Chipping Sparrow (#4)

Chipping Sparrow at our backyard feeder, 4-2-10

In late March / early April, I can always tell when the Chipping Sparrows (Above, 4-2-10, at our backyard feeder) have returned back to Northern Illinois from their winter grounds in Mexico and the Gulf Coast. For the past 3 years there has been a pair nesting in the big oak tree in the front yard. It greets me with its persistence long trill of a song (chipchipchipchipchipchip...) early at sunrise, when I go out to get the morning newspaper, and will keep it up until late in the morning. Chipping Sparrows are very pretty with its bright reddish crown contrasting sharply with its white eye brow and dark eye line. Chipping Sparrows are another abundant widespread sparrow with its habitat stretching from the East to West Coasts and from the Southern states to as far north as the Yukon and Northern Territories of Canada. They were also very common at higher altitudes while we were hiking in Colorado this summer.

Chipping Sparrow in Rock Cut State Park; 5-2-10

Chipping Sparrow in Rock Cut State Park; 5-10-09