I don't think the ID of the Bloomington Chipping Sparrow is as straightforward as some of the comments have implied. Specifically: a.. Every photo that shows the breast shows a central spot. It's not well-defined, but it's not just an artifact of how the feathers are spread. b.. In the photo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/54582...@n02/5172266613/in/photostream/, I see a bi-colored bill, not an all yellowish bill. The lower mandible is definitely light in color, but the upper looks dark. In the the photo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/54582...@n02/5192733225/sizes/l/in/photostream/, the bill looks dark. c.. At http://ohiogeologyandbiodiversity.blogspot.com/2009/01/chipping-sparrow-endures-ohio-winter.html there are photos of a Chipping Sparrow in Ohio in January. That bird has a two-toned bill. The photographer notes that as an important field mark of Chipping Sparrow. d.. In the Bloomington photos, I don't see a well-defined brown cheek patch as on the Ohio bird. Could that be due to a difference in age or gender? Or has the Bloomington bird not yet molted into full winter plumage? e.. To me, the most Chippie-like field mark on the Bloomington bird is the apparently black eye line (not rusty as in American Tree Sparrow), including the dark lore, in the photo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/54582...@n02/5192733225/sizes/l/in/photostream/. Again, I'm not challenging the ID, but for this birder there's plenty of room for confusion here.
Julian St. Paul ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
