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average of 17 feedings per hour; four and one-quarter feedings per hour for each nestling. The observer figured that for a day of fourteen hours, 238 insects would be consumed by the brood. I do not require those statistics to take pleasure in the presence of Chipping Sparrows though I realize that, were the birds nesting in my yard, the constant depletion of insects would favor my vegetable garden.
Like the Cardinal, the Chipping Sparrow has benefited from the changes European settlers brought to the New World. Both species were birds of the shrubby forest edge where the growth of trees was interrupted by lakes, rivers and areas burned by Native Americans to make it easier to hunt White-tailed Deer. When pioneers felled the trees for their cabins and crops, they produced the kind of shrubby growth in which Chippy Sparrows thrive.
In the 19th century, and well into this one, the Chipping Sparrow was called “the hair bird.”
A rapid series of chipping notes, all on the same key, pretty much sum up the simple song of the Chipping Sparrow.
A phrase from Henry David Thoreau is often quoted by nature writers. In his journal entry for March 22, 1853, Thoreau wrote: “I have an appointment with spring. She comes to the window to wake me, and I go forth an hour or two earlier than usual. It is by especial favor that I am waked, not rudely but gently ...” There most writers abandon the writer. The journal continued: “Though as yet the trill of the chip-bird is not heard, — added — like the sparkling bead which bursts on bottled cider or ale.” Later, for June 2, Thoreau wrote, noting the time; 3:30 a.m.: “When I awake I hear the low universal chirping of the chipbirds, like the bursting bead' on the surface of the uncorked day. First come, first served! You must taste the first glass of the day’s, nectar, if you would get all the spirit of it.”
So the Chipping Sparrow — Thoreau’s chip-bird — was a harbinger of spring for the great American Naturalist as it is for this very minor one.
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