Another one of my regular winter visitors besides the oven bird are flocks of chipping sparrows (Spizella passerina). These cute little boys and girls come down to spend the coolest months of the year in Florida, the southern United States, and Mexico. They tend to be gregarious and associate with other chipping sparrows as well as other small songbirds. This group showed up at my feeding station on Wednesday morning, and set right to helping themselves to the bird seed. I had seen one single bird about two weeks ago, but none since then. Because they are social, these birds are a lot of fun to watch as they interact with others. They will hopefully spend most of the winter here before returning to the great white north for next year’s breeding season. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy their company for the winter.