I had a similar experience here at my office in Gainesville (Prince William
County) yesterday. Much of the landscaped area around the building and parking
lot is vegetated with a native meadow mix containing a variety of native
grasses and flowering plants among scattered trees and shrubs. Yesterday, a
large flock of sparrows fed in the native landscaping. There were at least 100
to 150 chipping sparrows with much smaller numbers of juncos, white-throats,
field sparrows and song sparrows mixed in the flock. Up to 30 yellow-rumped
warblers also joined the sparrow flock at one point, and I watched a
yellow-rump picking aphids off a black-eyed susan just outside my window.
Unfortunately, I couldn't take the time to look through the chippies for
clay-colored sparrows.
I haven't seen the sparrows today. They have either moved on or are taking
shelter from the wind in the nearby cedars.
Craig Tumer
Gainesville, VA and College Park, MD
Jon Little <littlejon@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Friday, our regular yard-feeder flock was joined by a flock of
about 50 Chipping Sparrows. They hung around all day in the area, along with
good numbers of Juncos.
This morning, the Chippy flock rose to about 150 or more - somewhat mixed in
with Juncos, etc, but mostly Chippies. With the high wind, they were quite
nervous and continually darted from yard to yard, as well as roosting on
leeward rooftops, but often returned to ours. Most birds were in Winter or 1st
Winter plumage, but there were still a few in typical adult alternate (Summer)
plumage. Try as we may, we couldn't turn any of them into Tree Sparrows nor
Clay-colored.
Jon & BJ Little
Winchester
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