Errata: Volume 1, Part 2

Perhaps I should retitle this blog to "As the ID Turns".

The bird formerly known as the Warbling Vireo

When we last left our hero, the little bird formerly known as the Warbling Vireo, it had attained a new identity as a Red-eyed Vireo.  

And I felt pretty good and noble about owning up to my lack of knowledge, and about the learning experience.  The lessons learned included that thing about always questioning the ID and "getting" it for yourself.  The takeaway was to always take time and study the details.

Red-eyed Vireo
Merritt Island, FL
9/15/12

So I studied the field marks, and consulted the guides, and - when the details didn't all add up (as, in birding, they frequently do not;  damn those birds for not complying with the descriptions some experts have so deftly put down on paper!) - I punted, relying on the best inputs I had.  Heck, the bird looked more like a Red-eyed Vireo than Warbling Vireo.  That was good enough for me.

I felt so darn good about the transformation of this bird from a Warbling Vireo to a Red-eyed Vireo that I asked Dave, they AMBer who chairs our bi-weekly classes, for a moment to go through the new ID during his half hour before our speaker was scheduled to get going.  I said it would be a good thing to include this "teaching moment", and to share it with the class.

Little did I know that if anyone was in for more teaching - and learning - it was me.

Warbling Vireo
Mount Tabor Park, Portland, OR
6/9/13

So tonight, we're set, and Dave goes through his list of announcements and questions and such.  Then he gets to me and the vireo, and pulls up a slide he's put together of my previously published photos of the bird.  I get up and go through the reasoning:  the dark eye stripe, the dark cap, the yellowish tint, all of it.  It's going well.  A few people are nodding and saying, "Great catch!"

Then Chuck, one of the Master Birders, says, but why isn't it a Philadelphia Vireo.

Hmmm.

Um.

Geez.

I dunno.  What's a Philadelphia Vireo?  Does anyone have a field guide I can borrow?

The bird formerly known as Warbling Vireo,
then formerly known as Red-eyed Vireo.

Chuck's query gives Dave a perfect segue.  Dave, in prepping for the class, sent my photos off to Hugh Kingery, who is the father of the AMB program.  Hugh is, for me and probably countless others, the last stop when you are stumped for bird ID.  He has been birding since, oh, maybe the beginning of time, and if Hugh doesn't know, he's on first name terms with the folks who do know.

Hugh isn't in class tonight, but Dave reads through his email, something that goes through a litany of the reasons this bird is not a Warbling Vireo (something I thought I already knew) and then a litany of reasons the bird is not a Red-eyed Vireo (it's small comfort that the reasons are things I had doubts about earlier, but still).  A Red-eyed Vireo has a much more pronounced dark line above the eyebrow;  the adult Red-eyed Vireo actually has a red eye (I had not seen this in my photos, and chalked it up to the fact this bird was always in shadow and, quite frankly, my photos are pretty lousy).  Hugh brings up habitat: is the bird in a shrub or tree?  He doesn't think that the Red-eyed would be in this habitat.

And then the punchline:  this bird is a Philadelphia Vireo.  

Philadelphia Vireo
Crow Valley Campground, CO
9/7/13

Well, damn.

Once I get over my shock, it's actually pretty cool, for a number of reasons.  First and foremost is this:  this is an ID I can get behind.  When I look at my field guides, it's the best match.  I was always kind of bugged that the drawings I have of Red-eyed Vireos have a much more distinctive eyebrow.  And I was bothered that none of my photos have a red eye.  But I never really looked at the Philadelphia Vireo - an omission I'd like to chalk up to the fact that the range map doesn't show it in Colorado.

But the truth is, I made the same blasted mistake again.  I didn't really take all the evidence into account.

The beauty of the whole experience is that, as we took a break before our star speaker began, everyone in the room was buzzing.  All of the master birders were engaged, looking at field guides and examining photographs.  All of my fellow students were doing the same.  We were all talking about this, and everyone was marveling, and I could read the thoughts in the room:  I need to update my ebird list!

It was, as Chuck (remember Chuck, the guy who said, so why isn't it a Philadelphia Vireo?) likes to say, a teaching moment.

Requirement #12: Fall Bird Count

Among the multiple and various requirements of the AMB program is this one:  participate in at least one Fall or Spring Bird Count.

For my non-birding friends, these counts are the ultimate "Citizen Science".  Bird counts originated with "Christmas Counts", something that came out of the hunting world.  In the late 19th Century, hunters would stage competitions during the Christmas season to see who could bag the most fowl.  As conservation started to enter the picture, those old hunting parties turned into counts.  Citizen volunteers would gather to count birds - both in terms of species and numbers of each species observed - and ornithologists would use the information to do analyses of trends of bird populations and such.  

In Colorado, the Denver Field Ornithologists ("DFO") added a Fall count to the mix in 1979, and followed that up with a Spring count the following year.  Denver Audubon started cosponsoring the counts in the 1990s.  The counts are held annually at 8 separate locations (these locations remain fixed to provide valid comparisons), and both bird species and overall numbers are counted.  The counts serve to provide information about bird populations in Colorado during peak migration times;  the sponsoring organizations then draw on this information in their work in conservation and research and all the other good stuff they do.  The species count has varied from a low of 140 to a high of 173 (that low year was when the counters didn't have access to one of the 8 sites).  The number of individual birds has varied from a low of 8,358 to a high of 56,697 (that high number included 26,038 European Starlings alone!  Even without the Starlings, the 33,659 tops all counts).  Averages for these numbers are 158 and 15,509.  

Folks, those are a lot of species and a lot of birds, and it seems like a great cause that needs a lot of eyes and fingers and toes to get through.  And that's why I convince myself to get up once again at oh-dark-thirty even though I desperately want to sleep in.  Apparently, I desperately want to check off this requirement even more.

Black-capped Chickadee
Chatfield State Park, CO
9/14/13

In anticipation of the day, I've asked my mentor Tina for advice of which Fall Count to join.  You see, the eight locations around Denver are all hot birding spots;  how's a girl to choose?  I have my choice of going to Bear Creek Lake Park, or the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, or Cherry Creek State Park, or Barr Lake State Park, or Castlewood Canyon.  

Black-capped Chickadee
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

 Or, as Tina suggests, Chatfield State Park.  Very simply, she says, "Joey Kellner leads that count, and with Joey, you'll see a lot of birds".  Her second choice is Bear Creek Lake Park, the place I've kind of had in my mental sights, largely because it's the scheduled sight of our first Field Test, something coming up in just another week.   Her reasoning is much the same:  a good chance to preview the test bed, and there will be birds there, too.

What we don't talk about is something we don't know about until later in the week:  the entire Fall Bird Count is at risk because of the monsoon rains and resultant flooding in Colorado.

Oh, hadn't I mentioned that?  It started raining sometime Monday night.  And. It. Never. Stopped.

American Goldfinch
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

I've lived in Colorado for most of my adult life, starting in 1981.  I've not seen anything like this.  It's not like Katrina in New Orleans, or the Japan tsunami:  there is no one major catastrophic event, like a hurricane or an earthquake.  It. Just. Plain. Rains.  And rains.  For days on end.

Late in the week, the word comes out:  the count at this location is canceled, or the count at that location is on, this other one is an hour-by-hour decision.

Chatfield is on.  Never any question - although I am incredulous that there isn't flooding there.  It makes the decision pretty easy, and so I head down to Chatfield in the wee dark hours of September 14th.  I get there plenty early, expecting a throng of people.  Joey Kellner is there to greet us all.  What surprises me is that there are only about a dozen of us gathered for the count;  I expected a huge group.  What I don't know yet is that the people congregated here represent a huge and vast knowledge of birds.

Mountain Chickadee
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

What I do know is that Joey immediately asks who plans to stay for the full monty:  an entire day of counting birds.  Now, I've only met the man once before, and briefly, but his reputation precedes him:  he goes from sunup to sundown and doesn't miss a chance to see a bird.

I figure that if I'm in for part of the day, I might as well be in for the whole thing.  I raise my hand for the full monty.

Only two others indicate a willingness to stick it out - another surprise to me (or should it be a warning) - but I'm okay with that.  Those of us going all day are invited to ride with Joey.  Jill and Randy, the others in our select group, place themselves in the back seat.

Whoa.  I'm riding shotgun with a legend.  This might be cool.

And it is cool.  We head out, and immediately everyone is calling out birds, and Joey is recording.  He uses a smartphone app called "BirdLog", something I have access to (gratus!) through the AMB program, but haven't used yet.  An hour or two into the day, I know I need to get the app, because I'm trying desperately to record the birds we're seeing on my little pink notebook, and I'm falling woefully behind.

We see birds.  And more birds.  And yet more.  We count American White Pelicans, and Great Blue Herons (I've never seen so many in one place), and Canada Geese.  We see Common Ravens and American Crows.  At the lakefront, we see Ring-billed Gulls and Western Grebes and a handful of American Coots.  To my delight, we see several Black Terns and a single Forsters Tern and a few Common Terns:  these are not birds I've seen much - if at all - in Colorado.  

We move from one location to another, and count birds along the way.  A whole bunch of Black-billed Magpies along the way, as expected.  Riding shotgun, I'm amazed at how much I can spot;  in my AMB field trips, I've somehow just ended up in the back seat most frequently, and today I feel like I'm seeing the world anew.  And I call out the birds I see:  Raptor!  Joey stops so we can get a look:  a Red-tailed Hawk.  My next "Raptor!" results in another pull-off and an adjudication of Swainson's Hawk.  Everyone in the car agrees, and when I ask how they can tell by this view - just the bird's back - I get a great explanation and a field guide handed to me to examine the drawing.

What a fabulous learning experience.

Rock Wren
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

The dozen or so of us spend a few hours walking upstream (or is it downstream?  I can never keep the two straight) along the South Platte from the Kingfisher Bridge, and we find all kinds of bird life.  I become increasingly aware of the caliber of birders I'm with today.  This is quickly becoming one of my favorite ever field trips:  the birders are focused, educated, skilled, respectful.  People listen and watch;  it's all about the birds.  People are also eager and willing to share.  On this walk, we see Black-capped Chickadees and one lone Mountain Chickadee;  we see Gray Catbirds and American Goldfinches and Lesser Goldfinches and House Wrens and White-breasted Nuthatches and Wilson's Warblers and House Finches.  The list is growing and growing and growing.  When I can't see a bird, or can't recognize a call, there is always someone nearby to help me out.  It's amazing.

The day wears on, and our list is pretty impressive.  We go here;  we go there.  We see several Rock Wrens:  a bird that I've only seen once before, but today I get lots of good looks at.  I also get lots of photos, something I've not been working on, since our pace has just been incredible.  But the Rock Wrens:  oh yes.  My.  Cool birds.

Rock Wren
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

Eventually we stop for lunch, and, surprisingly to me, we lose almost the entire rest of the group.  In the end, we have just this little foursome to take us through the rest of the day.

Milk Snake
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

Early afternoon turns into mid afternoon, and it's gotten amazingly quiet.  We walk and walk and not only don't see birds:  we don't hear any.  Joey is into reptiles as well as birds, and we end up looking for lizards and snakes.  Who knew I would love this;  me, the avowed snake-o-phobe?  We stop at one place to look for Sage Thrashers and instead find a colony of Six-lined Racerunners (a very fast-moving lizard).  Joey catches a young Milk Snake to use for a talk he's doing that evening, and I'm blown away by the beauty of this creature that still kind of creeps me out.  I've been trying to get familiar with habitat and plants for the AMB program, and in my other all-day-counters, I find resources.  Randy shows me some Buffalograss, a plant I've been worried about getting a bead on, and does a fabulous job of showing me how to identify it;  Jill identifies a bunch of wildflowers for me, including the beautiful purple Gayfeather.

Gayflower (Liatris punctata)
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

By late afternoon, we're revisiting places we're been before to try to pick up new species.  Joey says that he normally gets 90+ birds on the fall count, but we're shy of that and working mightily to get there.

Lark Sparrow
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

We go back to the South Platte, planning to walk along the western side;  in the morning our walk was on the opposite side of the river.  Just as we pull into a parking lot at the gravel pits, I spot a raptor soaring high above us and call it out.  Heck, I may not know the birds I'm pointing out, but I think I'm earning my keep by doing a half-decent job of spotting.  We all get out of the car, and the others are immediately on the bird:  we watch as this Osprey stops to hover directly above the little pond at our side, and then dives straight down and comes up with a fish.

It feels like we just scored a touchdown.  This is our first new bird in quite a while, and not only that, but what a display.  We all whoop and holler like we did score a touchdown.  We high five each other.

This is what it's all about.

Plumbeous Vireo
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

Our walk along the river yields one more new species for the day, a Plumbeous Vireo.  We're starting to lose the light, so we hurry to retrace our steps to yet a few more recheck places.  Once again, I call out "raptor!" wishing that I could do better than that, but happy that I can make a small contribution.  Joey stops to look through binoculars, and then we circle back again to make sure we all have a chance to see this bird, because, quite frankly, I've spotted something really special:  a Merlin.  I've only seen one of these birds before, in Alaska, before I knew I was becoming a birder.  Joey says that it's early for them to arrive, and he's only seen them once or twice before on a fall bird count.

Merlin
Chatfield State Park
9/14/13

It's getting dark, and it's hard to get a decent photo of the bird, but it perches there on the fence for us for longer than we can legally sit on the side of the road.  I snap photo after photo, knowing they won't do this regal creature justice, but wanting to capture this magical moment.

It's 7 p.m. when we declare it too dark to go any longer;  we've been at this 12 and a half hours.  Our group counted 88 species of birds, for a total of 1,211 total individual birds.  

But really, in the end, it's not at all about the numbers.  It's about the birds, and how on this day, I got some of that magic back.

(Credits:  thanks to Hugh Kingery for the background on the fall counts in Colorado!)

Errata: Volume 1

You might think that I would hate issuing a correction.  You might think that it would be disturbing, or upsetting, or whatever.  You might think it would make me feel bad.

You couldn't be more wrong. 

Well, in this case.  I can't make promises about the future.

But here's the deal.  In my last post, "The Bad, The Good, and the Ugly", I included a couple of photos of a cool little vireo that we saw early in the day at Crow Valley.  I don't have a lot of experience with vireos - they are not every day birds for me - and I IDed the bird as a Warbling Vireo.  What did I know?  I was just parroting what someone near me had said.  And not doing my own deeper dive to truly look at the thing.

Red-eyed Vireo
Crow Valley Campground, CO
9/7/13

But isn't that really the point?  To really look at the bird?

And, lucky for me, my classmate Mary actually read this blog and very kindly sent me a message suggesting that the bird in question is not a Warbling Vireo but rather a Red-eyed Vireo.  The beauty of her message was that she identified the field marks that distinguish the bird:  the darkness of the crown, the more definitive supercilium (that's birdspeak for "eyebrow"), the eyestripe, a fairly significant bill, and the overall yellowish color.  I checked my field guides and saw the error of my ways, but these are subtle differences, harder for my untrained eye to confirm than for these folks with way more experience and expertise than I have;  I wanted one more layer of confirmation before I flip-flopped the ID.  So I sent the photos off to my mentor, Tina, who has forgotten more about birds than I'll ever know.  She not only seconded Mary's call, but added a few extra details, pointing out that the blackish eyeline goes all the way to the bill.  And that the blackness of that line is what makes the white supercilium pop.  And agreeing that Warbling Vireos are not usually that yellow.

Red-eyed Vireo
Crow Valley Campground, CO
9/7/13

As our mentor Chuck likes to say, "it's a teaching moment".

And just like that, I'm a little more educated.  And I'm a little more apt to look at the next vireo I encounter a little more closely.  And I realize that I have not just my super assigned mentor, but a class full of potential coaches and teachers.

Being wrong never ever felt so good. 

Field Trip #4: The Bad, The Good, and The Ugly

As my mom would say, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. 

Red-eyed Vireo
Crow Valley Campground, CO
9/7/13

But if you don't say anything at all when you have a bad day, that makes for a short blog. 

The Bad:  Can we just dispense with it by saying that my week coming into this trip was not so good?  I had an MRI of a bum knee, and then on the same day, I broke a toe (hard-plastic water bottle-completely full, flip-flops).  I'm burning the proverbial candle on both ends and not getting enough sleep.  I'm only a month or so into the program, and I have a mental countdown going.  I'm anxious and worried about my birding skills.  I'm worried that my classmates, many or most who have much more experience than I have, are getting lots more field experience than I am, no matter how hard I try, and that I think I need the field time more.  And so on and so forth and all kinds of negative attitude stuff.

Red-eyed Vireo
Crow Valley Campground, CO
9/7/13

And it's another way-too-early start, as we head up to northeast Colorado and the Pawnee National Grasslands.

And nobody brings scones.  It is just not getting set up to be a good day.

The Good:  Now, who can quibble with three life birds in a single day?  And even though it doesn't feel like a great photo day (brutal Colorado sun, heat waves, birds at a distance, and generally very few of the sparrows we've come to see), I end up with some decent looks at some cool birds.  

For my non-birding friends, let me tell you about the concept of a "life bird".  Birders keep records of their bird-watching that can bring the accounting profession to shame.  What bird did you see, in what specific location, at what time, and all kinds of details that non-birders might be incredulous to know matter to birders.  There's a whole separate post in the making on that topic.  Suffice to say for now that a "life bird" is one that you haven't seen before, and, in a birder's life, is a Big Deal.  

Western Wood-Pewee
Crow Valley Campground, CO
9/7/13

Three life birds in a day for someone with an established list (even if it's not yet two years old) is a Super Big Deal.

The first lifer, a Sage Thrasher, comes early in the day as we walk through the lowland riparian deciduous forest at Crow Valley.  I'm pretty stoked, even though I don't get a single decent photo.  Later in the day, I'll see several more of these birds out on the Pawnee National Grasslands, and they'll present themselves for photo ops.

Yellow-headed Blackbirds
Pawnee National Grasslands
9/7/13

Sage Thrasher
Pawnee National Grasslands
9/7/13

The second lifer is a complete surprise.  My classmate George is walking ahead of me, along a fence line that is covered with a tangle of shrubs and small trees.  We're looking for sparrows and migrating warblers.  What we're not expecting is for a Long-eared Owl to flush up out of the brush and land on a fence right in front of us.  George sees the bird and yells it out;  just two steps later, I'm looking into the eyes of this beautiful bird.  George is frozen on the other side of it;  I freeze on my side, but I know I'm too close.  And, oh, by the way, I don't have my freaking camera.  So I start a slow backup, because I don't want the bird to fly.  The rest of the class is behind me, and - in response to George's shouts - they're rushing forward.  The bird flushes again, and flies out of sight.

Lark Bunting
Pawnee National Grasslands
9/7/13

I may not have gotten a photo, but the experience of looking that incredible bird eye to eye is burned in my brain.  If you want a view, you have to find a way to get into that space, and quite frankly, although the Long-eared Owl is pretty cool, I'd caution you against going there.  My mind is not always a good place to be.

Yellow-headed Blackbirds
Pawnee National Grasslands
9/7/13

The final newbie of the day is a Sabine's Gull, seen at Loloff Reservoir, a place we stop on our way back to town.  Now, reservoir bird-watching is not my favorite, largely because the birds are always so far away that it's hard to get good looks at them, and impossible to get any usable photos.  But given that the gull is a rarity in these parts, I take a few photos and make a record of the sighting. 

As Anne Lamott would say, this is the right time to offer up a prayer of thanks.  Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.  Three new birds, including one incredibly cool one (that Long-eared Owl, one that many people would give their right eye to see).  Thankyouthankyou.  Thanks very much.  Thanks.

Sabine's Gull
Loloff Reservoir, CO
9/7/13

The Ugly:  Well, that fabulous experience with the Long-eared Owl ends up being a mixed thing.  It leads to a next-class "talk" about birding ethics.  It turns out that George and I are the only people in the class who have a good view of that bird, and so the ethics talk feels a lot like a scolding.  And folks, if there was every anyone who hated being scolded, you're looking at her.  No matter how many times I read Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements" and his exhortation to not take things personally (that would be the Second Agreement), I take things personally.

I try not to, but it's just who I am.

And I replay the motion picture in my mind: taking that step forward and seeing that owl directly in front of me;  freezing;  backing up slowly.  I don't feel like I violated birding ethics.  But I feel bad about it all the same.  Really, really bad.

My friend Leann is insightful in ways that make me seek her counsel on what is becoming a pretty regular basis.  Months ago, when I told her about the AMB program and all that it involves, she asked, "are you at all worried that the program will take the mystery out of your new passion?"  I considered it, and replied to her that the more I learn about birds, the greater my fascination and wonder.  Then her reply:  so maybe you'll lose some of the mystery but keep all the magic.

This experience with the Long-eared Owl is a sighting that should have been heavenly, but - because of that scolding and my worries about it - is something else entirely.  It's the first time I've felt that I'm in danger of losing the magic.  And I wonder if that's something you can ever get back?

LBJs Part 2: I Don't Get No Respect

The astute reader of this journal might have noticed a significant omission from the list of sparrows included in my last post.  To be sure, there were some pretty nice birds in my "practice practice practice" session.  Lark Sparrows are utterly stunning.  White-crowned Sparrows:  impressive.  Song Sparrows, a joy to listen to that song.  And so on and so forth.  

House Sparrow (male)
Passer domesticus
Steamboat Springs, CO
6/1/13

But really, where was our everyday sparrow, the guy you see outside your home and outside your office and inside the airport?

Yes, folks, I'm talking about the poor, neglected House Sparrow.  And, if I might add, the often much-maligned House Sparrow.

Now, snooty birders like to say things like, "well, House Sparrows aren't really sparrows," and then sniff with derision at the very thought.

And these pompous as....oops, this is a family show, so these, um utter snobs, could not be more wrong.

House Sparrow (female)
Passer domesticus
Boston, MA
4/15/12

The truth of the matter is that House Sparrows are the original sparrows.

It turns out that the word "sparrow" is an English word that refers to small active birds.  And it turns out that the early American colonists pilfered the word and applied it to pretty much most of the Little Brown Jobs they encountered in the New World. This led to a wholesale misnaming of many birds that otherwise might have been known as buntings or finches or heaven-knows-what.  

So that pretty Lark Sparrow?  Hmmm.  Maybe it should be called a Lark Bunting. 

Oh wait.  We already have a Lark Bunting.  And it happens to be the state bird of Colorado. (I think I've mentioned that before.  Just preparing you;  there will be a quiz.)

This is so very confusing.

But back to the subject at hand:  House Sparrows.  These guys were the original sparrows!  And they were not North American birds;  reports of their introduction to North America variously put the timing of that event anytime from the late 1700s to (very precisely for something that is not all that agreed-upon) 1852.  The birds, as anyone paying attention even in the least little bit can attest, thrived here.

The birds are sometimes called English Sparrows.  North American Field Guides put them at the complete tail end, and refer to them as "Old World Sparrows", distinguishing them from the "New World Sparrows" that are really finches or buntings or whatever.

Southern Grey-headed Sparrow
Passer diffusus
Pilanesberg Game Reserve, South Africa
10/27/12

But here's the thing:  when the birding guides advise you to study your New World Sparrows by taking closer looks at them by their genus, they don't tell you that the lowly House Sparrow, forever banned to the back of the book, is genus Passer.  And that the Latin word Passer - like the English word sparrow - means "small active bird", or "small fluttering bird".

Cape Sparrow
Passer melanurus
West Coast National Park, South Africa
2/9/13

If a House Sparrow could talk, he might channel Rodney Dangerfield and say, "Hey!  I don't get no respect!"  And sadly, all too true.
Because they are an introduced species in North America, House Sparrows are not protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act - a federal law that protects migratory birds in the U.S.

And even though the bird is "often considered a nuisance species and an agricultural pest, the House Sparrow has proven well-suited for studies of general biological problems such as evolutionary mechanisms, temperature metabolism, and pest control.  For these reasons, it has been studied intensively and is the subject of an immense literature." (credit Birds of North America Online)

So the next time some bird snob sneers when you mention House Sparrows and what pretty Little Brown Jobs they can be, consider that over half of all birds known in the world today are referred to as "Passerines", from the order "passeriformes", words that are derived from the same base word as our lowly Passer domesticus.  Consider also that there are roughly 36 species of birds worldwide sharing the "passer" genus, even if none of them are native to North America (including the pretty little Cape Sparrow and the Southern Grey-headed Sparrow, both of southern Africa).  Consider that these little guys - Passer domesticus, House Sparrows - are the most ubiquitous birds on the planet, even though the first year survival rate is only 20-something percent, and that the adult survival rate annually is only somewhere in the 45-65% range.

In my downtown condo, I can't put out feeders, and I see very few birds on a regular basis.  But I consider it a lucky day when I see one of my neighborhood House Sparrows lurking in the honeysuckle that covers my patio, or flitting about around the powerlines where I spy on their nests across the alley.  I heart my little LBJs, the lowly House Sparrow.

AMB Class #4: LBJs

Prince William Sound

Back before I was a birder - before I even knew that there was such a thing as "a birder" - I was a marathon runner.  I had set out to run a marathon in every state, and when I got to Alaska, it was, fittingly, my 49th state.  With some great friends, I flew up to Anchorage, then over - across Prince William Sound and views of too-beautiful-for-words glaciers - to the fishing village of Cordova.  My friends and I were all there for, not only the 26.2 mile race, but also the wildlife.  We were all interested in seeing Bald Eagles; the reputation of Bald Eagles in Alaska had not escaped my otherwise non-bird-thinking brain.  A driver picked us up at the little airport, and drove us to our hotel in town, right on the Sound.  We were looking for eagles;  the driver was making sure we didn't hit a moose or a bear or whatever.

Something flew across the road in front of us, and Melissa - who was already a birder, I just didn't really understand that at the time - saw the motion and said, "what was that!".  The van driver replied, without a thought, "it was an LBJ".  Huh?  We were all mystified?  A past-presidential little bird?  So we asked what?  

And that's when I learned the term LBJ:  Little Brown Job. 

Birders everywhere know it; it's the term to describe a small nondescript bird, especially one you don't get a good look at.  So it's not really a surprise that our guest speaker in Class #4 - Dave Leatherman - starts off his talk on the subject of Sparrows with a reference to our 36th president.

Dave Leatherman is, if I may (apologies all around, since this is not a post about owls), a hoot.  He's a tall man; gravity is working on his features but hasn't quite won the battle yet.  He was an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service for long enough to have earned his retirement, and he knows birds.  He knows sparrows.  He has a deadpan style, so if you're not paying attention, you might miss his jokes, and, oh, that would be a shame.

Because he's a very very funny man.  Didn't I just say he's a hoot?  He's a laugh-until-you-have-the-hiccups-but-don't-quite-know-why comedian.

All the while imparting great information.

So it's not Dave Leatherman's fault that I ended the class not feeling like an expert in sparrows.  After all, his first message was:  practice, practice, practice.  His second message was that gull people are weird, but junco folks are okay to go drinking with.  Now, my friends, THAT is information that sticks.  

Olive Sparrow
Laguna Atascosa, TX
4/8/12

So rather than try to condense my pages of notes from our Sparrow lesson, I've gone back to my photo files to practice, practice, practice.  The fact that there are something on the order of 50 different sparrow species in North America makes our LBJs quite daunting to get to know.  Thank heavens that there are only 30-some of those who show up in Colorado regularly.  Here comes some practice, practice, practice......along with factoids that are new (to me, at least), interesting, or - better yet - a little of both.


First up:  Did you know that towhees are sparrows?  Huh.  I sure don't think I did.  Dave Leatherman paused during our lecture;  listened through the open garage-style door at the Nature Center;  then pretty much just walked off to see a Spotted Towhee.  Sparrow.  I don't think I'll forget that lesson.

Green-tailed Towhee
Barr Lake, CO (Banding Station)
9/22/12

Spotted Towhee
Kingery residence, CO
6/23/12

Eastern Towhee
Grayton Beach State Park, FL
10/13/12

 By the way, did you know that the Spotted Towhee and the Eastern Towhee used to be considered one species called the Rufous-sided Towhee?  When you look at the two side by side, it's pretty easy to see how that happened.  And easy enough to also see the differences.

 Hey, more towhees!  I mean, sparrows!  Well, um, yeah, Towhees!

Canyon Towhee
Big Bend NP, TX
6/27/12

California Towhee
Point Reyes National Seashore, CA
3/26/13

Our homework reading assignments tell us to try to learn the sparrows by classifying them by Genus.  But that just leads to more maddening bird world changes.  What was once a long-standing genus  Aimophila was broken out in 2010, so the following couple of birds used to be in the same family, but are now just kissing cousins.  Confused yet?

Cassin's Sparrow (formerly genus Aimophila, now genus Peucaea, try pronouncing that!)
Pawnee National Grasslands, CO
6/15/13

Rufous-crowned Sparrow (genus Aimophila)
Big Bend NP, TX
7/1/12

Next, we're encouraged to review the sparrows of genus Spizella altogether.  I kind of like "spizella";  it sounds like Italian ice cream, and I'm all for ice cream, Italian or any other kind.

American Tree Sparrow
Cherry Creek SP, CO
11/25/12

Chipping Sparrow
Berkeley Park, CO
5/9/13

Brewer's Sparrow
Pawnee National Grasslands, CO
9/7/13

This next guy gets a genus all to himself;  quite frankly, I think none of the other sparrows really liked the "poo" factor of the genus "Pooecetes" and let the Vesper Sparrow have it all to itself.

Vesper Sparrow
Buena Vista, CO
9/1/12

But then again, the Lark Sparrow also gets a dedicated genus, too.  Perhaps this is because nobody else touches this one for drama.

Lark Sparrow (genus Chondestes)
Highlands Ranch Back Country, CO
5/18/13

And now, more surprises.  Did you know that buntings are sparrows?  Well, neither did....I mean, yeah, so did I!  But, of course, if you knew that, you also knew that only some buntings are sparrows.  Of course.  If they were all one thing or another, where would the challenge be in that?  Our particular bunting - the Lark Bunting, aka the Colorado State Bird - just happens to be one of the sparrow-buntings.  (I told you before:  you want the pictures, you're gonna have to suffer some too.)

Lark Bunting
Pawnee National Grasslands, CO
6/15/13

Next up?  Another sparrow that deserves its own separate genus (Passerculus).

Savannah Sparrows
Meyer Ranch Open Space, CO
8/9/12

Now comes the Kennedy clan of the sparrows:  genus Ammodramus.  Lucky for me (and this blog, that might otherwise run out of space), although there are 7 sparrows in the genus, we don't get them all in Colorado, and I've only seen this one:

Grasshopper Sparrow
Weld County, CO
6/15/13

Now, here's the thing about this next sparrow.  There's just one species, but everything that touches on Fox Sparrows tells you that it will soon be split into at least four separate species.  Me, I'm just glad that I happened upon one of them;  I'll worry about figuring out which subspecies when I get some free time, say, in 2056 or so.

Fox Sparrow
Point Reyes National Seashore, CA
3/26/13

Now the appropriately named genus Melospiza.  With that name, you might expect melodious song, and you might just be right.

Song Sparrow
Point Reyes National Seashore, CA
3/26/13

Lincoln's Sparrow
Staunton SP, CO
6/22/13

Let's pause for a moment in the interest of international amity, shall we?  Although not a North American bird, this one found a way into my photo files.  Let's give South America a moment:

Rufous-collared Sparrow
Quito, Ecuador
7/22/13

Now comes my absolute favorite genus, the Zonotrichia.  How can you not love that name?  Or love all these birds;  lucky for us that these birds like to hang out in flocks, so we have good chances of seeing them.

White-throated Sparrow
Red Rocks, CO
10/21/12

Harris's Sparrow
Desoto NWR, IA
4/27/13

White-crowned Sparrow
Point Reyes National Seashore
3/24/13

Golden-crowned Sparrow
Red Rocks, CO
10/21/12

Oh, and just in case you were thinking you had all the tips and tricks, there's one more non-sparrow sparrow in this collection:  the Dark-eyed Junco.  I bet you're smart enough to know there are about 187 subspecies for this bird, but don't worry, I won't quiz you on the subspecies.  Oh wait.  That was a lie.  I'm definitely going to quiz you, but I'll make it an easy one..........

Dark-eyed Junco
Mount Tabor Park, Portland, OR
6/9/13

........what subspecies of this bird might I have seen in Oregon?  Buehler?

Well, if y'all remember what Dave Leatherman said about junco people, it's fitting to close here.  I'm going in search of a few of those folks myself.