In Ontario the White-crowned Sparrow is a fairly common migrant but nesting is mainly in the vicinity of Huson and James Bays. One June, I visited Moosenee and recall seeing and hearing many there.

This is a big sparrow, with plain gray throat and underparts and a conspicuous white crown bordered on each side with broad black stripes. The bill is pink.

In young birds, the crown is brownish.

We saw several, both adult and juvenile, this morning at Col. Sam Smith Park.

Other birds, two butterflies and a milkweed beetle family.

Today’s group:

NATURE POETRY

Morning opens like a gold flower,
Stirs and quivers singingly at the feet of the day;
Shoots transparent light into a moving mist
That wrists spirally
Like a butterfly at play.      – Elsa Gidlow (1898–1986)

Miles Hearn