10,000 Birds

Corey’s excellent recent posts made mention of the excitement of finding a Lark Sparrow on his local patch. As a Brit birder with his feet once firmly rooted in the “twitchers” camp I grew up desperate to see any of the “Yank Sparrows”, and the species most birders this side of the pond figured they had the best chance of seeing was the White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis: whilst still very rare in the UK, by the 1980s when I was something of a hardcore twitcher it was the most regular of the Nearctic sparrows to be found here (there have now been about thirty records since the first one was found in the Western Isles in 1909).

I actually almost got my wish way back in 1983 when - in a “gap year” - I was spending a few months at the renowned Spurn Bird Observatory on the English east coast. On a day I will never forget I chose to get an early bus into town twenty miles away to get supplies for the rest of the week, instead of making my regular checks of the observatory’s Heligoland trap which was yards away from where I was staying. By the time I got back that evening the warden had trapped, rung, and released a White-throated Sparrow he’d found in - yes, you’ve guessed it - the Heligoland trap I’d not looked in. It was never seen again…

Now a birder fortunate to come to the US on a regular basis I’ve seen hundreds, but I still find White-throated Sparrows entrancing and fascinating birds. I hope I’m not maligning anyone but I’d guess that most eastern US birders would label ‘Whitethroats’ pretty much as “trash birds”, but if they are they have to be one of the most beautifully-marked “trash birds” anywhere and I still get a real thrill out of seeing them (and - when I happen to be there - hearing their soft song in Central Park in the early spring).

That’s probably enough preamble: here’s some photos which I hope go to demonstrate how lovely these little birds are…

White-throated Sparrows Zonotrichia albicollis
Central Park, New York, USA

White-throated Sparrows are extremely familiar birds in eastern North America, and their quavering, slightly apologetic song is often rendered as either “Old Sam Peabody” or “pure sweet Canada Canada Canada“.

The breeding range of this beautifully-marked bird extends across Canada east of the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, from the tree line south in the West to central Alberta and Saskatchewan and in the East into the Great Lakes forest region from northern Minnesota to New England. In winter they form flocks and inhabit dense vegetation, where they forage on or near the ground. Typical winter habitats are wood lots, scrub lands, gardens, and backyards.

A flock of White-throated Sparrows usually looks quite a mixed bunch. This is because two color morphs occur, a “white-striped” and a “tan-striped” - though winter plumages are duller than breeding ones and the differences become less marked. Fascinatingly each colour morph nearly always mates with the other. “White-striped” morphs have sharply contrasting black-and-white head stripes and usually solid gray breasts; “tan-striped” morphs have less-contrasting dull black-and-tan colored stripes, and they often have streaks on their breasts. The more aggressive “white-striped” females are preferred by both forms and are more successful in attracting the preferred “tan-striped” males. This combination forms most rapidly, leaving “white-striped” males and “tan-striped” females to pair with each other. The result is an observed 96 percent frequency of mixed-morph pairings.

Central Park, New York, February 2004

 

Central Park, New York, February 2004

 

Central Park, New York, February 2004

Central Park, New York, March 2005

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

Central Park, New York, April 2006

All photos copyright Charlie Moores