Okay, I understand there's a certain element of the fish story
(you know, the 'it was *that* big but it got away' kind) in many 
rare-bird reports,
and I know it's often hard to describe exactly where a bird has been seen
(right next to where the clump of honeysuckle used to be before the old oak
fell down a few years ago in that farm field we used to go to before they
put the McMansions in), but it has been mightily discouraging to read
so many chirpy reports of how easy it is to spot the Clay-colored Sparrow
and how it practically takes the seed right out of your hands and then
wipes its bill on your boots after it poses for pictures and signs autographs.

It's especially discouraging to be told "it's in the hedgerow" or 
"it's by the treeline"
when said hedgerow is as long as a football field and the treeline goes around
two sides of a field big enough to put a slew of McMansions in (which is going
to happen in the near future), and the field is full of waist-high 
grasses where
sparrows like to hide, and no matter what time of day you get there, or how
many chilly hours you spend picking burrs out of your pants, the sparrow
won't be seen until 10 minutes after you leave, and after a ridiculously warm
early winter it's now freezing cold and snowing, and this is the 
third-fourth-fifth
time you've been there (Volney wins, though, with eight!), and then 
you start to leave and
everyone waves you back but by the time you get to the spotting scope the bird
is gone with the wind and the sun is about to set.

I really was beginning to feel like as much of a loser as those contestants on
American Idol last night when, miracles do happen, Volney and Dirk and Sean
spotted the little bast--I mean bird. After a bit of localizing 
discussion (which brown leaf?
which cornstalks?) I finally saw--no, that's too strong--I finally glimpsed the
furtive, skittish, skulking little beast and over the course of ten 
minutes or so was
granted several more glimpses of various birdy body parts and then, what
a treat, I got to see its back and tail as it perched on a twig next 
to the cornstalks
(not those cornstalks, the other ones).

May I note that the breast color, back color, and facial markings look NOTHING
like the pictures in the National Geographic Field Guide, nor does 
the bird look
so violently different from Song Sparrows that it stands out like a 
beacon among the flock,
which is a sizeable one, especially in poor light?

I would sure like to know what color clay they have in the place 
where this bird was named.
It is as gray as a salt-glazed pot.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sean, Volney and Dirk, for getting 
me my first lifer of 2007.

--Pat

Pat Valdata, Elkton, MD | 
"The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards
and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods.
More than any other thing that pertains to the body
it partakes of the nature of the divine." --Plato