Neighborhood songster
I don’t know of any birds that stalk people, but there are lots of avian skulkers around. Skulk is a great word. To skulk is to “move about in a furtive way.” Lots of birds are furtive – secretive. A skulker may also be “sinister,” or a “shirker.”
You might have some of these types in your back yard. The sharp-shinned hawk is pretty sinister, and quite secretive as it stalks happy, unsuspecting little songbirds. And the brown-headed cowbird is certainly a shirker as it furtively enters the nest of another species to leave its eggs.
At this time of the year, at this in between time after winter is broken, but summer-only residents, both avian and human, have not yet returned to North Idaho, we have a winter backyard skulker which is neither sinister nor a shirker, but which is about to become the neighborhood songster. Appropriately named, it is the song sparrow.
In fact, to really make the point of its singing prowess, it is thrice-named the songster. Common names often point out a particularly unique aspect of the bearer: black-billed magpie vs. yellow-billed magpie. Thus, “song sparrow” tells us an important fact about this particular species.
Birds also have a two-part scientific name that often tells us something about the bird, or the person who discovered it, or some other bit of trivia. Thus Wilson’s warbler (Wilsonia pusilla) has the genus name “Wilsonia,” given in 1838 in honor of then-dead Alexander Wilson who had first described the bird in 1811. It has the species name “pusilla,” which is Latin for “very small,” since it is a very small warbler. It’s the “very small warbler named in honor of Mr. Wilson.”
That’s probably a whole lot more than you wanted to know about either Mr. Wilson or binomial nomenclature, but both are my passion, so there you go. To continue, however, the scientific name for the song sparrow, Melospiza melodia, emphasizes the vocal qualities of this bird. “Melospiza” is Greek for “song finch” and “melodia” is Greek for “melodious song.” Thus it’s the “song finch with a melodious song that we call a song sparrow.” Get the point?
Our song sparrow is here all winter, skulking around moist brushy spots of the type often found in large back yards. It feeds on the ground, rests in the bushes, and generally doesn’t gather in flocks, so you may have missed it. It’s all brown and stripy, so it blends in. It may go to feeders, but usually doesn’t stay long, and keeps to the ground.
Even under these secretive circumstances, however, it sings. Both males and females sing, and they sing year-round. Singing is greatest in spring when the males use song to announce and defend territories they will use to nest and forage in. These songs go on and on, and are delivered from a prominent perch. In general, they are described as pleasant, gentle rhythms with variable series of trills and clear notes.
Being of limited musical background, that doesn’t mean much to me, but it sounds nice. One of the field guides phonetically listed a basic song sparrow tune as “twik twik twik toWEE trr titititititititi,” and actually that seems pretty close to me. It’s better when you really hear it, though. The phrases go on and on, as I mentioned. An individual male will have dozens of songs, each one repeated numerous times before going on to the next.
That’s what we can expect any time now as nesting season approaches. What we have heard all winter, aside from a faint song occasionally rendered, as if anyone has been out there to hear it, is the distinctive call of the song sparrow. You’ll usually see a listing in the field guides for each song bird of their songs and calls. Calls are short and to the point. They may be a warning or a message of reference for a group, but they are usually one quick note.
Thus it seems that calls wouldn’t be all that distinctive. But in the song sparrow, the call is “distinctive.” In five field guides I consulted, each used that very term, but then went on to describe the call’s distinctiveness differently. Depending upon who you read, the song sparrow’s call is a “chimp,” a “tchep,” a “chif,” a “tchenk,” or a “tchip.”
Regardless, it’s true that once you hear it, it is quite distinctive. I’m not good with calls, but it is distinctively floating around my head right now as if it were an annoying jingle. If I heard it in my back yard, as I have all winter, there would be no doubt as to its source.
What song sparrows possess in voice, they lack in appearance. Here too they are distinctive, as far as sparrows go, but they are not what you could call pretty. They are brown birds with brown markings. Fortunately, some of those markings are at least patterned in a unique way.
Song sparrows have coarse brown stripes, all over their little brown bodies, that come together on their chests as a characteristic spot. At one time the phrase “stick pin” meant something in fashion, and was used to describe this spot. For me, when I first started, it was just another confusing term in bird identification, but “stick pin” and “song sparrow” have become forever linked, so I mention it here.
Despite the song sparrow’s obviously plainness – it fits into that beginning-birder’s category of LBBJ, “little-bitty-brown-jobber” – it is actually one of the most geographically variable species in terms of appearance in North America. In fact, if you went to New York tomorrow and heard a song sparrow, you’d know it was a song sparrow, assuming you know what a song sparrow sounds like here. But if you saw it first, you might think it some eastern sparrow that we don’t have in North Idaho.
Our song sparrows, as I mentioned, are brown washing on brown. East Coast song sparrows have very coarse, well-defined streaks, a peculiar mustachelike throat pattern, the malar stripes, and a messy breast spot. Southwest birds are very rufous rather than brown, and California Coast birds have black streaks.
In addition, there is a large amount of size variation with locality. Alaskan song sparrows are giants compared to the average, and California Coast birds are smaller than average. However, this variation, as is color and marking variation, is clinal, or gradual from area to area such that you’d not really notice a change as you walked from California to New York, looking at song sparrows along the way.
Also, of course, size is a relative thing. Even with the largest song sparrows, it would still take almost 20 birds to equal a pound. Thus the “L” in LBBJ.
As you’d expect from a skulker, song sparrows remain generally secretive when not singing on territory. They nest on the ground or in the base of a thicket, they feed on the ground, and they remain close to cover. When they do take flight, they appear to have made a mistake. Their path is jerky, and their tail flairs and pumps up and down with every beat. This does, however, aid in LBBJ identification.
Should you wish a finer view, these particular skulkers are pretty easy to coax out for a better look. If you are close, you may hear the loud “chips,” or whatever their “distinctive calls” sound like, but see no bird. If so, you can use an old birding technique that works well on some skulkers, and works great on song sparrows.
Now, read this next line carefully. The technique is called “pishing.” The word is not actually in a normal dictionary, but would certainly be in a birding one. The name is indicative of the sound one makes in the process of pishing. “Pish” is the sound, and it is in the dictionary. To pish is to “express annoyance or impatience” – of the type one encounters when you can’t see the bird that you know is there.
In pishing, one makes the sound, but without the “I,” and with a long, drawn-out “sh.” It comes out “pshhhhhhh, pshhhhhhh, pshhhhhhh.” It also makes passers-by curious, so use the technique discretely, but song sparrows love it. They pop right out of their thicket to give a good, close view, but then you have to wonder why you bothered. I enjoy bird identification by either sight or sound, so usually I’ll be satisfied with sound from song sparrows.
By the way, pishing can also work with chickadees, and then you have something worth looking at. Also, pishing in someone else’s back yard could get you in real trouble.
Anyway, soon your backyard skulker will become your backyard crooner. Or, if you don’t happen to have one handy, they’re not hard to find. Look for a moist thicket, listen for that “distinctive” call, or do your best “pishing,” and you’ll have a song sparrow in no time. It may not be much to look at, but for a skulker, it’s got quite the voice.