October 31, 2010 - Feathered Foxes
Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

Bird watchers in Pennsylvania are most likely to see Fox Sparrows during fall migration. The eastern population of these birds breeds in shrubby wooded areas of Canada but moves to the southeast during the winter. Some might linger in Pennsylvania, but most make a brief stop before pushing on. Although they can appear as early as mid-September, fox sparrows typically move into and through our state from early October through the end of November. They often appear at bird feeders if there is sufficient cover nearby. They forage on the ground by scratching with a two-footed junp-kick motion. Because these large sparrows are often solitary and brief visitors they are easily overlooked. The rufous back and heavily streaked undersides with a larger central breast spot and reddish wings, rump and tail make them easy to identify.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.