Getting to Know Eyebrows
the birds have all the answers!
I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. This is a White-throated Sparrow. He’s named for that lovely patch of snowy plumage beneath his beak. But I call him Eyebrows because well, obviously…
We met, as you might expect, over a pile of seeds.
Eyebrows came to visit in April, during that stretch of glorious springtime in Maine when the windows stay open all day, sunshine warming the fresh air, biting bugs held at bay by still-freezing nights.
When we first moved to Maine, every bird was new to us, and we were often stunned at the exquisite beauty of our common backyard visitors. Eyebrows was captivating. Look at those colors!
And he was so relaxed, so unbothered by our fuss, so at ease with our nearby noises. Our window feeder was like his morning cafe, he just pulled up a seat and made himself at home. He would keep an eye on the skies, scanning all the overhanging forest boughs while chewing, but he ignored us ground-bound bipeds like the comfortable background noise that we should be.
One day, I decided to try some outside angles for a few more portraits. I inched around the corner of the house, leading with my camera. Eyebrows looked up at me, ignored me, and went back to eating.
I sat down on the ground and took a few shots. He didn’t twitch a single feather at the sound of the shutter clicks. I scootched closer. He considered me patiently between nibbles, unconcerned, and scanned the skies for signs of trouble.
Finally satisfied, I put my camera away and just sat with Eyebrows, in companionable silence, as he munched seeds and watched the world.
Eyebrows became a fixture of our Maine springtimes, a familiar face making daily visits for a couple of months before going about the rest of his bird life in the nearby forest.
It’s the way with birds that they’re always teaching you things you didn’t expect to be learning. After a year in Texas, we returned to Maine at the end of summer. I didn’t expect to see any White-throated Sparrows until the following spring. But then, another visitor arrived. I just about thought this was a new face, a visitor we’d never met before. Except…those eyebrows, though…
The eyebrows were a little less bright. The white throat was a little less white. No dramatic racing-stripes on the crown. And he was so fluffy! Less sleek and streamlined, more downy and oh-so-snuggly. And so he earned the name Fluffles.
Could he be a juvenile, I wondered, not yet into full adult plumage? This question prompted a little subsequent research (birds are all-the-time prompting subsequent research in my life, birds make you smarter, trust the process.)
As it turns out, the White-throated Sparrow is a single species with two morphs, or color variations: White-striped and Tan-striped. Eyebrows was a White-striped morph. Fluffles was a Tan-striped morph. This was mildly interesting, but was about to become fascinating…
White-stripes and Tan-stripes interbreed, constantly. You might think that would produce a single color-scheme over time, either through dominance or blending, but these guys, well, they’re complicated.
Usually, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in the case of White-throated Sparrows, their coloring is actually genetically bundled with certain behavioral traits. White-stripes are more aggressive and better at defending territory; Tan-stripes are more nurturing and better at providing for fledglings.
When it comes time to choose a mate, ALL THE LADIES prefer Tan-striped males! 🤣 (You can read more at Audubon.org - it’s like a little White-throated Sparrow soap opera.)
The result each season is that most couples end up mixed. Mixed couples have the most successful nest outcomes, balancing defense with provision, and we end up with approximately equal numbers of both morphs season after season.
Fluffles reminds me so much of Eyebrows. I inched around the corner, and he patiently considered me from the branches. I sat down on the ground. He didn’t twitch a feather at the rapid-fire sound of many shutter clicks. He looked me over once more, and swooped casually down for some seeds.
I scootched closer. Between nibbles, he scanned the skies for signs of trouble. He studied me with mild curiosity while chewing. The companionable silence washed over me, and I put my camera away to just enjoy a moment with Fluffles, a familiar moment echoing back to the days when it was just me and Eyebrows at the seed-pile cafe.
White-throated Sparrows are pleasant visitors and comfortable companions - and so much more! They display an incredible balance of traits and behaviors that took naturalists a long time to observe and puzzle out.
Their lives are an elegant four-way tension, reconciling innate strengths and weaknesses into a harmony that reliably nurtures the prosperity of future generations. Doesn’t that sound like a model framework for solving a global dilemma or two?
Such wisdom, such grace, such uncomplicated solutions to life’s big problems, neatly bundled into feathered illustrations, gracing the margins of the world we think we know, waiting for us to look a little deeper.
Eyebrows and Fluffles, ambassadors for finding balance in a challenging world, charting a path of sustainable tomorrows, making the world a better place one curious human at a time!
I’m so glad you joined me to meet these two today - I hope you’ll introduce them to everyone you know :)
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Great shots of intimate moments with White-throated Sparrows, and I enjoyed reading how specific birds became characters in your life. I often say routine run-ins with a bird don’t make it unexceptional, they’re an invitation to get to know a bird—and you got to know White-throated Sparrows very well. Thank you for writing.
Wonderful photos and encounters with those White-throated Sparrows! That's amazing you were able to get close. I really like the call the males make when they arrive in Spring. That song for me truly rings in the Spring season.