Subject: Marymoor Sparrow is American Tree
Date: Nov 6 12:56:10 2003
From: Michael Hobbs - hummer at isomedia.com


Tweets - Several of us went out to Marymoor Park (Redmond, King Co., WA)
this morning for another look at the pale Spizella sparrow, and we've
concluded that Houston Flores was correct - this is an AMERICAN TREE
SPARROW, not a Clay-colored as I reported yesterday.

The bird is notably very pale, making it easy to spot amongst the
Golden-crowns, White-crowns, and Lincoln's Sparrows. It has remained in
the second (and occasionally the third) fenced section of cottonwood snags
counting from the east end at the Interpretive Lot at Marymoor.

This bird is not nearly as rufous as is shown in many books - some of the
areas typically rufous on ATSP appear buffy on this bird. However, many
field marks point to ATSP, including the bicolored bill, central breast
spot, two clear white wingbars, rufous eye line flaring downward at the
auriculars, rufous crown stripes (though this bird has a gray crown
between the stripes), and legs which are orangy with black feet. Of all
the pictures I've looked at, it most closely matches the middle photo in
the photographic Beadle & Rising sparrow book.

This bird may be a juvenile in a transitional plumage or somesuch, which
may account for its atypical appearance. On top of that, it may be a pale
extreme for the species. In any case, I was struck again by how beautiful
this sparrow is, so please go take a look.

American Tree Sparrow is new for the Marymoor list.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
== hummer at isomedia.com