Today is one of those difficult days in the birding realm. If you have spent any time with this blog you probably know by now that when it comes to Sparrows I generally throw in the towel. There just isn’t enough differences discernible in the field to really come out confident on what you have in the tin. There are also difficulties when it comes to the Swallows and Swifts so figured it was time to get them all out of the way.
Let’s start with the Sparrow. Now, throughout this post please keep in mind that the identification can be freely debated and if you know specifics please share! With that, this is a small brown and gray bird so we’ll tag it with Sparrow.
Admittedly, this on is a little darker hued that we see and it has some darker tones in the under feathering along the neck. One cause may due to the fact that this shot (and the one below) were taken in a storm which may have deepened the colors from either the wetness or the clouds.
I do like the picture and why I tell everyone there is no reason to get down if their designated day to hit the field turns out dreary. Sure, you’ll need to tap that ISO dial up a bit and probably even back off the shutter speed but you have one thing going for you. The rain tends to slow down the birds and cause them to spend a little more time on their perches (under cover of leaves of course). For the hyper birds this is a godsend when it comes to getting shots of them. UPDATE: By the way, while doing quick search for one of the pictures below I stumbled on the House Sparrow which does match the neck coloring – pretty darn close in my opinion so let’s go with that for now.
Here is another Sparrow likely taken in a similar setting.
If I had to take a guess, the reference books tend to point to a Chipping Sparrow with that rust cap and eye-line. Small, brown, gray … it’s a Sparrow in my book – any finer classification is just icing on the cake. Again, I do like how the composition came out on these two shots – the branches seem to push the viewer’s eyes right to the desired focus of attention – granted it is just Sparrow.
Hit the link to read more about this difficult to identify set of birds.
