The other day I heard a thunk on my window and figured it was a bird strike, and I was not wrong. There, beneath my window, lay a white-throated sparrow, not moving. I located a box and headed out to lay him to rest properly, and when I was a foot or two away from him, he fluttered his wings and flew off. I was pretty happy to witness his resurrection. White-throated sparrows are one of my favorite birds that visit our feeder. And, when they are not hopping around the feeder, they can be found holed up in brush piles around town. We look for them everywhere and have taken to calling them “bike helmets,” as the markings on their heads resemble bike helmets to my side kick and me. Not to mention that it is really fun to have all sorts of pet names for the fauna around here, making us feel like we have our own secret language, thus one upping our children when they lapse into ubby dubby.
White-throated Sparrows are abundantly found in low bushes and are easily identified by their bright white throats. They are common visitors to feeders as well.
But back to the white-throat’s miraculous recovery from the window strike. As he took flight, I thought about a story my mom had told me that also involved a clonk on the head and some moments of held breath. It seems the family up the street on the corner of Russell got a new refrigerator. Word spread through the hood as that meant one thing…a huge box would be available for play for at least 24 hours until the cardboard turned to papier mâché. So, naturally my brothers all headed up the sidewalk with visions of the fort they would make; the spaceship they could craft from the refrigerator box. After a while, in a rare moment of watchfulness, my mom decided to toddle up to see how the kids were faring with their box. En route to the neighbors, she met two of the boys returning from the scene looking pretty grim. The older boy spouted, “Mrs. Fuller, it’s no use. Tom’s dead.” Those are not words my mom wanted to hear as she had already lost her first born to SIDS, so she accelerated down the sidewalk in record speed. By the time my mother arrived on the scene, she found my brother near the box coming to from a concussion. He had been playing monster with the neighborhood gang. It was his turn to be “it” which meant he was in the box. One of the kids got a bit over-exuberant and pushed the box over with him inside. His arms did not break his fall, so he clonked his head. My mom carried him home. He had a raging headache and spent the night in the hospital, upchucking while breathing erratically. He was unable to sit up and had double vision, but at least he was alive. Another bullet dodged.
But back to our own survivor, the white-throated sparrow. He returned to the feeder looking no worse for wear as he foraged for seeds just a few minutes after his accident. He is a handsome sparrow with two color forms: a tan crowned phase and one with a white crown. He feeds at the feeder but also eats insects and grasses and fruit. These sparrows breed in Canada in the forest and have two broods each year in a nest near the ground. Each winter the white throats arrive in our area in mid-fall and add a dignified touch to life under our bird feeders and in bushes across town. But dignified or not, does our little visitor remember clonking into the window? I guess I will never know. But, if my brother is any indication, probably not. On the rare occasions when he lapses into gibberish, he claims to have no recollection of an oversized box and neighborhood shenanigans back in the day. Go figure!