VESPER
1.
(initial capital letter) the evening star, especially Venus; Hesper.
Its curious how this chunky sparrow with the prominent eye ring seen this morning at Field 7 's home plate area got its name. Evening Star ???? Venus ? So I dug further into name origin..
From one of the websites I found ,the name is given based on the following fact:
The vesper sparrow gets its name from its habit of singing in the late afternoon and early evening; although, during the nesting season, the bird sings at all times of the day.
Hence it hasn't anything to do with Venus from the above fact though the planet is sometimes an evening star but rather in the old Christian and still is in abbeys and monasteries,when singing collectively evening prayers and psalms by nuns and monks, something called Vespers as the dictionary says also:
1350-1400; Middle English, partly < Latin: evening, evening star; partly < Old Frenchvespres evening service < Medieval Latin vesperās, accusative plural of Latin vespera,feminine variant of vesper; cognate with Greek hésperos;
Example : vespers refers to prayers generally said in the evening, without the eucharist.
Hence now the connection with Venus and the ecclesiastical.Great to see and understand word origins.
I ran into Rob Jett at the ballfields southwest corner. There he found the VESPER SPARROW near home plate at field 7 "Safe at home" with the perimeter snow fence offering some protection. It also used the third base side dugout as cover.
As we walked thru the park along Long Meadow ending at Nellys Lawn ,we found a LINCOLNS SPARROW inside a mesh enclosure under Elizabeth's Tulip by the Zucker nature playground.We found another Lincolns at West Woods on the lawn.
Sparrows were most active at West Woods with a juvenile WHITE CROWNED and a decent number of CHIPPINGs.
But we will settle for Vespers any day ( but I can't sing).
Oh,by the way, as Rob J and I walked across the ballfield, we spotted two flyover COMMON LOONs heading south. Winters coming....