Chipping Sparrow in dogwood
Spizella passerina
Chipping Sparrow · Green-Wood Cemetery · 25 April 2026
A Chipping Sparrow in flowering dogwood at Green-Wood, one of the more reliable markers of exactly this point in a New York spring. It is the sparrow of lawns and open woodland across the continent, back from the southern states to breed in the cemetery's conifers.
A crisp rufous cap, black eyeline and clean grey underparts mark the breeding adult; a plainer, streakier bird carries the same species through winter. The song is a dry trill on one note, like a sewing machine, and it lines its nest with horsehair where it can find any.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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