Sunday morning while looking out the back window of my home, I noticed a small, overall tan sparrow hanging out with the Field Sparrows. It even flew up to the window feeder and sat there about a minute. I got good looks at it, noting the colors, head, face pattern, chest, feet, wings, etc. I DID NOT look at the rump, which is apparently a key difference between Clay-Colored Sparrow and immature Chipping Sparrow. I afterwards looked at 3 different bird books, and 2 had me thinking Clay-Colored, which was my first impression, but the third showed some very similar immature Chipping Sparrows. I had not noted the rump, so had my wife watch for it yesterday, and take pictures if she saw it. She saw one small sparrow with a brown rump, but the photos were very blurry, so no help. I had noted black mustaches on each side of the throat, which was whitish fading to buffy. Are these indicative at all? Hopefully it will stick around, as the Field Sparrows hang around the fields behind our house all winter. Ken Oeser Hendersonville, TN Sumner county =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the count in which the birds you report were seen. The actual date of observation should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. ______________________________________________________________ TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp _____________________________________________________________