I’m inclined to think this is a dark-eyed junco singing. At least that’s what I’d think if I heard that where I live, and I think DEJUs should also live where you made this recording. But it’s possible there’s some other species I don’t know that sounds similar.
Nope. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s a chipping sparrow. Which I have heard, and even have heard in the eastern Sierra not far from Great Basin National Park, so I should have known better. But I don’t hear them a lot, and I was being lazy. Apologies.
How I figured it out: I actually looked at the video, and realized I could see the bird. Not particularly well, but well enough to be pretty sure it wasn’t a dark-eyed junco. So I tried playing the recording for Merlin Sound ID, which initially had no suggestions, but when I updated the location of the recording to Nevada it immediately suggested chipping sparrow.
Chipping Sparrow and Orange-crowned Warbler, cleaning me out
I am slowly starting to see native sparrows appear! Last year I had one brief appearance by one Savannah Sparrow, this year I have at least five Chipping Sparrows (they are SO CUTE), a Lincoln Sparrow, and two Savannah Sparrows.
Still a million House Sparrows, but my Cardinal population has gone up since summer, maybe they’re obnoxious enough to push them out! I had one breeding pair last year, and they had at least four chicks. Right now, I have at least six males and two females—maybe more, hard to tell since they are constantly dive-bombing each other and the other birds.
My hybrid titmice finally showed up today and they are cuuuuuuuute.
The Chipping Sparrows (Spizella passerina) that nest in our yard every summer gather with others to form small flocks of two or three dozen after nesting is finished and autumn is here. They can often be seen harvesting grass seeds as a group while they gradually move south. These small flocks offer an opportunity for the immature sparrows, as pictured here, to learn from the more mature birds.
I know Chipping Sparrows are considered common, but for whatever reason I’ve never become very familiar with them. I think it’s a combination of having always lived places where they’re not especially easy to find, and having been a fairly casual birder when it comes to certain “hard” groups (like sparrows).
No more. One of the things being list-obsessed has given me is new motivation to get out there and find all the species I can. I knew Chipping Sparrows had been seen at Sedgwick recently, so I asked Guy, our trip leader, where they’d seen them. Unfortunately it was in a place we weren’t going to visit during the public tour, so I reconciled myself to not getting them for my list today.
Hah! The universe came through again! (And so did Guy, who actually found the bird in a tree near the end of the tour and pointed it out.)
