The 'Dooryard' Sparrows

By Al Lowe
Contributor

The ‘Dooryard’ Sparrows
There are two sparrows which are common, and are likely quite familiar to you. These are the sparrows which tend to live very comfortably near our homes. They have adapted to the white man’s civilization easily and comfortably.
The Chipping Sparrow - This is one of our smallest sparrows, and is a very trim and neat little bird. The top of its head is chestnut red. It has a prominent black line through its eye, and a prominent white line right above that. Its breast is just plain gray. Back, wings and tail are mottled brown and gray, like most sparrows.
This little sparrow has happily adapted to man. He is quite at home in your garden, your orchard, your hedge. In the real wild he is found in open areas in the woods. He seems to be a bird of low trees and shrubs.
As far as singing is concerned, don’t expect too much, mostly a sort of buzz - all on one note. His other note is what gives him his name - a clear ‘chip’. He goes about his business, calling out these ‘chips’ for an endless period of time.
One thing is truly noticeable about ‘chippy’ - his nest. It is almost always lined with hair. In the days of horses, this was almost always the long hairs from the mane or tail. These birds were so anxious to get horsehair that they would pull hair from the horse’s tail while the horse still owned it. Nowadays, they make do with dog hair, or for that matter, and kind they can get. But they do go to great lengths to get real hair for that nest.
The Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina, is totally beneficial. His diet is insects, insect eggs, larvae, and weed seeds. Valuable and friendly - a great combination.
The Song Sparrow - This is another very common sparrow, found almost all across Canada from the tree line down. It is bigger than the Chipping Sparrow, and coloured quite differently. Its back is brown and sort of streaky. The breast is gray, but with alot of dark streaks, which come together in the middle in quite a prominent spot.
Again, this bird is quite happy around your house or farm, where he lives in shrubs, thickets, shrubby pastures and so on. Away from houses, he prefers stream borders or the edges of ponds or lakes.
The name Song Sparrow is not given to this bird for nothing. He is the star performer of the sparrow clan, with a very sweet and melodic song. It always starts with three notes the same. But it doesn’t stop there - it carries on with a whole series of single notes and bubbly trills. And that’s not all - it changes the song a lot. One bird was noted to have over 30 variations in only one hour. And that’s still not all. Many birds stop singing when the mating season is over in the spring. Not this fellow, though. He keeps on singing all through summer and even into fall, just before the great migration begins.
The Song Sparrow, Melospizza melodia, is very aptly names indeed. It really is a true ‘songbird.’