Chirps and Cheeps

A nice find by Jim Pawlicki brought Willie, Betsy, and I out to Amherst State Park to see if we could find the Nelson's Sparrow he found the day before. Funny, I had just been looking for one there a couple of days prior - I guess the little guy didn't get there as soon as I expected!

The sparrow wasn't that easy to find but find it, we did!  It was a rather uncooperative bird, though, only giving partial views through the reeds.  I find this sparrow to be one of the more beautiful sparrows with its lovely shades of orange, gray, and brown.  It's not much of a singer, though, only giving a bit of a buzzy sound. The bird we saw didn't sing at all, actually, probably because it was fall and s/he just wasn't in the singing mood!

Before hunting for the sparrow, the three of us went through a bit of the park and found several other nice birds, including a Lincoln's Sparrow, several Winter Wrens, a most lovely Orrange-crowned Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, American Redstart, Sharp-shinned, Cooper's, and Red-tailed Hawks, and a Blue-headed Vireo.