Mystery Bird: Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina

Rufous cap, white supercilium and black line through the eye, is it a Chipping Sparrow?

That's what I was going to say (chipping sparrow). I think we had one of those fairly recently, but I guess grrl is cool with faking us out by re-running a recent species; I believe I've seen that before.

Yes John- been there, done that! Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina: as Adrian above plus relatively small bill- winter coloring is subdued, buff brown, with darkly streaked upperparts, and the cap is also more subdued, more brown than red.

i am helping paul sweet with the chipping sparrow ID .. he says that this is a frequently mis-identified bird on the illinois CBCs, so yes, i am slipping a few pics of chippies in from time to time, just to make sure that i can help people know what they are seeing.

and of course, i do like to fake you all out from time to time .. one time, i ran the same species two days in a row .. that sure did test you on your ID skills, since so many of you were saying "we had this species yesterday, so surely, this must be something different (today)."

um, not necessarily.

hm. i probably should not be bragging about these things; you'll get wise to my tricks.

Thanks, GrrlScientist. I hope enough people read this to help.

Thought I should call attention to three more ID points. The rump is gray, contrasting with the brown on the back. (Field and Tree Sparrows show this, Clay-colored and Brewer's don't.) The red cap is streaked with dark brown -- that's what makes it appear darker. This is more pronounced early in the winter. And the bill, while showing a dark culmen, also shows pink on the upper mandible. A Tree Sparrow will always have a distinctly bicolored bill, with a yellower lower mandible and a dark gray upper mandible.

Thanks Paul, the streaking in the cap is a good mark to look for... is the bill always pink?

I wasn't sure. Thought it might be a common sparrow like we tried to catch as kids. Unfortunately for a 5 year, the only one I ever caught was dead and covered with lice.

Mother was not pleased. But, yes, it is a Chipping Sparrow. Thanks for the mind tease.

David -- I went back and checked my limited photos, and those books I could easily find. If you mean, is it pink all year, no. They turn dark gray in the summer. If you mean, is it sometimes more yellowish, I can't find any reason to say it never happens, but nothing seems to suggest it.