Song Sparrow in the tomato patch
The bird nest in the tomato patch is right along the main walkway to the composting toilet,
so I see Mama Bird several times a day. As long as I look in the other
direction when I walk past, she stays put, lack of eye contacting
tricking the song sparrow into thinking she hasn't been noticed.
But when I pulled out the
camera, even using the zoom from a distance was enough to spook Mama
Bird. I figured I might as well look in the nest since she'd flown away
for the moment, and I was pleasantly surprised to find four eggs
clustered atop goat hair.
Song sparrows are one of
my favorite birds, mostly because of their ubiquity in human habitats
and tolerance toward people. But this is the first time I've had such an
up-close-and-personal experience with their nesting behavior. I'm
looking forward to daily views of baby birds, perhaps in a week or two.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
I love the song sparrow too. Theirs is the song we always hear when hiking in the White Mountains here in New Hampshire. it is the sound that reminds us of many great hikes along high rocky ridges on perfect summer days-in short-a happy sound for us. Cant wait to see those babies. There is hardly anything sweeter than mama bird on her nest.