Arizona's Grasslands and More

This past week, I had the privilege of searching for Arizona birds for a person that has been birding for more than 50 years and has a life list of of over 6400 species.  Peter Bono and his wife Elaine, made a stop in Arizona on their way to Mexico and had contacted me through Birding Pal.  Believe it or not, he was missing 3 species on his life list and was hoping I could assist him on these 3 species.  It is a bit intimidating to be trying to help find life birds for a person that already has almost 5000 species more than myself.  His life list targets were Baird's Sparrow, a species that I had only seen once before and that was almost 7 years ago, Cackling Goose and Sagebrush Sparrow.  The latter 2 species, I felt would be a bit easier than the sparrow as they usually winter in Maricopa County and there had been solid reports of them in the recent weeks.

Our first full day, we headed out early to southeastern Arizona to search for the Baird's Sparrow.  We arrived at our destination right around sunrise and we stationed ourselves in one spot to let the birds get acclimated to seeing us in their habitat.  After checking out many sparrows, we finally zeroed in on a Baird's Sparrow, which is a good looking sparrow!  A couple of them were kind enough to pose for photos. 

 Baird's Sparrow

Baird's Sparrow

As mentioned earlier, other species of sparrows were present; Grasshopper, Savannah, and Vesper A well as several Eastern Meadowlarks.  So it was a great opportunity to observe the finer details in sparrow identification.

 Grasshopper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Eastern Meadowlark

From here we headed to Madera Canyon and the Santa Rita Mountains.  Madera Canyon is one of my favorite places in Arizona and I never get tired of birding there. 

 Hammond's Flycatcher

 Hepatic Tanager

 Painted Redstart

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

The next day, we birded in and around the Phoenix area.  Was able to get the Cackling Goose at Glendale Recharge Ponds, luckily I had my scope to zero in on them as they were quite a ways out in the water.  Next stop was the Thrasher Spot where we were able to get the Sagebrush Sparrow, which is a bird he did not have due to the recent split of the Sage Sparrow.

Sagebrush Sparrow

We then headed back to the eastern part of the valley to do some birding, and on the way I was able to locate the returning winter resident dark-morph Ferruginous Hawk.  I think this is the first time I have been able to photograph in in sunshine instead of cloudy skies.

Ferruginous Hawk - (dark-morph)

Now that his 3 lifers had been confirmed, we started working on birds to add to his Arizona list, so a stop at the Gilbert Riparian Preserve and other various spots were in order.

 Chestnut-sided Warbler

 Hooded Merganser - Female

 Orange Crowned Warbler

Wilson's Snipe

We also visited the backyard of a resident that has an awesome back yard for birds.  He was kind enough to allow us in to spend some time and we were hoping for the Ruddy Ground-Dove that has been visiting his back yard.  It took about 1½ hours before it made its appearance, but it finally did.

Ruddy Ground-Dove

It is rather satisfying to be able to assist a person in adding some new life birds to their list, especially when they are approaching the 6500 number.  In retrospect, it is an educational opportunity to fine tune my skills on birds that I do not see that often.  Sparrows can be so challenging, but the more one is exposed to them, they getting easier to identify for any future sightings.  

     

Sparrows, aka LBJ's

Ah, what a boring topic to choose for a blog, as many people will think.  This group of birds is one of the least interesting and least colorful for many a novice birder and many times are ignored because of the difficulty in identification.  In the book, The Big Year, they are also referred to as LBJ's, those 'Little Brown Jobbies'.  While I am far from being an expert on sparrows, I was going through my old photo files and discovered that I had actually captured many photos of some of the more than 30 species found in the United States.  Still does not make me an expert, but I have found that trying to identify them requires much more than just visual looks.  Habitat, behavior and song play a big role and one always has to keep in mind the range maps in most guides.  Obviously birds don't read maps and will sometimes show up in the most unlikely places, but it is rare.  The sparrow family is quite large and in many cases, some of the species have sub-species and I suppose it is possible that someday some of those sub-species may be split off into separate species of their own.  I am not going to expand on how to identify each species as there are wonderful guides already written by many experts in the avian world that do much more justice than what I could ever begin to do.  What I have decided, is to try and post some photos of some of the Sparrows that I have been able to capture in photos.  I think that once you look at these photos, most people will agree that some of these Sparrows are quite attractive and distinct.  Just remember that not all the sparrows found in the US are depicted in the photos below.  I am only posting those that I have captured in photos.  Not all of the photos are of the quality I wish I would have captured, but they are good enough to identify the species of the bird and show off some of their true markings.  That gives me incentive to try for somthing better the next time I run across one of them!

Let's start off with a species that consists of more than one sub-species, a White-crowned Sparrow.  Below are photos of the sub-species gambelii and oriantha.  Very similar, but also very different once you look at the photos.  Check out the striping on the head and also the color of the beaks. 

White-crowned Sparrow-gambelii

White-crowned Sparrow-orientha

The White-throated Sparrow is a bit similar to the White-crowned and sometimes mixes in with White-crowns and is often overlooked by novice birders.

White-throated Sparrow

Next are photos of a Rufous-winged Sparrow and a Rufous-crowned Sparrow.

Rufous-winged Sparrow

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

Next we have a Black-throated Sparrow, a Black-chinned Sparrow, and a Sage Sparrow.  The Black-throated is one of my favorite sparrows; handsome little birds!  Sage Sparrow is not too bad either!

Black-throated Sparrow

Black-chinned Sparrow

Sage Sparrow

The next 3 in the lineup are the Baird's Sparrow, the Grasshopper Sparrow, and a Savannah Sparrow.  Savannah is one that has sub-species and not all Savannah's will look like this photo.

Baird's Sparrow

Grasshopper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

These next 4 consist of the Chipping Sparrow, Brewer's Sparrow, Song Sparrow, and Lincoln's Sparrow.  The Song Sparrow is found pretty much throughout the United States, but can look very different from one area of the country to another.

Chipping Sparrow

Brewer's Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

The last 3 Sparrows being represented include Lark Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow and finally the Fox Sparrow.  The Fox Sparrow is found in at least 3 color phases, of which I have 2 of them in photos. 

Lark Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Fox Sparrow--"Red"

Fox Sparrow--"Slate-colored"

These photos represent about half of the sparrow species found in the United States.  Birders should not be intimidated by the identification of this group of birds.  The more one sees them in the field and in their habitats, the more you learn about identification.  No, it is not always easy, but this is a group of birds that is challenging and when one does get past the stage of intimidation, they are quite interesting birds to observe and can be a lot of fun.  I will continue to seek out more of these LBJ's and hopefully capture some more future photos of more of them.