The tree sparrow actually does not show half the preference for trees
that its familiar little counterpart does, but rather keeps to low bushes when
not on the ground, where we usually find it. It does not crouch upon the
ground like the chippy, but with a lordly carriage holds itself erect as it
nimbly runs over the frozen crust. Sheltered from the high, wintry winds in
the furrows and dry ditches of ploughed fields, a loose flock of these active
birds keep up a merry hunt for fallen seeds and berries, with a belated beetle
to give the grain a relish. As you approach the feeding ground, one bird gives
a shrill alarm-cry, and instantly five times as many birds as you suspected
were in the field take wing and settle down in the scrubby undergrowth at the
edge of the woods or by the wayside. No still cold seems too keen for them to
go a-foraging; but when cutting winds blow through the leafless thickets the
scattered remnants of a flock seek the shelter of stone walls, hedges, barns,
and cozy nooks about the house and garden. It is in mid-winter that these
birds grow most neighborly, although even then they are distinctly less
sociable than their small chippy cousins.
By the first of March, when the fox sparrow and the bluebird attract the
lion's share of attention by their superior voices, we not infrequently are
deaf to the modest, sweet little strain that answers for the tree sparrow's
love-song.
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