This morning amidst all the other birds I was hearing I thought I heard a white-crowned sparrow. When I came home this afternoon and took the trash out, my suspicions were confirmed when I found a white-crowned lurking on the ground under my bird feeder.

When I made it back upstairs to the apartment, it had started singing again. I stood in my tub, opened the bathroom window and screen, and could hear the sparrow singing below. I grabbed my spotting scope and digital camera and my ipod and speaker. I cued up white-crowned sparrow on the old birdJam, set it to repeat, pressed play, and within seconds:

...the white-crowned sparrow popped up and sang right back and I digiscoped away while standing in the bathtub.

And then he looked straight at me. He wasn't very close, he was in the noisy neighbor's tree next door and just happened to pop up on a perch between all the leaves. I snapped a few photos and then turned off the iPod. The white-throat continued to sing for the rest of the afternoon. I love these guys. That head looks so out of place--it's all dull browns and gray with a sassy little beret of bold black and white on top.