Field Sparrow, in winter

 

A Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla), distinctive with its pinkish bill, reddish cap, and white eye ring, on a frosty morning. During the breeding season, males deliver a beautifully melodic trilled song. In winter, Field Sparrows become far less conspicuous and skulk in old fields and brushy successional habitats. Ohio is at the northern limits of their wintering range and numbers seem to vary considerably from year to year. Last Saturday, December 16, while doing the Beaver Valley Christmas Bird Count in Jackson County, Shauna Weyrauch and I located 21 Field Sparrows - a personal record for a CBC. P.S.: The bill has grass seed stuck to it, hence the oddly misshapen look. Field Sparrows are big consumers of grass fruit.

Field Sparrow

I had the opportunity to hang out a bit with members of the Ohio Bird Banding Association at their fall meeting, last Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the day dawned cold, drizzly and dreary, and the inclement weather impacted our ability to capture birds. Nonetheless, a few songbirds found their way into the nets, including one of my favorite sparrows.

A long string of nets stretches through an old field of goldenrod and aster at Hopewell Culture National Park near Chillicothe, Ohio. This can be a great locale for sparrows, and a few years back we netted about seven Henslow's Sparrows in this very field. Such success wasn't to be on this day, though. Part of the problem was the physical conditions. The best way to up the successful capture rate of sparrows is to line people up and organize drives through the field, herding the birds towards the nets. When those four foot tall matted tangles of goldenrod are saturated with rainwater, it's a tough task to trudge through them, and the driver will emerge soaked from the waist down. Plus, banders must of course put the birds' health and well-being first, and when conditions become too wet and chilly its best to roll up the nets and wait for a better day.

When conditions permitted, a few birds were caught. Here, bander Kelly Williams-Sieg removes a Field Sparrow, Spizella pusilla, that became entangled in the net.

And here he/she is, posing for us. This is a hatch-year field sparrow, sex unknown. Determining whether some young songbirds are boys or girls is not always easy, or possible.

Three major field marks can clearly be seen on our bird. It has a rusty cap, pinkish bill, and prominent white eye ring. Those three characters should serve to separate it from any other sparrow that you'll see in these parts. Young White-crowned Sparrows can suggest a Field Sparrow, but they are proportionately much larger and bulkier, among other differences.

One reason I like these dapper little sparrows so much is due to their lovely melodious song. This is how I described it in my book, Birds of Ohio: "...an accelerating series of short liquid whistles, sounding like a table-tennis ball dropped on a table and bouncing to a stop". That's hardly a unique or innovative song description, I realize, but it does pretty much sum up the sound.

The tune of the Field Sparrow is still a pretty common sound in Ohio, but the bird is declining. All manner of rampant development coupled with neater, cleaner agricultural practices have cut way down on the amount of suitable habitat. Partners in Flight estimates that 460,000 of these little songsters still make their home in Ohio, though.

The Field Sparrow above was born last summer in a well hidden grassy condo such as above. I found this nest a few years back in a grassy field, and the nest's opening is dead center in the photograph. Without benefit of seeing the parents making visits to the nest, it is highly unlikely it would be spotted. I saw one of the adults come out of that tussock and knew a nest would be close at hand, and with a bit of careful searching found it.

Moving in for a closer view, we see that baby Field Sparrows are born into a soft, grass-lined cup carefully crafted by the parents, and well secreted. Brown-headed Cowbirds can be good at spotting these nests, though, and female cowbirds regularly dump eggs in Field Sparrow nests. However, this species of sparrow can recognize the intruder's egg, but alas, the diminutive little Field Sparrow usually lacks the brute force required to shove the egg from the nest.

So, the sparrows often just pack their bags, abandon the nest, and build a new one elsewhere in the field. If cowbirds plague them once again, they might start the whole process over yet again. There are instances where long-suffering Field Sparrows have built and rejected numerous cowbird-parasitized nests.

But if all goes well, the world is graced with another beautiful little pink-billed sparrow, and the bouncing pingpong ball song will once again echo delicately from our meadows.

A smattering of sparrows

A huge irony strikes me when I go birding with people at the Wilds during the breeding season. And it hit me again during last weekend's Birding by Ear workshop.

OK, the Wilds is the country's premier research facility for the study and conservation of some REALLY BIG critters. We're talking Reticulated Giraffe, Sichuan Takin, Bactrian Camel, Fringe-eared Oryx, Bison, and many more. There are even Painted Dogs with their curious dish-sized dumbo ears, and Cheetahs. All very well, and of great interest to visitors, birder or not.

But what is it that the birders really want to see? Sparrows! The polar opposite of the aforementioned beasts. Cryptic in plumage and shy and retiring by nature, nevertheless it is the classic little brown jobs that the binocular set wants to see.

“All birds look like sparrows to me. There are big sparrows, little sparrows, and gaily colored sparrows” Andy Rooney

Our Birding by Ear group out on sparrow safari. That's the "magic bus" that faithfully delivered us to all sorts of places in the course of racking up nearly a hundred species of birds. Some of them were sparrows.

We congregate around professor Danny Ingold of Muskingum College, who has been studying the breeding sparrows of the Wilds for a decade or more. Danny was good enough to allow us to watch him capture some subjects in his mist nets, then he shared the birds up close and personal.

The Field Sparrow may be a "little brown job", and I can even see how sparrows might all look alike to Andy Rooney, but at close range they are stunners. Note the pink bill and russet cap, both good field marks for this one. This song of this one sounds like an exceptionally melodic pingpong ball dropped on a table and bouncing to a stop.

Dr. Ingold often allows visitors to release birds, and advises them to place the bird in their open palm, upside down. It sometimes takes the bird a bit to realize it is free, and it will just lay there on its back, looking about. Thus, the peculiar feeling of having a wild bird in the hand is prolonged. Then, with a sudden awareness of its freedom, the sparrow will rocket off like a Lamborghini, and often is back singing from the rounds of its territory minutes later.

Grasshopper Sparrow, a truly quintessential LBJ. These are true shrinking violets, never extroverted. Most people would never notice one, and certainly not their song, which is a rather brief insectlike trill. Every now and again, they do give a much more complex stuttering assemblage of trills and other notes that really is quite nice.

All sparrows just require a good close look to see their beauty. This closeup of a Grasshopper Sparrow reveals the subtle palette of ochraceous tints that conspire to create ARTWORK IN BROWN. Such subdued patterning works to keep them exceptionally camouflaged in the meadows that they frequent. This one is in the genus Ammodramus, characterized in part by that flattened big head. They spend much of their time on the ground, creeping about like mice.

Grasshopper males in breeding finery are actually quite showy. It's as if the bend of their wing has been gilded in gold, and people who never really knew the bird well are always impressed when they see one like this.

Heather of the Hills meets Grasshopper Sparrow. It's pretty easy to see Heather's visceral reaction to the the wee chap; she likes him. The reaction of the bird is harder to fathom, as this species is rather inscrutable.

We also caught a Savannah Sparrow, a species with an enormous distribution. They breed across the length and breadth of the North American continent, and occupy a wide range of habitats. Seventeen subspecies are recognized, and Savannah Sparrow may eventually be split into three species. I once was with a group of banders near Chillicothe, and we caught about 80 in one morning in October migration. The variation among individuals was rather dazzling.

The birds that we see in Ohio typically have a strongly yellowish loral spot, blending into the supercilium or eyeline, and finely streaked breasts. They prefer habits that are very open, and have plenty of bare soil patches. Savannahs are not common breeders at the Wilds, as the grasslands are generally too thick and lush. Their song is an exceptionally pleasing two-level trill with some stumbling intro notes: t t tt tttsssseeee-tsssaaayyy! I have heard it numerous times in the background soundtracks of movies and ads, so I guess it must strike a chord with others, too.

Sometimes their name causes confusion. One might think that they are named for the plant community called a savanna (no H on end), with scattered large trees underlain by grasses. But the bird is actually named for its type locality; the place where the first specimen was collected. Which was Savannah, Georgia.

These sparrows bring out the paparazzi, and this may have been the most photographed Savannah Sparrow on planet earth this day. Most sparrows are charmers, and tolerate their brief captivity with seemingly endless patience and good manners.

Except for the next beast.

Henslow's Sparrow, easily the most coveted of the Wilds' nesting sparrows. They are abundant and easily found here - if you know what to look for. But overall it is not a common and widespread species, and is thought to be be decling rapidly. We didn't actually capture this bird during Birding by Ear - this shot comes from another banding venture a few years back. But we did have magnificent looks of the species through our scopes, and heard lots of them.

They are beauties in the hand, olivaceous heads contrasting with rufous-brown wings and back. The song of the Henslow's Sparrow, however, could be ranked among the worst of North American birds. It last but 3/5th's of a second, and sounds - to us - like a cricket in need of singing lessons. It is comical to watch one deliver this simple sound. Mounted atop a teasel or some other low plant, it looks around, tosses its head back as if to offer up a Winter Wren-like aria, and hiccups out a faint tssllik!

But all is not what it seems, and what the female Henslow's hears might be quite different. When the short song is slowed down to one-third or one-half the speed, it becomes this incredibly ornate series of trills and other notes - far more complex than what we can hear.

To all appearances, the Henslow's Sparrow would seem to be the greatest shrinking violet of all amongst the grassland sparrows. Not when you get them in the hand, though. Here one of the savage brutes puts the pinch on your blogger. Given half a chance they'll not hesitate to make their feelings known, and it is certain that they resent being trapped in nets and handled like sheep. Most of the other sparrows never act this way, and are quite placid.

I've probably said it before, but I'll say it again. If you are looking for an interesting field trip this summer, visit the Wilds. And if you are from some distant land beyond Ohio's borders and are planning on coming to the Buckeye State, pay a visit. Not only will you clean up on grassland birds and many others, you can also admire the likes of Fringe-eared Oryx and Cheetah, and there aren't many places where all of these creatures converge.