest was a Red Fox Sparrow in contrast to the Thick-billed, Slate-colored, or Sooty Fox Sparrows more common in the west.
According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Red Fox Sparrows live in scrubby, brushy woods and forest edges from Alaska to Newfoundland. They prefer black spruce, white spruce, balsam fir, tamarack, aspen, birch, willow, and alder. They winter in densely thicketed habitats across eastern North America as far south as Texas to Florida.
Here are a few of the photos I took during its brief stay.
UPDATE: At 3 PM this afternoon the Fox Sparrow was back, and he or she brought a friend or mate. I got more photos, but they will stay in my camera for a while.
A Fox Sparrow also visited our yard in spring of 2015. You can see the photos I took of it if you CLICK HERE.
The Fox Sparrow interrupted my work on a Fall Foliage Blog this morning. I hope to publish this blog this weekend. If you would like to receive an email when it and other blogs are posted, you can subscribe at the upper right above.