Oh Sweet Canada...

Although there's still snow on the ground, there's not much, and the sounds in the air are definitely beyond just a whisper of spring. Yesterday morning as I was sautéing red peppers and grape tomatoes (barely awake and definitely not paying attention to much but the egg I was about to crack into the frying pan), "Did I just hear a Red-winged Blackbird?" popped into my mind. It registered at that subconscious level that makes you stop and wonder, but after listening for a second or two, the second call came through loud and clear, and I said, "Alright!" out loud. Spring is here... When I looked out the kitchen window, two Red-winged Blackbirds were in the side yard looking for something to eat. Last year I started hearing them mid-February, so they are a little late this year, but all the other spring bird songs have been right on time, especially my favorite "Oh Sweet Canada, Canada, Canada..." love song of the White-throated Sparrow.

A tan-morph White-throated Sparrow puffed up to gargantuan extremes to weather out the snow that arrived over the weekend. My lens was spotted with wet snowflakes, which gave this photo a cool look. (The white morphs have black and white stripes on their head instead of the muted tan and brown shown in this bird.)

The tan morphs do not sing quite as much as the white morphs, but our little tan-morph male was singing beautifully while a wet snow came down all around.

This winter we have had a lot more tan morphs than white morphs at our feeders.

...although not quite as dramatic looking as the white morphs, the male tan-morph White-throated Sparrows help out with the nestlings, plus they don't start as many fights as their flashy brothers...

For more information on the White-throated Sparrow, check out this site, the White-throated Sparrow Project. You can also read about the genetic behavioral differences between the two morphs on The Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds or The Birds of North America Online.