Sparrows of the Southwest

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula

Harris’s Sparrow Zonotrichia querula
(with an American Tree Sparrow looking tiny by comparison in the foreground)

Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus

Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus

That photographer actually got much closer to the Vesper Sparrow...
(...how was he able to focus his 600mm lens?!)

The scene at the stream when the Harris's Sparrow showed up
(visible at the top of the ditch, under the sumac)

Lovely farm country, where icy winds stalk the land

  Headed down to the St-Anicet area a couple of days ago for a double sparrow-twitch (Harris’s and Vesper). Bleak and lovely farm country out there. I get a weird vibe on these twitches, mostly due to the fantastic spectrum of questionable behaviour by photographers inevitably on display, and it was no different this time. A traffic jam of lenses, but almost no binoculars. Folks were clotted up in chattery gaggles at the heaps of cracked corn that had been left at the side of the road. Some photogs were scream-shouting to one another, to the point where I could hear every word of their conversation from 100 feet down the road, while others walked right up to the celebrity birds when they showed up. How can you even focus on a bird from five feet away when you have a 600mm lens, m’man? Don't step on it! Boggles the mind. The confused local farmers whipping past in pickup trucks on the narrow road jammed with parked cars completed the wacky scene.
  Ah well, I couldn’t resist, as who knows when the next Harris’s Sparrow will show up. It’s apparently the largest sparrow in North America, and most are in Northern Texas this time of year, while the Vesper ought to be in Florida. I guess it could be this screwy warm winter we’re having, confusing these birds. Both reminded me of Old World Buntings, and were relatively quite confiding. Lovely, striking birds, both.
  There’s a mighty blizzard churning through the province right now, I wonder if these roadside rock-stars will still be around when the powder settles.

  On a tangent, I was struck by how the latest Sibley's book doesn't include an illustration of a first-winter Harris's Sparrow, but instead replaces it with one of a juvenile (for those people birding in high Nunavut in the summer). Why would they exclude the first-winter? I love, and will defend to the death the honour of the Sibley's guide (The sacred texts!), but I do have a few issues with moves like that, and some of the other sparrow illustrations. I guess I'm a nerd.