Mystery Bird: Olive Sparrow, Arremonops rufivirgatus

Looks like an Olive Sparrow. Olive colored back, pale breast, rufus/brown stripes on the head and very abundent at Santa Ana. Cool little bird!

Agreed on olive sparrow. Per Sibley: "dull brown stripes", "high, arched supercilium", and "pale grayish" below.

ditto on the Olive Sparrow, and did you read my mind?, I was just this morning working on my bird records from a trip 20 years ago to Santa Ana NWR, and he joined my life list that day! Kaufmann says dull olive above, grayish below. Head gray with dull brown stripes on crown...found in South Texas only.

ditto all above!

Special Bird ID Request

Brian Switek of the Laelaps science blog http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/10/photo_of_the_day_732_grouse.php has posted what I think is a female Dusky Grouse (Dendragapus obscurus) on one of his entries today which some of you might like to check out and confirm/deny my ID (it could possibly be a Sooty Grouse, Dendragapus fuliginosus, bearing in mind both that Dusky and Sooty were once considered the same species- Blue Grouse, but I'm not sure it's range extends to the Yellowstone)

re. Dusky vs Sooty Grouse from Western Birds, Volume 38, No3, 2007:

"In 2006 the American Ornithologistsâ Union checklist committee split the Blue Grouse into the Dusky Grouse (Dendragapus obscurus) and the Sooty Grouse (D. fuliginosus) (Banks et al. 2006). The occurs in the intermontane West and ranges west to eastern Washington, eastern Nevada, and northern Arizona, while the Grouse occurs nearer the Pacific coast and is the species found in California. The Sooty Grouse thus replaces the Blue Grouse on the California list."

[Banks, R. C., Cicero, C., Dunn, J. L., Kratter, A. W., Rasmussen, P. C., Remsen, J. V., Jr., Rising, J. D., and Stotz, D. F. 2006. Forty-seventh supplement to the American Ornithologistsâ Union Check-list of North Birds. Auk 123:926-936.]