tags: Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis, photographed in Boyce Thompson Arboretum Demo Garden, Superior, Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 2006 [larger view].
Date Time Original: 2006:02:25 08:54:01
Exposure Time: 1/60
F-Number: 11.00
ISO: 200
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
It's good in a new year to start over again at the beginning: and so our first step should be to identify this bird as a New World sparrow. The neatly streaked upperparts, the modestly swollen "finch-like" bill, the slender form, and the sturdy tarsi should be enough to get us to that diverse and lovely group.
At first glance we might be tempted to think of a junco, those gray-headed, pink-billed sparrows so common across so much of North America at this season. But none of the juncos shows so long a tail, so conspicuously marked a back, or so black a chin. The bird's diminutive size, obvious in comparison with the rim of the birdbath it's visiting, also rules out the juncos, which are chunky to the point of spherical.
The small size, the inordinately long tail, and the gray body and chestnut back are distinctive features of Black-chinned Sparrow, an inconspicuous bird of heavily vegetated slopes that in a few weeks will begin to make itself known by a loud, persistent trilling song that always reminds easterners of a strangely dry-toned Field Sparrow.
- Log in to post comments
I'm calling that a Black-chinned Sparrow, based on the black around the bill, the absence of pink on the sides (which helps exclude Dark-eyed Junco), and the "streaked back" (Sibley).
I spotted this posting on the ScienceBlogs "Last 24 Hours" page. I don't really care about identifying the bird. What *I* want to know is how the bird flew backwards in time to December 31.
I think it's a Black-chinned Sparrow because it has the beginning of the black chin.
I love your birds, but can you PLEASE fix your RSS feed? All your latest posts are marked as being dated 2009/12! :-)