If you want to set off a migraine, then go out in the field and try your hand at distinguishing the numerous races of sparrow out there. You might assume there is a limited way to combine grey, brown, white and black patterns in a bird, but there is not. It was probably a perplexed ornithologist in the midst of organizing the sparrow section who coined the term "Little Brown Job," to heap countless small, somewhat plain, and easily confused species. Can't you just see him now? It's well past lunchtime and his brow is furrowed under a sage-toned canvas hat. His vision is blurring, stomach growling, and he just sighs and shuts his sketchpad; "Oh for now, they're all just LBJs!" Thankfully, the White-crowned Sparrow has a crown of neat black and white stripes to tip us off on our birdwalk. I spotted a few amidst the cruising bushtits and a handful of finches yesterday afternoon along the Los Gatos Creek Trail. They would have blended into the bare tree limbs but for the crown's eye-catching white. Wait! Before you breathe a sigh of relief-- There are indeed several races of the White-crowned Sparrow...but she's not going to fly onto your finger and let you riffle her crown to see which one she is, so we shall leave it at that and let the obsessives handle it from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment