Some winter days, it’s really hard for me to find birds to photograph, but I can usually count on seeing some sparrows busily at work, pecking away in the underbrush for what look to be the tiniest of seeds.
This past Monday, before the arrival of the Arctic weather, I observed this beautiful little sparrow, which I think is a Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana). Sparrows are tough for me to identify, so I apologize in advance if this turns out to be another kind of sparrow.
The bird kept its head down most of the time and remained stayed primarily in the shadows. For just a moment, though, it lifted its head and turned toward the light and I was able to take this modest little portrait of one of my faithful winter companions at the marsh.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Sweet capture. Sometimes those of us who like to photograph birds go for the colorful and flashy guys but the little sparrows and wrens are just as beautiful in their own right.
Thanks. Big flashy birds are wonderful, but you are quite right that the smaller, less-colorful birds have a subdued beauty of their own.
nice photo mike, good job on the lighting
Thanks, Rob.
great to see the photo of this sparrow, one species we don’t have over here.
We have lots of different kinds of sparrows and I suspect that most people don’t bother to photograph them. I try to have an equal opportunity approach and will try to photography anything that is within sight.
Indeed, it’s amazing what beautiful and interesting photos you can make even of snails and caterpillars 🙂 I love Sparrows myself and there are plenty of them, but of late their number seems to have gone down here.
I personally think that there is a tremendous amount of beauty in ordinary subjects that we often ignore or take for granted. I really like trying to capture some of that everyday beauty in my shots.
And you do show that in your photos Mike, and it’s lovely. Nature, apart from everything else, has so much to offer us 🙂
Such a cute little fluffy guy. I think your Swamp Sparrow ID is correct, Mike. Great photo to see on a cold, wintry day in the north country 🙂 .
Thanks. Now that we have a little show on the ground, I’m looking to get the iconic shot of a male cardinal in the snow, but no luck so far.
I am one garden blogger that actually likes the sparrows, especially our native ones. Not many photograph them and it is nice some still do. I think the most interesting part of your image is the story it tells. One does not see them hanging out in puddles often. I see them in dirt baths or in my birdbath, but rarely in puddles like you have here.
The area where I photographed this sparrow was one of the areas of our marshland park that is flooded after rain storms, but tends to dry out afterwards, which is why there is such a big shallow puddle. I tend to spend most of my photography time in the woods or the marshland, so I am always interested to see which of the same birds are in gardens too.
Excellent shot! He’s a cute little thing. It must be relatively warm there. He doesn’t look that puffed up.
In the first few days of January, we had some warmer weather, though it’s been down in the single digits and teens much of this week.