Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 14:18:26 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Roger & Leslie Torres Subject: First Winter White-crowned Sparrow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello all. I'm new to this list and fairly new to birding. I've been learning quite a bit from your conversations and I hope I have some info to contribute, too. Concerning Sparrows: I've had mostly White-throated Sparrows for the past couple of months. But in the last week, I've had a new Sparrow that I couldn't quite peg. I've been using an Audobon bird id book, and I couldn't really match it to anything in the book. Just yesterday, I finally decided it was an immature White-crowned Sparrow. I looked on the internet and confirmed it today. So my question for all of you who have been doing this for a while is this: Is there an easier way to identify Sparrows? A book specifically about them? A website? I'm just getting over a prejudiced view that they're all the same and they're pests. I'm actually starting to enjoy them. As a matter of fact, two mornings this week I was woken by a White-throated Sparrow singing - it has a very pretty song! Leslie Keedysville, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================