Length: A little over 7 inches; about an inch longer than the English sparrow, and nearly as large as a hermit thrush.

Male and Female: Upper parts reddish-brown, brightest on lower back and tail. (The red-brown tail is a distinguishing mark of the fox sparrow as it is of the hermit thrush.) Under parts grayish-white; throat, breast, belly, and sides heavily and irregularly streaked with reddish-brown and black, except the middle of the belly, which is white.

Note: A faint seep or cheep.

Song: The most beautiful of all the sparrows’—a burst of melody possessing sweetness and power; joyous, yet with a minor strain.

Habitat: Tall thickets or clumps of weeds.

Range: North America. Breeds in the forest-regions of Canada and Alaska; winters from the lower Ohio and Potomac Valleys to central Texas and northern Florida.

Never shall I forget the thrill of surprise and ecstasy which my first fox sparrow brought to me! My sister and I were on eager quest for early migrants in open woods and overgrown pastures, when from a thicket of tall shrubs there burst so marvelous a “concord of sweet sounds” that we were spell-bound. No words can describe the tenderness, the joyous abandon, yet withal the strain of sadness in the song, as though the choristers had drunk deep of life, had visioned clearly its secrets, and transmuted its experiences. When the music had become a soft cadence, we sought the singers, and found a band of thrush like sparrows scratching in the old brown leaves like bantam hens. They remained in the thicket for several days, singing most rapturously toward sunset.

Though shy birds and seen infrequently, fox sparrows occasionally approach houses. During a deep spring snow that covered the birds’ natural food-supply, several of these north-bound migrants came three times a day with a flock of juncos to feed on bread-crumbs in our back yard. Like Tommy Tucker, they “sang for their supper.” Twice they arrived before a fresh supply of crumbs had been scattered; their songs announced their presence and were accompanied by the gentle trill of the juncos. A large flock remained in Middlesex Fells for several days.

Most bird-lovers consider an experience with fox sparrows as out of the ordinary. Thoreau wrote: “Is not the coming of the fox-colored sparrow something more earnest and significant than I have dreamed of? These migrating sparrows bear all messages that concern my life.”[58]

PHŒBE