Shivering sparrow in a gray felt hat

Peek-a-boo House Sparrow. Margaret Madsen photo

From inside my warm kitchen I look out on the cold silver and blue morning, and yes, that is blue snow, not blue sky, beyond the feeder. It's minus 28 outside and according to the television, Jan 17, when I took this photo, is the most depressing day of the year. Yikes! When will spring come?

You can tell I'm suffering from cabin fever when a pesky House Sparrow starts to look appealing to me. Isn't he cute? He looks like he's playing peek-a-boo. House sparrows are incredibly difficult for me to photograph. The moment they notice the slightest movement in the window they take off in frantic flight. There were half a dozen on the feeder when I began to depress the camera "button" and just this one left when the shutter actually clicked. There was a dozen or so Common Redpolls among the hungry horde of sparrows on the ground under the feeders this morning. They stayed calmly collecting their breakfast while the sparrows leapt nervously to the spruce tree.

Why do you suppose sparrows are so jittery, chickadees so friendly and red polls so indifferent to people?

I think the House Sparrow must have been the first bird I learned to recognize. They were ever-present at Rutan, the elevator siding south of Meacham where I grew up. Because I've always known a Passer domesticus on sight, I never closely examined one until about 10 years ago when I was giving grandson Ian, then 6 or 7, a lesson on identifying birds.

"Describe the bird outside the window," I instructed, handing him the binoculars.

"It's brown and black," he said.

"What else?"

"It's stomach is white. And it's black and brown on its wings and there's white stripes. And it's black under its chin and up to his eyes. And then it's brown. And it's gray on top of its head"

"Gray on its head?"

"Yes, Grandma. Gray."

"Let me see." I took the binoculars and looked. He was right. I knew perfectly well what a sparrow looked like, but I had never looked closely enough to see the distinct gray, like a flat felt cap, on top of his head!

And that just goes to show how we can look without seeing, how we can see what we think is there, and how we can learn so much from children.