October 16, 2011 - White Throats
Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

This time of year you might hear the soft song of a northern visitor, a white-throated sparrow. After spending the summer in Canada and the northern U.S. they move south for the winter. Their song proclaims their distant origins as they sing, “Oh sweet Canada, Canada, Canada.”  Watch for these brown sparrows with black eyestripes, dark stripes on their heads flanking a white crown and a white throat bordered by a black. These seedeaters search for food under bird feeders, in brushy edges and woodlands. They forage in loose flocks of twenty or more birds. Their high “tseep” calls allows them to keep in touch with one another as they forage in the underbrush but are difficult to pinpoint.

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