The White-crowned Sparrow has returned!

Greetings Birders!
Sibley’s birding guide says that the White-crowned Sparrow is a year-round bird in Sonoma County, CA., but locals know that’s not true. This trusty little bird disappeared when the weather heated up, early in the year, heading north to cooler Canada. Just this afternoon, my husband called me to the window excitedly. There, at the foot of the photinia hedge, a lone White-crowned Sparrow was hopping humbly through the green grass. His friends and family will arrive any day now, and we hurried out to sprinkle organic sunflower seeds under the apple tree to welcome them in our usual way.

For new birders (and even experienced ones!) Sparrows can be one of the harder species of birds to identify. So many of them are brown and stripey in a way that seems indistinct. Luckily, the adult male White-crowned Sparrow’s head markings are unique among his Bay Area neighbors, so this is one sparrow new birders will quickly come to recognize.

Read our Sparrow Identification Guide to improve your understanding of our most common Bay Area sparrows, and start looking wherever there is low, brushy growth in your garden and neighborhood. Soon, the White-crowned Sparrow will be joined by the Golden-Crowned Sparrow, the White-throated Sparrow, the Sooty Pacific Fox Sparrow and other charming relations. Last year, birders were flocking to a parking lot in a Petaluma park because Harris’ Sparrow had put in a surprise appearance there. You never know who you’ll see when you start keeping your eyes on the birds!

Cedar Waxwings have arrived in the SF Bay Area

Greetings, Birders!
This is just a quick bird alert post to announce that one of our favorite birds, the Cedar Waxwing, has just arrived in the SF Bay Area. I saw a birding report this week that mentioned them being spotted in West Sonoma County, in Sebastopol, and yesterday, we saw them in the more eastern part of the region near Kenwood, CA. Our glimpse was merely of a flock passing high over head, but the soft zeee, zeee, zeee calls left us in no doubt.

What other wild bird can rival the Cedar Waxwing, Bombycilla cedrorum, for sheer elegance? His smooth-as-wax plumes and softest fawn hue makes the birder long to reach out and touch this beautiful bird.

It does seem to me that mid-September is a mite early for the Cedar Waxwings to have arrived. I normally associate these birds with the ripening of the persimmon trees where they flock in tremendous numbers, gobbling up the vermilion fruits as soon as they are ripe. The persimmons are still pretty green around here, but perhaps the waxwings are dining on the last of the blackberries.

Are you seeing Cedar Waxwings in your neck of the woods? Know a never-fail spot you could share with new birders who would like to check these fine fowls off their lifelist? Please feel free to comment here. And, please, read our in-depth article on the Cedar Waxwing to learn more about this wonderful bird.

Fall is certainly setting in. Woodpeckers everywhere. And now, the sleepy, hazy cry of the Cedar Waxwing graces the air. It’s a great moment in the Bay Area birding year.