New Life Birds: Three Sparrows!

Swamp Sparrow

In yesterdays post I wrote about some of the warblers I had seen at Shell Park. I made a second excursion to attempt to see a Lark Sparrow, with mixed results as you will see.

After I came home from work I wanted to see a Lark Sparrow that had been reported in the Caledonia area for the last few days. Ron and Lynda and Finn had gone and successfully seen it earlier that day, so I knew it was still around. Ron, Finn and I drove up to Caledonia and stopped at the farm that it had been hanging around. While Ron read to Finn in the car, I took a pair of binoculars and my camera and walked down the lane.

Swamp Sparrow

The first sparrow I saw was a Vesper Sparrow in a field off to my left. I couldn't get as close as I would have liked, but managed a few photos and a good view through the bins. I could see the white eye ring, which seems to be the only distinguishing feature of these rather plain sparrows.

I saw several Savannah Sparrows, which I thought were on my life list from last fall but were never formally recorded. I corrected that with several sightings and photographs on this occasion. Walking up and down the lane produced numerous sparrows, but not the one I was looking for.

Vesper Sparrow

We drove to a small parkette on the Grand River where a Bald Eagle nest was located. Straight across the river I could see two adults sitting on the nest. While Finn threw sticks in the river one of the adults took off, circled around, and grabbed a fish right out of the water in front of me. It was a spectacular sight, somewhat marred by the fact that the light was waning and I neglected to bump up my ISO and my pictures came out blurry.

After this we went home having not seen the Lark Sparrow at all. What then is my third life sparrow of the day?, and from where do the above Lark Sparrow photos come? At Shell Park earlier in the day I noticed a very conspicuous sparrow rooting around in a bush off the path. I took a few photos of the sparrow and continued on, thinking it was quite different from other sparrow I have seen.

Savannah Sparrow

It turns out this was a Swamp Sparrow.Lark Sparrow, completely unexpected and unlooked for in this location. I hadn't seen any reports of one at Shell Park. If I had identified the sparrow at the time, or looked at the pictures when I first got home from work, I would have never ventured out to Caledonia and would have missed two life species. It was a very serendipitous series of events that allowed me to see three new sparrows in one day.

Edit: Thanks to Mark C. for pointing out that I incorrectly identified my Shell Park sparrow as a Lark Sparrow. I happened to meet Mark at Shell Park about a week ago, and he was rightfully skeptical as one has not been reported in the area. Mark took the time to look at my pictures and help me make the correct identification.