A Lincoln Sparrow Returns

Bird-watching is a kind of timekeeping, a way to measure the changing seasons and advancing days.  Without the aid of a calendar, I know that it's mid-summer in northern Arizona when I spy a rufous hummingbird at the nectar feeder.  And if a wood duck appears within a flock of mallards on a desert canal it's certainly winter.  Likewise a Lincoln's sparrow in my Phoenix backyard heralds the start of spring.

But this diminutive sparrow seems to pinpoint the time to a month if not a week.  Last March I noticed him for the first time pecking through my raised cactus bed and grassy lawn.   And like clockwork, he's returned close to the same time, alone again, foraging through whatever bounty my manicured yard provides from its blooming aloes and shedding lysiloma trees.  

I suspect he's not a year-round resident but rather a seasonal visitor like another garden resident, his cousin the white-crowned sparrow.  But this Lincoln's sparrow is a specific reminder that the days are getting both warmer and longer, and that nature has its own advancing clock, readable by all forms of life.  

Solitary Lincoln's sparrow in my Phoenix backyard.

Solitary Lincoln's sparrow in my Phoenix backyard.

Solitary Lincoln's sparrow in my Phoenix backyard.

Solitary Lincoln's sparrow in my Phoenix backyard.

Solitary Lincoln's sparrow in my Phoenix backyard.

Solitary Lincoln's sparrow in my Phoenix backyard.