Savannah Sparrows singing in the meadow...and the warbler countdown begins!

Last Saturday I met Paul and Joe at Armleder Park in Cincinnati to photograph Midland Smooth Softshell turtles at the Little Miami River (about 30 miles south of where I usually walk the Little Miami), but in the huge meadow between the parking lot and the river, two species of returning migrants had already taken up residence...Savannah Sparrows and Vesper Sparrows! This pair of Savannah Sparrows looked very sparrow-ish in the tall grasses and took turns diving down to the ground and flitting here and there among the dead stalks left over from winter...

Two Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis) perch in the large meadow at Armleder Park in Cincinnati. Vesper Sparrows were nearby, and Tree Swallows dipped and dived through the grasses before returning to the nest boxes set out along the trail.

A bubble of music floats

The slope of the hillside over;

A little wandering sparrow's notes;

And the bloom of yarrow and clover.

--Lucy Larcom

(as referenced in "Music of the Birds," by Lang Elliott)

I laughed when photographing these two. They were like little kids. "Could you both look at the camera at the same time, please?"

...maybe!

It's so fun to watch the summer birds arriving little by little. Soon the warblers start! This May I'm heading up to Magee Marsh and the Black Swamp Bird Observatory for the Biggest Week in American Birding! Finally...I'm going to see the spring warbler migration on Lake Erie. I'll be blogging there too (more posts about that soon). The warbler countdown begins!!

:-)

If you're headed to Lake Erie for spring migration let me know!

Click here for Biggest Week details.