A Field Day

This morning while gathering up my mental and physical energy for work after a long weekend of travel, I noticed a sparrow in the wire flower basket on the back deck. Initially I thought it was a chipping sparrow looking for some suet dough bits. Nope. It was a field sparrow and it was yanking on the coco fiber lining to the basket. Once it had a bill-full of fibers, it flew off down into the meadow. Was this a female building the nest or a male merely bringing her the raw materials? According to the literature she builds but he may help to gather the building materials. The field sparrow returned for more fiber about 10 minutes later.

Julie and I wanted to take some photos and so (after I washed the peanut butter hand prints off the glass) we planted ourselves, cameras at the ready, inside the living room door, just feet away from the scene of the crime. Sure enough the bird came back and was so busy tugging and gathering that the whirring of our motor drives did not spook her in the least.

Here's what I got:


Field sparrows just seem to have a sweet expression on their faces. Maybe it's the dark eye on a plain face—I don't know. The combo of that face and the clear, descending song make this a very pleasing bird to have around the farm.

It started off as a field day.