[texbirds-freelists] [texbirds] ADDENDUM re. Old Port Isabel Road 04/04/12: GRASSHOPPER SPARROW

This evening I put onto my computer my photos taken yesterday (04/04/12) on
Old Port Isabel Road (OPIR). We had been looking for Cassin's Sparrow and
even a relatively early Botteri's Sparrow, in addition to the Aplomado
Falcon. As I posted earlier, we found none of those three species. I did not
mention that we had encountered a surprise sparrow during our OPIR visit
yesterday, one whose identity we did not feel certain of but knew it was not
one of the two sparrow species mentioned above. I took seven photos of it as
it sat very cooperatively on a barbed-wire fence, its mouth open at times as
through singing, but I was busy trying to get good photos of it. Thus, I was
attending to visual, rather than auditory, cues. My wife, Birgit, did not
hear it sing, but her auditory response to very high frequencies is less
than optimal. We never got to see its breast or underside, including it
flanks, for its body was turned away from us for the entire time, facing
into the wind.. We therefore decided it should not be "called" as to species
on site but that such decision making should await a close look at the seven
photos I took of it.

This evening we looked at those images for the first time on the computer
monitor, and it immediately was obvious that we had a very pleasant
surprise, a GRASSHOPPER SPARROW. Better, still, the photos were of good
quality and showed all the details necessary to establish unequivocally its
species identity.

This bird was amazingly cooperative for a Grasshopper Sparrow! It sat
remarkably long in the open on the barbed wire, apparently singing and not
visibly reacting to more than one kind of unintentional disturbance that
came from us (e.g., accidentally racing the car engine fiercely when I
reached onto the back seat to retrieve the camera/lens and happened to
support my thrust by placing a foot on what I did not know was the
accelerator pedal). Possibly it was trying to attract a mate or declare
territory, a circumstance sometimes said to be about the only time this
species behaves in such a bold fashion. The up-dated map in the recent field
guide from National Geographic has this species' breeding area extending
down not far at all to the north of here. At any rate, this very attractive
little creature being so cooperative as to allow multiple photos added a
nice element to a trip down OPIR that was not always pleasant. It was a
delight to get close-ups of this attractive but shy species that can be
difficult to find and photograph.

Rex Stanford
McAllen, TX

TEXBIRDS help file and Texas birding links at: 
http://moonmountaingroup.com/texbirds
Edit your Freelists account settings for TEXBIRDS at http://www.freelists.org/list/texbirds

Other related posts:

  • » [texbirds-freelists] [texbirds] ADDENDUM re. Old Port Isabel Road 04/04/12: GRASSHOPPER SPARROW - Rex Stanford