Hi Tweets,

Steve writes:

>I'm lousy at identifying sparrows, too! I always seem to notice things that
>don't mesh with what shows up in the guide books, after taking into account
>the fact that the guidebooks don't come close to showing the phenotypic
>variability within a species or genus, especially the inherently more
>variable ones.

Well, we all start off rowing that same boat out onto the unplumb'd sea of
similar-species ID problems. The best help I'd suggest is the Academic Press
book that Ray Korpi refers to (deep breath...ready?): 'A Guide to the
Identification and Natural History of the Sparrows of the United States and
Canada' by James D Rising and wonderfully illustrated by David D Beadle,
Academic Press 1996, US$19.95 (C$27.95). I won't go into the yadayada of why
it's so good, but I've found it to be the best after suffering the same
confusion that Steve describes. It covers the towhees, sparrows, juncos,
longspurs, Lark, Snow and MacKay's Buntings, and seven Asian Emberiza
buntings known to stray to N Amer. It doesn't cover grosbeaks, crossbills,
Passerina (Indigo, etc) buntings or cardueline finches.

To be fair, I haven't seen the other 'sparrows and buntings' book, so cannot
compare the two.

On some sparrow ID problems such as the Chipping/Clay-colored/Brewer's--that
is, Brewer's before the differentiation into nominate Brewer's (Spizella
breweri breweri) and Timberline (S. b. taverneri) Sparrows. Hey, weren't
they split some time ago? Anyone know what the taxonomy of these two is?
Anyway, Kenn Kaufman's Advanced Birding's helpful.

>A few weeks ago I saw a sparrow at Reifel that was quite
>nondescript (from my point of view) except that the base of its bill was
>yellow. Nowhere in any of my guidebooks is this trait listed as a feature of
>any particular sparrow species.

One observer's nondescript blah plumage is another's subtle tapestry, so
it's unclear what your usage implies without a more specific decription. Of
all the more subtly patterned sparrows you'd expect to see at the Reifel
Refuge this time of year, the field mark you describe is most typical of the
coastal rainforest 'Sooty' Fox Sparrow, Passerella iliaca, race either
unalaschcensis or fuliginosa; both races are large, dark brown, relatively
unpatterned Fox Sparrows. Rising treats them provisionally as full species
rather than races based on genetic studies, anticipating future revisions of
the AOU taxonomic sequence. The Sooty Fox has a distinctly bi-colored bill,
to quote from Rising & Beadle, " upper mandible dusky to dark; lower
mandible paler, usually orange-yellow at base." Does this fit your bird, Steve?

>So my letter has two purposes: empathy

Empathy, yes: we all spent much discomfited but instructive time in your
situation as we'll all be learning this stuff for the rest of our lives, so
sympathy, too.

>and can anyone solve the yellow-based
>bill mystery?

May I have the envelope, please? '-)

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net