tags: Lark Sparrow, Chondestes grammacus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Lark Sparrow, Chondestes grammacus, photographed at the Potholes, Grant County, Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Marv Breece, 25 May 2008 [larger view].
Canon EOS 350D 1/500s f/7.1 at 300.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
Look hard and you can just see the tail of this handsome bird, lying parallel to the gray twigs it's perched among. At the tip of that tail I see an oblong white spot, and there is also the hint of a white edge to the outer feather -- none of this would be visible were the tail completely closed, but it's our good fortune that the bird has slightly fanned its most distinctive appendage. As we move forward to the wing, we encounter a somewhat diffuse but still noticeable dull tan patch at the base of the primaries; that, coupled with the hint of a tail pattern and the clean white of most of the underparts, identifies this as a Lark Sparrow.
Notice that we haven't even looked at this bird's most famous field mark, its gaudily patterned head. The "Mascara Sparra" sports just about every head marking an emberizid can have, and it's no wonder that this species is a favorite of the field guide introductions.
There is an important behavioral character that can be used to advantage in the field. Lark Sparrows regularly fly higher than other emberizids, their white bellies showing and tiny, sharp callnotes drifting down. Learn to look up, and you'll see more Lark Sparrows than you ever suspected were out there.
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I'm calling that a Lark Sparrow, based on Sibley's "harlequin face pattern" and the "pale patch" at the base of the primaries, mostly.
Yep. That's a Lark Sparrow. The facial pattern is distinctive.
I third the motion, Lark Sparrow.
One can just see the yellowish tinge on the upper half of the outer primaries and a bit of white at the end of the tail. The white tipped black tail is a good field mark for identification when they are flying away from you. Saw a couple of them in my yard this fall.
Lark Sparrows are common (just intermittently?) here in northern N. M. Yes, I've identified lots of them as they flew away by the longish rounded tail with the white corners.
Since we're supposed to give a field mark, I'll take this as a bird-topography quiz. White crown stripe [1], lateral crown-stripe [2] that's black in front and brown to the rear, white supercilium, black eyeline, white lower eye-arc bordered below in black [3], brown auriculars [4], white malar stripe, brown sub-moustachial stripe [5].
Footnotes:
[1] I cheated by checking in Sibley that that really is the crown stripe, not a stripe alongside the crown.
[2] I cheated totally.
[3] If that border has a name, I don't know it.
[4] Cheating again. I can never remember where birds' ears are.
[5] If the two branches at the end have a name, I don't know it.