February 23, 2006 
 PAGE ONE  
Birdwatchers Find Sparrows Often Are
A Tough Nut to Crack

Nondescript and Even Drab,
Species Are Hard to ID;
A Weekend in Texas Grass
By NEAL TEMPLIN
February 23, 2006; Page A1

MARBLE FALLS, Texas -- On a frosty Sunday morning, Byron Stone was leading a party of a dozen birdwatchers through the grasslands here.

Suddenly, Mr. Stone spotted some birds about 30 yards away. "Savannah Sparrows," he called out as the tiny creatures darted off.

 
A few minutes later, Mr. Stone glimpsed a similar tiny brown bird before it disappeared into a row of trees. "That's a Song Sparrow," he said.

The bird world has many resplendent creatures ranging from the stately Great Blue Heron to the bright red Northern Cardinal to the Wood Duck with its almost garish mélange of colors. They are all easy to spot. The appeal of sparrows is quite different. Most of them look alike, and only ace birdwatchers can tell one species from another. (See a slide show.1)

"Beginning birders start with sweet wines and sloe gin, and sparrows are more like the single malts" of the birding world, says Pete Dunne, a birding author and official with the New Jersey Audubon Society.

People like Mr. Stone are helping birders make the leap. He spent a recent weekend leading a sparrow workshop in the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge northwest of Austin. During the three-day event Feb. 10-12, the 22 participants spent hours looking at pictures of sparrows -- most of them streaky brown birds. Then they tromped around the hills and prairies hereabouts trying to identify sparrows in the field.

An estimated two million Americans keep life lists in which they tally all the birds they have seen. At a certain point, they turn to some of the more difficult identification challenges like sparrows, says Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society. "If you want to see all the birds in your state or your region, eventually you've got to tackle these birds," he says.

Depending on how you count them, there are at least 60 species of sparrows in the U.S. and Canada, according to the University of Toronto's James Rising, who has co-written two books on sparrows. Some, like the Spotted Towhee -- with its black head, white belly, rusty flanks and spotted mantle -- are distinctive. Many others, like the Song Sparrow2 or Savannah Sparrow3, can be told apart only by such clues as tiny facial markings, the length of their tails and their flight patterns.

What about the sparrows commonly seen hopping around city streets? They are usually House Sparrows, and to hard-core birders, they don't count. That is because the House Sparrow was brought over from Europe, and although it resembles North American sparrows, it isn't closely related.

Many of the participants who attended the Balcones workshop had been birding for a while but still had trouble with these tiny birds, some no more than 4 inches or 5 inches long. "They're the little brown ones -- the indiscernibles," says Jim Gilchrist, a retired lawyer from nearby Lago Vista, Texas.


Song Sparrow and Savannah Sparrow. (See more photographs of sparrows.4)

  
The workshop began with an evening classroom slide session. "Look at the head," Mr. Stone said. "That's where the action is."

One of the main clues is the bird's eye-ring. Below it are the moustachial and submoustachial stripes. Behind it is the postocular stripe. In all, there are at least 15 features just in the head and neck region that can be used to identify a sparrow.

After a 6 a.m. breakfast the next day, the birders headed out to the field. Bill Reiner, co-leader of the workshop, quickly picked out a tiny sparrow with a whitish breast that was perched in a leafless tree.

"The first sparrow is a Chipping Sparrow5," Mr. Reiner announced.

Within a few minutes, about 20 bundled-up birders, armed with binoculars and high-power spotting scopes, were standing in front of the tree like paparazzi.

The 44-year-old Mr. Reiner kept spotting different species and, almost like an auctioneer, called out their names and descriptions: a Harris's Sparrow, a Lark Sparrow, a Spotted Towhee.

At one point, Mr. Reiner pulled out his "secret weapon," a sound recording of an Eastern Screech-Owl that he uses for research and educational purposes. The owl is a predator that will attack sparrows, and the little birds sometimes pop up to check it out or even mob it when they hear the call. This time, however, they ignored the invitation.

Still, by day's end, Messrs. Reiner and Stone had helped workshop participants to spot 17 species of sparrows, including a Lark Bunting6, a Western bird that is seldom found as far east as Central Texas.

The second morning, the birders split up. Half went with Mr. Reiner. The others headed off with Mr. Stone. The object was to spot birds that had eluded the group on the first day.

Mr. Stone picked a part of the wildlife refuge that is a good bet for the Le Conte's Sparrow and the Swamp Sparrow7. Sparrows eat grass seeds in the winter, and this area has various native grasses that are sparrow magnets. "Good grasses make good birds," explained Mr. Stone, a 52-year-old child psychiatrist who has been an avid birder since he was 17.

In the first minutes, Mr. Stone saw the Savannah and the Song sparrows, both relatively common birds. Then he spotted another tiny bird before it plunged into the tall grass. From its flight and light color, Mr. Stone guessed it was a Le Conte's, a short-winged sparrow that isn't a particularly good flier. But nobody got a good look at it.

Later on, Mr. Stone spotted another bird that looked like another Le Conte's. The chase began again. Finally, Mr. Stone got the bird surrounded in a juniper tree. It stayed on the tree as the circle of birdwatchers closed. The thrilled birders stared at the Le Conte's, one of the smaller sparrows with a yellowish face and purple streaks on the nape of its neck.

After a few minutes, Mr. Stone asked the birders to move on and leave the bird alone.

Mr. Stone says he disturbs sparrows less when he birds without the entourage. But his philosophy for birding groups is: "See them. Spook them. Corral them."

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