Welcome back to your Sunday edition of Wildknife Photography. I am continuing my exploration and identification of sparrows this week. I hope that you had a chance to try identifying some sparrows over the past week. This week we’re going to get into the more challenging birds to identify. (at least for me!)
The sparrows that I have trouble telling apart are the brown streaky ones, the ones with lots of spots or stripes of brown on brown on grey.
Swamp sparrows, Savannah sparrows, Lincoln sparrows, and Song sparrows all look really similar and I find it difficult to ID them when they are flitting around quickly and quietly through the brush. In many cases this is when being able to identify bird song will come in handy but since I’m still working on learning my bird songs I rely on my photos and a good bird guide to help me! I love getting home to discover I’ve seen a new bird! Probably not as exciting as being able to do that in the field but I’m sure the more I work at it the more I will improve.
Savannah sparrows can be singled out by their size. They are smaller than white crowned or house sparrows and have a relatively small head and short tail. They have a heavy eye line and a dark “moustache” that comes off their beak. They are heavily streaked on the breast and have a white belly. Their beak and legs are a pinkish grey colour. The one thing that helps distinguish them is the bright yellow patch above and in front of their eyes.
Lincoln’s Sparrows are almost all brown and all streaky. They have a buff colour along the top of their breast and along their sides. They often sport a bit of a “mowhawk” along their crown where there are two dark brown stripes. Their face is marked by a buffy moustache stripe bordered by thin brown lines. They also have a buffy eye ring, a thick grey eyebrow, and a dark eye line similar to a Savannah sparrow.
The Swamp Sparrow is also brown and streaky but has a bit more of a rusty reddish tone to it overall particularly in the wings and crown. It has the same dark eye line that the Lincoln and Savannah sparrow have but it doesn’t have the really strong streaking. It’s body is mostly greyish with brown colouring along the sides and a whitish patch under its chin.
Finally, the Song Sparrow is another heavily streaked bird similar to the Lincoln and the Savannah sparrows. These birds also have the dark eye line and twin strip across the crown. Swamp Sparrows generally have a dark patch in the centre of their chest where the streaky bits come together. They have a white eye brow and chin with dark brown “mutton chops” on either side of the throat. Song sparrows are generally reddish brown and slate-grey, though these shades, as well as the amount of streaking, vary extensively across North America.
I hope you enjoyed these last two weeks of sparrow spotting. Hopefully you will be able to more readily pick out the sparrows at your feeder or in your backyard. Thanks for joining me and we’ll see you next week.