Adaptable Song Sparrows

     Song sparrows are plain, little birds that are big on adapting to a variety of habitats, the reason they are spread abundantly across North America, including in southeastern Pennsylvania.  These native birds inhabit thickets in cities, suburban areas, woodland edges, hedgerows between fields, and overgrown meadows, fields and stream sides.  Sometimes I see one or two song sparrows on a blacktop parking lot near weeds and shrubbery where they chase invertebrates, and seeds blowing in the wind. 
     Song sparrows are brown with black stripes and markings that camouflage them well in all their niches.  Each bird has a large, black spot in the middle of its chest that will identify it as to species.  And they readily come to bird feeders through the year, to the delight of bird watchers. 
     Males of this species are one of the first small, permanent resident birds to sing early in spring, as early as warm afternoons in the middle of February.  They sing lively songs from the tops of trees and shrubbery, lovely ditties that inspire many a human tired of winter and happy to see spring.  Song sparrow music is one of the first sure signs of the coming spring.
     So adaptable are they, song sparrows, as a species, could fill every niche left by extinct sparrows, if that happens.  Though most pairs of song sparrows nest low in protective shrubbery, some pairs hatch young on the ground under tall grass, the way grassland sparrows do.  Song sparrows could fill the niche of grassland sparrows, as well as other bush-nesting kinds. 
     But I think song sparrows are most beautiful and intriguing in shrubbery along inland waterways and impoundments.  And they have a lot of potential in that habitat, too.  This type of sparrow secretly slips along the edge of the water, as would inland kinds of sandpipers, but under sheltering shrubbery, to catch and eat a variety of invertebrates from the surfaces of the mud and water.  The sandpipers feed in open areas of mud flats and shorelines, thus lessoning competition with song sparrows for invertebrate food. 
     Song sparrows even wade in inch-deep water after food.  Longer legs, if the sparrows developed them, would help them catch more invertebrates in deeper water.  And with more minor changes in body structures and behaviors, they may become ever more sandpiper-like to take fuller advantage of that stream bank habitat to get food. 
     But these same individual song sparrows get invertebrates from plants along the shores, and seeds on those plants, and on the soil and mud.  And with one jump or flick of their wings they find shelter in shoreline thickets when danger threatens.  They really are birds of the shorelines of inland streams and impoundments, where protective thickets are present to hide from predators and inclement weather, and to raise young. 
     Unfortunately, song sparrows are sometimes victimized by female brown-headed cowbirds that lay an egg in each of several other birds' nurseries.  If the victims don't recognize the foil, they will raise the cowbird chicks with their own.
     Watch for song sparrows in thickets in suburbs, woodland edges, hedgerows and overgrown fields, pastures and stream sides through the year.  They are lovely, cheery birds that will make many a human heart sing.