Hi again, tweets.

I made a boo-boo on my last posting when I talked about sparrow stripes not
extending onto the neck. I just checked our collection, as I had nagging
doubts, and it turns out that that is the case in only some sparrows,
primarily those with unstreaked breasts such as tree, chipping,
white-crowned, and golden-crowned. Brewer's, in the same genus as tree and
chipping, does have neck stripes, as do all--apparently--of the
striped-underparted sparrows. I just checked common WA species. Perhaps
because Brewer's has a striped crown, the stripes naturally extend between
crown and back, while tree and chipping, with rufous crown in alternate
plumage, have the stripes stop at the back. Still interesting but not a
distinction between shorebirds and sparrows and less cosmic than I thought.
Darn.

The tree sparrow wasn't present late yesterday afternoon when I got home a
bit early, so it may be gone already. Hope one of you finds it.

Dennis

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html