I finally made it out to my local marsh this past weekend to check out the wildlife activity following our recent snowstorm and protracted period of cold weather. The boardwalks are still mostly slippery and covered with packed snow and almost all of the water in the ponds is frozen solid, which means that most of the geese and ducks have relocated. The cold spell is forecast to continue this week, so I don’t expect to see the water fowl returning any time soon.
The sparrows seemed even more active than normal, though, in constant motion as they moved from one set of vegetation to another. Often it seemed that they chose to hop from place to place, rather than fly, and I caught this Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) in mid-hop. (It looked like they would extend their wings a bit when they would hop down from a higher point on a plant to a lower spot).
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
Nice capture , Mike !
utham
Great capture!
Wonderful capture, Mike 🙂
I saw the sparrows behaving the same way while I was at Blackwater this past weekend. Actually got a photo of a Fox Sparrow – my first – while he was doing much the same thing!
Congrats on the Fox Sparrow. I still have trouble identifying the different types of sparrows, but am starting to be able to distinguish between some of them.
The Fox Sparrow was very distinctive in the field. In a flock of sparrows with all the various hues of brown, the Fox Sparrow appeared very reddish. He really stood out in that regard, although I know from reading that there a variations in their coloring.
Nice shot. He looks a lot like the sparrows that hang out along the river banks here.