northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here are a bunch of White-crowned Sparrows from last January. I showed you a lonely 1 in shady conditions already this year, though this ubiquity of them probably shows them off a little better. (And yes, I'm still using "ubiquity" to refer to the group rather than the boring term "flock". See this post for more on groups of sparrows.) A little like Dark-eyed Juncos, White-crowned Sparrows consider central NJ to be a fine winter home, but aren't likely to raise their families here. I'm not sure if trails like this are especially popular foraging spots for the sparrow community, or whether I get more pictures of them there because they're open areas that make spotting the sparrows easier. January 26, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 263363976, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

After talking about White-throated Sparrows yesterday, today I'm going to talk about a wildly different animal, the White-crowned Sparrow . 😉  Okay, they're not really all that different. At least in my area they can look fairly similar to one another - no doubt partly due to them being in the same genus - with a white patch above/behind the eyes and a dark stripe going through the eyes. Some White-crowned Sparrows have a whitish area on their throats, though it's not as distinct as with the White-throated Sparrow. To our eyes the non-head parts of their bodies look similar, and the White-crowned Sparrow is only slightly larger. If you get a look at the top of the head, you'll see a white stripe there on the White-crowned Sparrow, but this can be difficult to see on a profile view. Geographically the White-crowned Sparrow does a better job spanning the continent, but in my area White-throated Sparrows are spotted quite a bit more. Both winter here and south of here, ...