<html><head></head><body><div class="yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:arial;font-size:16px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">An absolutely stunning tan-stripe first of season WHITE-THROATED SPARROW made a quite startling appearance emerging from the shrubbery for a most satisfying bins-free look from the kitchen window around 10am today. A couple hours later while tossing out some seed and shelled peanuts at my ground feeding station in the lower part of the yard along the ravine, creek, and back yard greenbelt for my resident and always endearing Douglas Squirrels along with the usual menagerie of avian suspects, the WTSP was down there as well and even making a few utterances of song which I thought a little surprising for the date and season but maybe that's not all that unusual. I just don't recall having heard them making even partial song-like noises in the fall and winter, at least around here, although by late winter into early spring before departure it is not unusual to hear them then in full song as was especially the case this past late winter/spring when I had up to three WTSPs hanging around, both tan and white-stripe forms.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Pterodroma (retired)</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Bellevue/Eastgate, WA<br></div></div></body></html>