I saw a new to me bird today!

[conuly]

I looked out the window and said "Well, who the hell are you?" - it looked like two birds smushed together! Sparrow in the back, with a very long tail, white striped head. And, though I'm not sure this is relevant, when it flew away with all the other birds, it didn't perch on the standing weeds but hid on the ground in them. I only saw this twice, so I don't know.

I'm tentatively marking this down as a white-crowned sparrow, maybe. I'm a bit more sure of that than I am of that russetty sparrow I see around from time to time, which might be a song sparrow or a fox sparrow or a chipping sparrow or a tree sparrow or an I don't know or even not a sparrow at all. All I know is it's definitely not a house sparrow!

Comments

[hudebnik]

"russetty sparrow" sounds to me like a house finch, or if it's beyond russet into purple, a purple finch (less common). Have you checked pictures of those? The house finch has a distinctive song, long and melodious with a lot of triplets.

A white-crowned sparrow is certainly plausible in our area.

[conuly]

I have. It’s definitely not one of the finches we have here.

[conuly]

All lists of local sparrows list local finches as well, of course!

[chez_jae]

Do you have a bird book for reference?

[conuly]

I have google! And also Merlin Bird ID app, which would be a lot more useful if I could get a good shot of this bird, but it was really intent on hiding where I couldn't see it from the window.