Stony Kill Farm

Stony Kill Farm Education Center in New York's Hudson Valley combines agricultural history and environmental education. It offers working farm exhibits, historic buildings, and trails for hands-on learning about sustainable farming, local wildlife, and ecosystems. The site of a working farm with livestock as well as community gardens growing flowers and vegetables make this an attractive tract for various species of birds. At this time of year, most plants have gone to seed and a nice variety of songbirds are drawn in by the ample supply of fall and winter feed.

My main goal today was to find some sparrows which may have come into the area as a staging area before moving on further south or to take up residence for the winter. My first sparrow of the day, however, was the omnipresent House sparrow. While the male of the species is actually quite a handsome bird, most of us with bird feeders become quite jaded as we see this bird virtually every day throughout the year. And so, I was less than excited to see Passer domestics as the dominant bird of the gardens when I first arrived.

Young House sparrow in the gardens of Stony Kill Farm 11-3-25

Very shortly after finding many of the House sparrows inhabiting the grounds, however, I heard a welcome call of the White-crowned sparrow. The song of this bird is quite distinctive…. “a short series of clear whistles followed by buzzy notes” is how the Audubon Field Guide describes it. A group of 5 White-crowns had flown in and alighted in a nearby low tree, and as I sat nearby in my makeshift blind (aka car), the birds posed and sang beautifully for me.

Adult White-crowned sparrow - Stony Kill Farm - 11-3-25

The small flock of sparrows was a mix of adult and first-winter birds. Adults sport a brilliant white and black crown as seen in the shot above. First-winter birds crowns are chestnut and gray as seen in the bird below.

White-crowned sparrows are quite common out west, summering in the mountains, spending winters in the southwest lowlands, and present along the coast all year long. Here in the east, however, the White-crowned sparrow is generally found as a migrating bird or overwintering bird, so this is another definite indication that winter is on the way! We certainly welcome this little gem to our part of the country!

I was a bit disappointed that there was quite a bit of work going on at the Farm today and much of it was in the vicinity of the gardens where I had hoped for more species of sparrows. Within the past several days, Chipping sparrows, White-throated sparrows, Field sparrows, Savannah sparrows (which I did see but not well enough to get a decent photo), Song sparrows (heard but not seen), a Lincoln’s sparrow and Swamp sparrows were all reported on eBird. The area is definitely a mecca for sparrows during this season, and I will return soon to try again for more of these winter birds.

Another winter visitor that I did find and photograph was the Dark-eyed junco. While juncos can be found throughout New York during most of the year, they generally confine themselves to higher elevations and forests of conifers and mixed-woods. During the winter months, however, they come down to more open areas and are often found along roadsides and in brushy areas. These dimunitive gray and white birds can easily be identified as they take flight by their brilliant white outer tail feathers seen in today’s image below. These little guys are mostly ground feeders eating predominantly insects and seeds in summer and seeds and berries in winter. They do show up at our feeders during the winter, but they are almost always picking through the remains of the seed that have been spilled out of the overhanging feeders by more voracious birds.

After a lull in the presence of birds during the late summer and early fall, the appearance of entering migrants and overwintering birds is making up for the down-time. We will be heading over to the “Black Dirt” area of Orange County once again later this week in the hopes of finding winter specialties like Snow buntings, Horned larks and my favorite raptor, the Northern Harrier. While it is still a bit early, Short-eared owls are also known to show up in the area as winter draws near. So, it is an exciting time to be out and about looking for birds that are indeed seasonal and can be photographed here in the valley for a relatively short period of time. Cease the moment!

Tech Tip - While the evening temperatures have started to flirt with the freezing point, daytime temps are still pretty mild. But as we get on into winter, it’s important to remember to bring along extra batteries as the life of the rechargeables will be shorter in frigid conditions. Also, carry the spares in a pocket close to your body to keep them warm. There’s no worse feeling than having the “shot of a lifetime” go by the wayside because your battery has died and your spares are back home sitting in the charging station in your office. Be prepared!