New Yard Bird: Fox Sparrow

Amidst the many dark-eyed juncos we've been seeing in the last few days a new visitor suddenly appeared: a fox sparrow. Its rusty red tail caught my eye first; then I noticed how large and plump it looked next to the juncos. The heavily streaked breast is another field mark of this large sparrow.

This was the first fox sparrow we've seen at our house. A new entry in our "yard list"! Those are pretty rare at this point. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a fox sparrow at all before, in fact. It's a very distinctive bird, with its rust-red-and-gray coloring, bold facial markings and heavily streaked breast. There are considerable regional variations in color and bill thickness, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, with "sooty," "slate-colored" and "thick-billed" variants seen in various parts of the West, as well as the rusty red variant that is widely distributed across the northern boreal forests.

Fox sparrow at center right, with male (darker) and female juncos

Rice County records on eBird show that fox sparrows are seen here only in migration, in late March through late April and again in late September through October. The Cornell Lab describes them as birds of dense thickets and scrubby, brushy woods, with a rich, musical whistle. They breed in remote locations in the northwestern mountain states, northwestern and far northern Canada, and Alaska. They spend their winters in the coastal West and the south and southeastern states.

The streaky breast is supposed to concentrate on one large central chest spot, but I wasn't able to get a photo of that. The bird was quite skittish and quick to fly away if it sensed movement, even through the window where I was watching and trying to take photos unobtrusively.