Subject: Re: HELP! - Need sparrow ID
Date: Jan 30 13:03:00 1996
From: Alvaro Jaramillo - alvaro at quake.net


>>I hope someone can help. I spotted a sparrow at one of my feeders this
>>weekend that I couldn't ID. Minimal streaking on chest, speckled head
>>(brown with lighter speckles) and three spots of yellow; one on either side
>>of the beak in front of the eye and one in the middle of the forehead.
>>There was a white eye band on the lower eyelid.
>>
>>It rather looked like a grasshopper sparrow but I couldn't make a positive
>>ID. Any ideas?
>>
>>Thanks in advance.
>>
>>Peggi
>

Tweets,

My guess would be Golden-crowned Sparrow. Most of the brown striped
Golden-crowns (i.e. the dull ones) have obvious yellow on the front of the
supercilium in the same place where a White-throated Sparrow and a Savannah
Sparrow would have them. This area is technically the 'supralores' as the
lores are actually between the eye and the bill, but birders tend to call
these the lores as well. Peggi, might your yellow spots on the side of the
bill have been placed just above and in front of the eye rather than right
between the eye and the bill? The white band on the lower eyelid has me
puzzled. If it is a Golden-crowned then the face should look rather plain,
they lack a dark eyeline extending back from the eye.
Alvaro Jaramillo "You are better off not knowing
Half Moon Bay, CA how sausages and laws are made"
alvaro at quake.net Otto von Bismarck,
but I saw it in a fortune cookie!

http://www.quake.net/~alvaro/index.html