A Song Sparrow in the late afternoon light...

Sunday I finally started to feel better after recovering from a cold that had kept me indoors for far too long, so I bundled up and headed over to Voice of American (VOA) Park. It was very cold, but it was also blue-sky sunny, and I wanted to see if the American Kestrel that's usually there was hanging around (he wasn't). After checking the frozen lake for winter visitors (there were none save a lone Canada Goose slipping and sliding on the ice), I went off-trail and climbed over the brushy hills that lead to the meadow. It was nearly 5:00 p.m., and the late afternoon sun was doing its winter magic by coloring the dead and bleached brush with warm tones of gold and rust. Suddenly, what seemed like a deserted patch of earth came to life as five small brown birds skittered around, weaving here and there through leaves and bent grass until eventually bursting up in a panic to the safety of stubby snags and the remains of giant pokeweed bushes where they paused to keep a wary eye on me...

A beautiful little Song Sparrow peeked at me from behind a branch, watching warily with just just one eye. If you think he looks cute here, you should have seen him through the camera lens. It would have melted your heart.

...he then moved behind a branch, peeking out with the other eye, obscured from view in shadow...

I'm surprised he didn't lift his little foot and point two little toes at his eyes and then one back at me in that "I'm watching you..." gesture.

The warm browns of a Song Sparrow in late afternoon sunshine...

Eventually the Song Sparrow decided I was no threat...

...turned his back on me, and rejoined his little winter foraging flock on the ground.

When I read this journal entry from Thoreau (April 2, 1853), I had to smile...sounds just like our little sparrows:

"The song-sparrows, the three-spotted, away by the meadow-sides, are very shy and cunning: instead of flying, will frequently trot along the ground under the bushes, or dodge through a wall like a swallow; and I have observed that they generally bring some object, as a rail or branch, between themselves and the face of the walker,—often with outstretched necks will peep at him for five or ten minutes." (Source: page 302, "Early Spring in Massachusetts: from the journals of Henry David Thoreau," edited by Blake, 1881/1893. Click here for the online version of this book.)