Amphibians, Birds

Chipping Sparrows and a Newt

April 29, 2007 by Corey 7 Comments

macro Chipping Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow, macro-style

On Friday, at my Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Paul’s house in Saugerties, NY, I enjoyed myself watching their feeders and photographing the freeloaders. Their two clear-plastic feeders suction-cupped to their living room window had a steady stream of visitors but only titmice, chickadees and Chipping Sparrows would let me get close enough to get the kind of shot I wanted. Since I have already used pictures of chickadees and titmice on this type of feeder on the blog, I will stick to the Chipping Sparrows in this post.

Chipping Sparrow eating seed

Chipping Sparrow enjoying free food

In addition to the “normal” Chipping Sparrows taking advantage of my aunt and uncle’s hospitality a single leucistic Chipping Sparrow fed on the ground. Maybe it was too ashamed to show itself for a close-up?

leucistic Chipping Sparrow

Also present in the yard were Mourning Doves, a hen Wild Turkey (sometimes a whole flock will come in when my aunt calls them), Northern Cardinals, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Grey Squirrels, Eastern Chipmunks, American Goldfinches, White-breasted Nuthatches, and more that I can’t remember. And, believe it or not, they have had a Black Bear come and sit at the picnic table they use as a platform feeder (literally, he sat on the bench and ate off of the table).

After our meal my niece found a Red Eft, or newt, on the front walk:

Newt, or, Red Eft

After his photo-op we moved the newt to a safer location where it was less likely it would be trod upon.

And then Daisy and I said our good-byes and headed down to New York City, where I had an absurdly good day of birding on Saturday (tomorrow’s post will be looooong).

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.