I was in Vancouver last week and have already posted photos I took of a stunning male Varied Thrush, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, and an ‘intersex mallard’ (yes, it’s an interesting life indeed)…Anyway, another bird I always look for on any winter trips to Vancouver’s Stanley Park is the western form of Fox Sparrow Passerella iliaca unalaschensis, often known as the ‘Sooty’ Fox Sparrow (and sometimes considered a full species in its own right).

Darker than than the eastern ‘Red’ Fox Sparrow P. i. iliaca (yes, we have photos of them too!) but otherwise similar in shape and behaviour, Vancouver’s ‘Sootys’ can be found all over Stanley Park, but are easiest to see in eg the seed feeding area at the neck of the Lost Lagoon. Even here though - where they’re well-habituated to people - Fox Sparrows tend to keep close to the ground and forage close to cover compared with the more common Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia which they often associate with and which more typically clambers up to the top of bramble bushes or hops openly on footpaths.

It’s a comparison worth making, incidentally, as the western form of Song Sparrow is a very dark, rufous bird and quite different to eastern forms that birders there will be very familiar with (see the last photo in this series, or an earlier post which has photos of Song Sparrows from different areas of North America and Mexico City).

‘Western’ Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia: note well-marked head pattern, smudged streaks on breast rather than dark “arrow heads”, and - in a rear view - less reddish (longer, rounded) tail.

All photographs copyright Charlie Moores