Chipping Sparrow

I did a double take when I walked past the door and saw this fellow helping himself to some seeds out at the bird café. I don't often see Chipping Sparrows at the house. I see them - a lot of them - along the dirt road we regularly walk down. They are always there - along with the Easter Bluebirds. But generally they only show up here very rarely when there's a lot of snow or some other reason to go looking for a handout. Maybe the unusually cold nights we've been having have made him go looking for a quick meal?

One of the oddest things about Chipping Sparrows in general - adorable little birds that they are, much more delicate looking than most sparrows - is that the Cornell website insists that they only breed here. The range map shows them wintering in Florida and Texas and Southern California and the Baja Peninsula. But! BUT!!! I see them on our walks ALL YEAR ROUND. I even have photographic evidence of them at least once in every single month of the year in 2014 when I was obsessively photographing every single bird I saw on our walks. The first time I saw one I had wasn't sure what it was and asked my birding guru to confirm my calling it a Chipping Sparrow. She said - this was in March - that it was probably an early migrant returning for the breeding season. I took that to be true until the following winter clearly demonstrated that they were spending the entire year here. Why the Cornell people don't know this yet is a complete mystery to me. Oh well! I can certainly share photos of them if anyone cares.