Closing the social distance with non-humans

Charles River, Charles River Peninsula, Needham, Massachusetts

While we increase our social distance from fellow humans, for what might be quite a long time, it is an opportunity to close our social distance with non-human animals. How about song sparrows, ubiquitous in most of the U.S. and already singing for territory?

Margaret Morse Nice is our great teacher of the life histories of song sparrows. Her two volumes of sparrow phenomenology for the Linnaean Society are in the public domain and are available online. The first volume is mostly about territory. The second volume goes into more detail about individual life histories.

Roger T. Peterson illustration. Google Books scan. 

She also wrote about her research for more popular publications, such as Bird-Lore (with marvelous grayscale illustrations by Roger Tory Peterson). Ted Davis wrote a piece on her for the February 2020 issue of Bird Observer, though I think it is embargoed for subscribers-only at present.

At any rate, the first step is to listen and try to absorb their songs. Song sparrows have multiple songs, some shared with neighbors in certain situations, but they will stick to one song for a while until they switch to another. If you don't know the basic song pattern, you can consult All About Birds.

Here's my first listen to three song sparrows competing for space near the Redwing Bay parking lot in Needham.

Note that I had to high-pass-filter the recording because of all the 7 a.m. traffic noise. I'm curious whether that aspect of the soundscape will change over the next month or so.