Mystery Bird: Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis

tags: Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

Date Time Original: 2006:02:25 08:54:01
Exposure Time: 1/60
F-Number: 11.00
ISO: 200

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:

It's good in a new year to start over again at the beginning: and so our first step should be to identify this bird as a New World sparrow. The neatly streaked upperparts, the modestly swollen "finch-like" bill, the slender form, and the sturdy tarsi should be enough to get us to that diverse and lovely group.

At first glance we might be tempted to think of a junco, those gray-headed, pink-billed sparrows so common across so much of North America at this season. But none of the juncos shows so long a tail, so conspicuously marked a back, or so black a chin. The bird's diminutive size, obvious in comparison with the rim of the birdbath it's visiting, also rules out the juncos, which are chunky to the point of spherical.

The small size, the inordinately long tail, and the gray body and chestnut back are distinctive features of Black-chinned Sparrow, an inconspicuous bird of heavily vegetated slopes that in a few weeks will begin to make itself known by a loud, persistent trilling song that always reminds easterners of a strangely dry-toned Field Sparrow.

Review all mystery birds to date.