This is a post for those of you that subscribe to Birding magazine and try
to identify the "unknown" birds in the back of each issue. Since I have
vowed to upgrade my sparrow ID skills this year (Lord knows they need
upgrading) I tried my hand at the three sparrows in the December edition.
Here is my shot at what I think they are, anyone else out there who has a
different read on these little brown guys feel free to chime in:
Quiz Photo A) With striped breast and yellow supercillium, Savannah Sparrow
comes first to mind. The streaking doesn't extend to the flanks however, and
other streaked sparrows can have some yellow about the head as well. Review
of my field guides shows that Baird's Sparrow is a close match. Peterson's
guide lists the color of the crowns stripe as the best way to tell them
apart, white in Savannahs and yellow in Baird's. I have never really looked
at crown stripe color in Savannah Sparrows, now I've got a reason to look
harder next time I see one. It is hard for me to tell the crown stripe color
well in the photo, but I think it is yellow and so I'm calling it a Baird's.
B) This is the easiest one of the bunch. Notably flat head, dark crown with
streaking, clear breast, and I think the "hard to see" yellow shoulder is
peaking out on the left wing. It's got to be a Grasshopper Sparrow.
C) This is the hardest of the three. Since the bird is facing away, I can't
even go through the "clear vs streaked breast" categorization on sparrows.
It is a rather large, chunky sparrow, relatively plain with a dark cap and
pale broad supercillium. Looking at just the head, Henslow's sparrow has a
similar look about the face. Adult Henslow's have dark malar stripes which
aren't seen in this bird, but the juveniles lack this feature. So it could
be a juvenile Henslow's, but the body proportions don't seem to fit (not
large headed and short tailed as described in the field guides). My fallback
position is for Bachman's Sparrow. This bird looks a bit like one of the
drawings in the new Nat Geo guide, and even more like the one in my old
Golden Field Guide. I wish I had a Peterson's for Eastern birds, I like his
work above the other two. So with some trepidation I am voting for Bachman's
Sparrow.
So I have stuck my neck out. Anyone else who wants to do the same before the
answers come out with the next issue?

Jack Stephens
Edmonds, WA
jsteph02 at sprynet.com