This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Oh no, not another sparrow story! Do not worry: Worthen’s Sparrow is a bunting – although New World Sparrow is apparently “en vogue” too. Whatever you want to call it, it’s definitely not a sparrow… Worthen’s Sparrow is extremely rare.
Time for a friendlier view: why I absolutely adore sparrows. What’s so adorable about sparrows, these common, ubiquitous little brown birds? There was a post on trash birds and Kai recently really went for the knock-out by trashing our beloved hobby. I love them!
Specifically, the area surrounding our church is my best place to see sparrows, both residents and our (much more common) winter migratory sparrows. The one exception is the Chipping Sparrow , which can be found easily wherever there is grass. Happily, nobody would struggle to identify a Lark Sparrow.
I therefore decided to counter this month’s heinous wood-warbler attack on my retina by choosing the good old trusty House Sparrow as the topic of my May post. The last aspect is something I will elaborate on further below, but not before showing off a prime fine male House Sparrow, unethically photographed at its nest site.
Today, along with teams in a few other parts of Costa Rica and elsewhere, I will be birding for a cause, watching birds to help one that only lives in Costa Rica, the Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow. Around the size of a Song Sparrow or Chaffinch , maybe a bit bigger, this mini towhee forages near the ground in dense scrubby vegetation.
A new paper out this month attempts to paint the most comprehensive picture yet of the origins and diversification of the American sparrows, wood-warblers, blackbirds, cardinals, tanagers, and their kin, an enormous group of birds more than 800 species strong. We now know a lot more about who is a tanager vs. a sparrow vs. a cardinal.
A New York City Parks Department contractor just wiped out a breeding population of sparrows in tons of trouble already, on land owned by the parks department that was supposed to be protected as “Forever Wild.” It looks to me like they drove a crane straight through this section of what’s called Four Sparrow Marsh. Not anymore.
Lake Constance (of the Bodensee in German) is a huge lake on the border of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The place is very popular among tourists of these and many other countries, with extensive tourist infrastructure in place in most towns around the lake.
Which may be why the photo here shows two Clay-colored Sparrows , one Yellow-rumped Warbler , and one lovely Virginia’s Warbler , all hiding among many vicious huizache thorns. This particular thorny habitat seems to be especially beloved by sparrows, both migratory and resident: There were Clay-colored Sparrows by the dozen.
One of my ornithologist friends appears to be happy counting House Sparrows and Eurasian Collared Doves for his lists; he also claims that the eBird name stands for “e(very)Bird counts” I doubt that is really where the name came from, but hey, the sentiment sounds so darned noble.
He connected with both, adding Nelson’s Sparrow and Vesper Sparrow for the year. Corey had two species he wanted to make sure he saw this weekend because it is their prime migration time and he hadn’t seen either all year. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
Let’s see if you agree: I liked some of the photos as much for their backgrounds as for the bird itself, such as this Lincoln Sparrow foraging among duckweed, algae, Ficus fruits, and Jacaranda flowers. Most of our winter New World sparrows seem to have already headed north. But our resident Chipping Sparrows never leave.
Contrasting with the other larks’ habits of perching on the tops of acacia trees and hanging out along the roadways, Fischer’s Sparrow-Larks were intent on slipping through tall grasses. Speaking of sparrows, we managed to see several species, many of which were within Nairobi city limits. Isabelline Wheatear.
The list starts with those species that are always present: House Sparrows (oh, so many House Sparrows !), My House Sparrows , Weaver Finches that they are, have discovered how to pull tough-but-flexible strips off my banana leaves to weave into their nests. Lincoln Sparrows have been unusually abundant this year.
eBird) had it that the best place to find Clay-colored Sparrow is a particular conifer plantation on a particular farm road in the rural western portion of the county. The rumors were delightfully true, as that buzzy call from a spruce bough drew my attention to what must be the most boring sparrow on the planet. Rumor (i.e.
What I enjoy–almost more than any other moment of my birding year–is that special spring day when White-Crowned Sparrows deign to visit my humble home en route to their boreal breeding grounds. Happily, the sparrows finally arrived this weekend and have strutted around my feeders enough for me to fully admire their beauty.
Of the four new year birds for him the best was one of several Nelson’s Sparrows at Big Egg Marsh, always a great bird to see, and Corey saw several very well as the high tide forced them out of the marsh. Corey had a great weekend of birding, from morning flight on Saturday to an exploration of some nice coastal habitat on Sunday.
Not a bad video of a young White-crowned Sparrow , right? The sparrow was remarkably cooperative and that is an important aspect of getting decent video. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Nelson’s Sparrow sit up so long. It really was (and is) that easy! … Phone Skope sent me an adaptor for free to use.
Grandala, Balangshan, Sichuan, China, June 08, 2023 Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Lake Kussharo, Hokkaido, Japan, February 18 , 2024 Snow Bunting, Wuerqihan, Inner Mongolia, China, December 23, 2023 Photos taken by Kai Pflug This series features three bird photos with a common theme taken by the same photographer.
Charismatic megafauna abounds throughout the park, and folks would be forgiven for overlooking a sparrow-lark while lions battle buffalo in front an audience consisting of everything from bite… Source
Clay-colored Sparrows In about a month, I will have my 66th birthday. Black-chinned Sparrow , a flagship species for this site. Lark Sparrow In recent months, several American birders have reached out to have me take them birding in or around Morelia. It happens that I hate doing traditional exercise.
White-crowned Sparrow My husband… Source The blogger in Toronto asked if he would like to spend a day birding together. That is how Fitzroy and Leslie became possibly the first writers in recent times from 10000 Birds to meet up.
On Sunday morning I was working my way through a flock of sparrows at Edgemere Landfill in Queens, one of my favorite birding locales. But then the sparrows scattered and this harrier came in for a landing on the twiggy branches at the crest of the hill. This certainly beat digiscoping sparrows! Northern Harrier.
In July 2011 a Henslow’s Sparrow was found in Ames, N.Y., I’m not quite sure where I was at the time, probably working, and it was six more years till I got my state Henslow’s Sparrow at Shawangunk NWR (a shorter drive and a more cooperative bird). a rural area in the eastern-central part of the state.
A late Northern Parula was nice, his first Canvasback of the season was pleasant, and sweeping the scoters is always fun, but his favorite bird of the weekend was an Ipswich Sparrow. Yes, the pale subspecies of Savannah Sparrow is always a cool treat and Corey greatly enjoyed finding one at Breezy Point.
Las Mesas is the only place I’ve found for which the Black-chinned Sparrow is a reliable species, but this adorable bird, perhaps my favorite local sparrow, always seemed to position himself with some severe backlighting… until this trip. While I can claim full credit for the sparrow, Jonathan got the next one.
Stripe-headed Sparrow and Other Dry Forest Birds. Normally found in much drier landscapes at lower elevations, a few of this sparrow somehow found their way to Calle Viquez. These pioneering sparrows share their patch with another dry forest bird, the Lesser Ground-Cuckoo !
Eurasian Tree Sparrow. House Sparrow. Spoiler alert: nothing too exciting for somebody familiar with European birds, but interesting enough for me …. European Robin. Yellowhammer. Common Chaffinch. Common Blackbird. Great Spotted Woodpecker. European Greenfinch. Eurasian Blue Tit. Eurasian Jay.
Chipping Sparrow. Since I can’t leave well enough alone, I’ll throw in a photo of a Grasshopper Sparrow that definitely did not visit my Wonder Tree. Grasshopper Sparrows normally act rather like quail, hiding in deep brush until one’s presence causes them to flush briefly and then dive back out of sight.
This Song Sparrow really liked the mulberries. (It’s It’s hard to find something interesting to say about Song Sparrows. . There’s a mulberry tree directly over the puddle that drops ripe and not-quite ripe berries to the ground. Birds can come in for a meal and a drink! At least I got this decent shot!
In the erstwhile sanctuary, common species like Red-billed Pigeon , Blue-black Grassquit , and Rufous-collared Sparrow abound. Recently, I was surprised to have a family of Stripe-headed Sparrows , birds typically associated with dry habitats of the North Pacific slope. It now occurs in various sites in the Central Valley.
But, amazingly, not all the “House Sparrows” I saw were House Sparrows ; a large group in Algeciras, in southern Spain, were Spanish Sparrows , and a smaller group in Madrid were European Tree Sparrows. (In In Rome, I saw one that turned out to be an Italian Sparrow. Yeah, I’m a Mallard.
Rufous-collared Sparrow. We have House Sparrows too but this bird is much more common. This is our usual sparrow, the one that sings a cheery song from a roadside wire, the ones that forages on the ground. The bird sings loud and clear as dirt bikes and cars rush by, as people people converse and pass by on sidewalks.
From: Sparrow. To: Sparrow. Outstanding work, Sparrow! Sparrow has successfully completed Operation Duck Drop. From: Sparrow. To: Sparrow. Sparrow has completed many other operations and there were no objections to using him, including from you. From: Sparrow. To: Sparrow. From: Sparrow.
Hordes of House Sparrows and Rock Pigeons are more than willing to push you around rather then let you have that choice morsel you just found. I sure appreciated this Swamp Sparrow. Once you’ve landed though, you are in a bizarre situation. That patch of green isn’t very big and there are lots of people all around you.
There was the Botteri’s Sparrow giving a larger Canyon Towhee a piece of its mind, on my way into town: The reservoir itself was underwhelming, only offering me a collection of white Egrets (Cattle, Snowy and Great) and a single Great Blue Heron.
Rusty-crowned Ground-Sparrows and Stripe-headed Sparrows are also fond of this brushy grass habitat. Stripe-headed Sparrows , when they sing, sound like someone squeezing a rubber ducky as fast as they can. And they sing a lot! Among the birds contributed by the lowland Thorn Forest habitat is the Thick-billed Kingbird.
The Rusty Sparrow is a bird of Mexico and Central America that looks remarkably like the Rufous-crowned Sparrow , but is considerably larger. But you must come to Mexico to meet the also-common Rusty-crowned Ground-Sparrows and Slate-throated Redstarts. As you can see, Spotted Wrens , unlike their distant U.S.
Along with the above species, there were also Brown-backed Solitaires , Hepatic Tanagers , Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush, Northern Beardless-Tyrannulets, Greenish Elaenia , Nutting’s and Dusky-capped Myiarchus Flycatchers , and Rusty-crowned Ground Sparrows. So was this Rusty-crowned Ground-Sparrow.
But, of them all, his Best Bird of the Weekend was a new one for him for Ulster County, a Lincoln’s Sparrow. He got to some of the hotspots in his home town and enjoyed seeing a variety of fall migrants from wood-warblers to blackbirds. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
Passerida includes such familiar passerines as larks, thrushes and chats, “Old World” warblers and flycatchers, wrens, chickadees and t**s, babblers, starlings, waxwings, weavers, pipits, finches, tanagers, cardinals, sparrows, buntings, blackbirds, wood warblers, and others.
Hope Cemetery was much improved by a number of Chipping Sparrows and a single errant baby Snapping Turtle. As grumpy as these daily 30-degree temperature swings are making me, you have to wonder how the birds are reacting. My family’s walk through Rochester’s historic Mt.
White-throated Sparrows don’t generally stand out unless they turn up at my feeder in sharp plumage, which they did on Sunday. At least my summers are mild. While I knocked down plenty of first of spring birds this weekend, I most appreciated the appearance of a species that hangs around all winter.
In an unhurried half-day of birding, we racked up over 90 species, including killers like Denham’s Bustard , Northern Carmine-throated Bee-eater , and Shelley’s Rufous Sparrow. Mind boggling, I answer! Beaudouin’s Snake-Eagle … wow!!
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 30+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content