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American Tree Sparrow (Spizella arborea)
Above four: Photographed in Cass Co., Indiana (12/2004).
Below three: An American Tree Sparrow in Garrett Co., Maryland (12/3/2006).
Below: An American Tree Sparrow visited our yard during the February blizzards (2/10/2010). This is the photo shoot during which I broke my bookshelf while trying to stand on it.
Below: An American Tree Sparrow was a quality find on the Port Tobacco CBC in Charles Co., Maryland (12/18/2010). It is rare and local in the county, but seems to be annual on private farms around Allens Fresh.
Below: An American Tree Sparrow at Prime Hook NWR, Delaware (3/2/2008).
Comments: Top four photos taken in Cass County, Indiana in December. I emerged from a winter hike in the woods to a snowy, overgreen field, drawn there by a cacophony of tinkling notes. I soon found the field to be full of American Tree Sparrows; I'd estimate their numbers to have been easily 300 birds. These attractive sparrows nest across northern Canada and Alaska, and spend their winters throughout most of the U.S. They winter also here in the Mid-Atlantic, but we in Maryland are at the southern part of their range in the East. I'd never seen such great numbers of them before this day!