[EBB Sightings] Fox Sparrow and Swainson's Thrush

It was a birdy walk at Huckleberry Preserve late
yesterday afternoon. Mixed species flocks of
chickadees, Townsend's warblers, Hutton's vireos (too
sluggish for a RC Kinglet, altho otherwise almost
identical) the odd creeper and bushtits greeted me at
the entrance. A furtive, thrush-sized bird dove into
the thick vegetation along the upper trail, where we
peered at each other through a triangular break in the
vegetation: beady, buffy-ringed eyeball to beady
blue-eyed eyeball. The bird's spot breast and bright
buffy back proclaimed it a Swainson's, the first that
I've seen or heard there in a while.

A grouping of Spotted Towhees scratched in the thick
duff, joined by another leaf-kicker: a large, spot
breast, gray-mantled yellow-mandibled Fox sparrow. 

The new feathered faces herald the changing of the
seasons; can Varied Thrush, my favorite wet, winter
companions of the dark Bay forest, be far behind?

Debbie Viess
Oakland