I still need Lincoln’s sparrow for the year. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but time is running out on this uncommon sparrow - after mid-November it is a true rarity. So I’d better get to it, but where to look?
If you want to find birds, find their food. It really is that simple most of the time. Want to see a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, for example? Find the marsh with the fiddler crabs in it - not what you’d do to find a Black-crowned Night-Heron, which eats mostly fish.
So what do sparrows eat? One look at the typical sparrow bill answers that question: their thick, conical bills are designed for cracking open seeds.
Sparrows eat mostly “weed” seeds - but not just any patch of growth will do. The most important natural foods for sparrows are annual weeds, like foxtail and ragweed. Why? Annuals invest a much higher proportion of their resources into seed production since, by definition, they only have one chance to reproduce. Perennials invest much less in seeds, because if they don’t reproduce successfully this year, there’s always next year. Thus, a field of goldenrod and New York ironweed might look appealing and attract butterflies, but it’s not much good for sparrows.
The upshot: learn to recognize foxtail and ragweed, and bird areas that contain these plants during the sparrow months of October and November. You might even find a Lincoln’s Sparrow.
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Learn through Photos |
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Foxtail patch: This patch of foxtails, also called bristlegrass, volunteered at the edge of CMBO Center for Research and Education’s parking lot in Goshen. Like other annuals, foxtail thrives on disturbed earth - “disturb it and they will come” is a good adage for annual weeds. |
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Foxtail close-up: Note the seeds still remaining on this foxtail head. The dozen or so foxtail species (all genus Setaria) top all other weeds in the country in food value to wildlife. |
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Ragweed: Ragweed plants are shriveled and gray by November, their fern-like leaves dry and shrunken. Don’t let that fool you; some of the oil-rich seeds persist on the plants well into fall and winter, and remain available even when other food sources are covered by snow. This ragweed was another volunteer in the CMBO parking lot. |